It’s been a while since I’ve talked about a Fenland Gamers gaming session. I’ve been boring you all with MtG and D&D stuff.

Last Friday was once again one of the Fenland Gamers fortnightly Friday gaming sessions.

Our first game of the evening was a game I last played with Jonathan and his Dad way back in 2016 (the BG Stats app is great for this sort of information). That game was Airlines Europe.

Like so so many games in our collections it doesn’t get nearly as much table time or love as it truly deserves. The modern gamers dilemma, too many great games, not enough time. And the problem just gets compounded as new games come out.

To be fair to Jonathan and myself the growth of our collections has dropped down to a snails pace (although I’ve never truly understood that phrase, those slimy little devils can sure shift). I know Jonathan is currently on a self imposed purchase ban. Whilst for me apart from the odd game nothing is really grabbing me, getting me excited. But I’ve felt that way for a couple of years now.

However Jonathan and I both have games in our collections that we haven’t played yet (our piles of shame as they are known), and games we want to get back to the table. So it’s not as if we need to buy any more.

Back to Airlines Europe. It does have a mechanic I love. A mechanic that adds suspense, even tension, an element of push your luck and the unknown.

Airlines Europe has 3 scoring rounds. How these are triggered is the mechanic I love. One scoring round card is shuffled in with 10 I think of the shares cards and that is the bottom of the share deck. The other 2 scoring round cards are mixed into the rest of the deck using a couple of rules.

So you have a rough idea when the scoring rounds will trigger but not exactly when. As you approach the part of the shares deck that the scoring round card could be in, the tension builds. Do you have time to get the shares out for scoring to give you that majority? Do you have time to grab that share on the trade row?

It’s a simple trick. Pandemic uses it as well to great effect. Sub Terra uses it for the exit tile. Yes it adds a little over head to the set up to a game. But I think the pay off is worth it.

Our second and final game was the classic roll and write Qwixx. Somehow Jonathan won this.

Well I know at this point Jonathan will stop reading.

Yesterday was Prerelease for War of the Spark (as was Friday and Sunday). But yesterday was the day I attended one of the 6 events my FLGS The Hobbit Hole was/is running over the weekend.

Prerelease is such good fun. It’s about opening boosters, playing with new cards early. Although technically for authorised stores it was release weekend, because they could sell everything a week early this time.

The atmosphere is also a bit different. I’d say more social, less competitive, there is an air of excitement.

It’s also the only time I get to see and play against some people. They might only do prereleases or FNM is their thing normally. So it’s a great time to catch up as well.

This Prerelease continued my run of bad results, and poor cards to build with. Well that’s the excuse I’m going with. My pulls had very few low cost creatures. I ended up with going white/blue with a couple of mountains thrown in so I could play Naheb.

I started off with 15 lands, but after getting mana screwed both games and losing in round 1. I went to 17 lands.

Round 2 I won. The deck was given a chance to hit it’s stride.

The next two rounds although losses, they were not walk overs. I was hitting land drops, once or twice mana flooded and not hitting creatures. But I was much happier with the games.

Here are the stats.

Casual Game

Simon: Draw 1-1

Prerelease Stats

Prerelease Participants: 21

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Simon Loss 2-0

Round 2: Jade Win 0-2

Round 3: unknown Loss 0-2

Round 4: unknown Loss 0-2

Record: 3-1

Final Position: 20th

Prizes: 2 participation packs

The nice thing is one of my ex-students won, going undefeated. And to top it off in his participation packs pulled a foil Liliana. So that is an amazing memory of a Prerelease for him.

But it was a great day, well attended. Maybe not as well as Guilds of Ravnica. But still for a FLGS in a middle of nowhere Fenland town, with MagicFest London doing it’s best to steal away it’s players.