After what I can only describe as dismal March for gaming, April has got off to a flying start. In fact this first half of the month has seen me play more than February and March combined!
Obviously I’m not expecting the later half of the month to be the same. But TI4 should be hitting the table twice! Which will be amazing.
Ok so this is what has hit the table.
Star Wars Unlimited: a visit to Dave saw us playing the spotlight decks from the last two releases for the first time. The “rebellion”/hero decks in these two releases do seem stronger than their opposite deck. I played a couple of times using the “empire”/villian deck from the last release and came closer to winning than Dave with those decks. But still I lost. I’d be interested to see the play testing data for these decks.
Pili Pili: a fun trick taking game. One rule sees you bidding the number of tricks you think you will win, and then pass your whole hand to your right. I got royally screwed on that one. But in the following game I was able to return the favour. Chaotic trick taking at its finest!
Pixies: an interesting drafting and set collection game. It’s rather cheap as well. So I can see this joining the collection.
Snow Colony: an interesting race to build an engine game with dice drafting. The penguin pieces are minuet, I’d say too small. It was fun.
Joyride: Survival of the Fastest: Chaotic! That is the only way to describe this. The chaos reminds me of Robo Rally. It’s fun. It helps not to make any plans and embrace the chaos. The state of the board is so fluid between turns you can only decide in the moment what you are going to do at the start of your turn.
Bella Vista: this game has table presence. Each round you are “building” one of your buildings in a city according to the rounds placement rules, and scoring to that rounds scoring rule and if you are the highest building compared to adjacent buildings. It’s pretty and puzzle like. I like it.
44 BCE: I warmed up to this game. However it seems too con-fluted for what it is! I think a misplay in the penultimate round cost me the game. But in the end the theme doesn’t really come through. At its heart it’s a bloated area control game that is ok. It didn’t blow me away.
Tir Na Nog: we played with the mini expansion subplots, and from the Blessings and Burdens expansion the Blessed Realms module. Although the Geas cards have been mixed in with the others, we were using the recommended first play Geas cards. I liked what the Blessed Realms module adds to the game, it makes the card you disguard at the end of each round matter. The colour and value of the card influence the positioning of the respective colour on a track. At the end of the game the colours position decides how many points that colour is worth for the biggest block in that colour.
Trio: a memory game that also didn’t blow me away. At best it’s ok. I won. But it was not by having a good memory.
Bonanza: set collection with trading. This was a blast. And I lost on the tie breaker! I think this is one of those games where your experience will vary depending on who you are playing with. Like other games you can’t change the order of the cards on your hand, and can only play the front card. Trading cards from your hand helps you get rid of cards. Going through the deck three times seems like a lot at the start. But the final two times that happens very quickly due to cards being removed to track points. This will be in the bag each club night I think.
Heat Peddle to the Metal: a six player championship game. We played the 1961 Championship. Which is the British, American, and Italian race tracks. This was crazy fun. I liked the advanced rules we played with. Each track in the championship also having a unique rule was cool. The sponsor cards were super powerful. The drafting an upgrade each race was fun, and saw the car get better each race.
Keltis: I’m not sure what the theme of this Knizia game is. It’s none existent really. The basic board is a quick race up the various tracks. However the “expansion” board on the reverse is much more gamer oriented with its more variable setup, collection of gems, and tracks that cross and swap colours. It’s the side I prefer, and not just because I won. The playing cards in ascending or descending order in their respective suit is a nice mechanic that can see you just discarding on your turn as you look for a card you can play. Yeah a nice game sadly out of print.
Nations the dice game: 9 years since this hit the table! But Ben had expressed an interest in trying at the weekend. So here we were playing with the expansion. It’s a fun, light, civ game that plays very quickly. Both Ben and Charlene liked it. But like Keltis is out of print. I might take this along Friday, it deserves more love (like every game in the collection).
Furnace: Played with the expansion. Just a great game that we enjoy.
New Arrivals
- Burgle Bros 3: Future Flip
- Netrunner Vantage Point
- Sea Salt & Paper Extra Pepper
- Pixies
- Pixies Flower Power expansion