Two days off over the Easter weekend have allowed me to get in some late gaming for the March stats.
Saturday saw me meeting up with Jeff and Charlene at the usual place to play a game or two.
Our first game was Arabella. Which if Jeff hadn’t got his final objective card I’d have won. And my victory would have been oh so sweet. Unintentional, and literally the games equivalent of winning Viticulture (base game) by not making any wine (which I have done).
All game I had the starting engine and a level 2 engine. Eventually Jeff and Charlene bought some carriages so my early investment in their shares started to pay off. But still with no carriages my dividends were worthless to them both.
This games end was triggered by Jeff reaching the end of the 10 money track on his sheet.
Somehow until we picked up Jeff was owed another objective card I was winning! It was insane. I would have easily have bet money that Charlene and Jeff were doing much better than me, and I was going to score hardly anything.
So yes Jeff won.
We followed Arabella up with Dandelions. This was probably the worst I’ve done in a game of this. I didn’t score a single majority. Jeff won this too.
The afternoons gaming was wrapped up with me introducing Ship, Captain, Crew to Jeff and Charlene.
Ship, Captain, Crew is fastly becoming a favourite little filler game. Four or five rounds take hardly any time to play. I won this time breaking Jeff’s run of victories.
I keep saying this but it’s true I had a great afternoon gaming with two great friends.
Sunday saw me meeting up with Charlene and her daughter once again at the usual spot to yep play games.
Despite being a relaxed afternoon of gaming we got five games to the table in about two and a half hours.
Our first two games were new to me.
Spots was a cool, light, dice game. It had Roll for it, Age Of War vibes with the completing dogs, with a nice buried dice mechanic that added a push your luck element to the game.
The other new game was Kohaku a tile drafting themed around making a koi pond. This definitely had Kingdomino vibes to it. A very quick light and fun game.
We followed up with a game of all in Parks. So both the Nightfall and Wildlife expansions were in play.
Dandelions hit the table next so that Annabelle could try the game, with a view to them teaching their Nan the game on an upcoming holiday.
Our final game of the fun afternoon gaming was, you guessed it, Ship, Captain, Crew.
New Arrivals
The first batch (there will be more over the years) of a club poker chip arrived.
When it comes to this sort of stuff I’m prioritising those that attend club nights regularly and are long time members.
Fenland Gamers Poker Chip
The BattleTech Alpha Strike Starter Box arrived. I’m writing more about this in another post. The counter pack has also arrived. But it’s fair to say that I’m dipping my toes into this game.
I also picked up a Dice Masters collection which I need to sort through. And I know this sounds like a cop out but this too will be the subject of another blog post.
Finally whilst waiting for repairs to my car I made the mistake of walking into Waterstones. Where seeing they still had a prerelease kit bought into the latest ccg to hit stores Star Wars Unlimited.
I’d tried so hard to not go down this rabbit hole. My wallet can’t take another ccg. But here I am dipping my toes.
Well the late flurry of weekend gaming gave me probably my best months gaming in over six months. The makes me happy.
I couldn’t help quoting Klopp after Liverpool won their sixth Champions League title for the title of this blog post. It just seemed apt.
February saw some gaming. Not much though. Even less than January.
In total six board games made it to the table.
I was glad to get three of them to the table with a higher player count than my initial plays of them. They did not disappoint.
Getting Zombie Dice back to the table was cool. I really do need to leave this in the game bag, along with Sea Salt and Paper. Two nice little filler games for a club night.
With my upgraded dice cups for Liars Dice I need a better storage solution that would allow it with the neoprene mat for tracking bids to also be in the bag.
But as the search for that elusive bag continues I’m grateful that I got some gaming done this month.
Sadly I won’t be able to play any games tomorrow and record some rare plays for that once every four years opportunity.
But that just sums up my new normal. Hopefully Sunday will keep being a thing gaming wise, and with a bit of luck Tuesday will be a thing too.
January was a slightly better month for me gaming wise than the previous two months. But still the numbers weren’t great.
However I should be grateful that I got to play some games. Especially that some of those games were with Nathan.
Now I am hoping now that Nathan is driving, and has a new car. That Nathan will be able to navigate the British roads to find his way up to mine. Enabling us to play some of the bigger games that are not an option at his due to the clash between game foot print and the size of his table. Or in simpler terms his table isn’t big enough. To be able to at last share my favourite game of all time Scythe with him will be amazing.
My top 9 games for January 2024
What I do find incredible from last months stats is that I played 10 (not 11 as Knock Out Whist aka Trumps was not a new to me game) new to me games. That’s two thirds of the games I played in January.
I have ordered twenty new custom d6 dice for Fenland Gamers members to have. It’s a new design for the six face, that has the club name and year.
Like the previous design (which I still have some left) I’ll be giving them out to regular club members for free.
I even have a design ready to go for UKGE this year to give to club members that make it to the show and the annual club picture that gets taken there.
Plus I want to do a club poker chip. But I have to buy them in quantities of fifty to get them at a reasonable price. They are also a bit more expensive. So they will have to wait until later in the year.
There is only so much I can finance out of my own pocket for this sort of stuff. I’m not on some CEO banker salary.
I like being able to do stuff like this for members.
Whilst I’m talking about Fenland Gamers and this ties in with the last life, the universe, and coffee post, I am testing the waters on the viability of Sunday sessions. At the moment I have created one club event to gauge interest. I’ll write more on that in future I’m sure.
Payday was Friday. Which was just at the right time to enable me to order the latest offering from Stonemaier Games, Wyrmspan, along with the optional deluxe component kit. I’ll leave the neoprene playmats until the next payday, along with the Rolling Realms promo packs.
Interesting enough this release of Wyrmspan has an initial print run of 100,000 copies. That’s a crazy number. Usually (I think I’m remembering this correctly) publishers print twenty to thirty thousand copies of a game initially. Then if the game does well do a second print run.
We know Wingspan sold an insane number of copies (well over 1.5 million by now I would think). But does that incredible success translate to Wyrmspan?
I can’t wait to see the next state of the nation post/email from Stonemaier Games where they give the total number of copies sold for each of their games.
Until Wingspan, Scythe was the bestseller. I’m just curious to see if Apiary and/or Wyrmspan have it in them to challenge Scythe for that number two spot. I am expecting them both to do well.
When I was sharing with a friend at work Friday morning that I had ordered Wyrmspan she said my face lit up. I guess I’m pretty excited about getting the game.
We are two days into the new year. So it’s time to look back at my 2023 gaming.
This post is made possible by the wonderful app bgstats. I’ve been recording all my game plays in the app since 2017. That’s a lot of data. I’ll have to do a post using that data at some point.
So let’s start off with my most played games of the year.
My Top 9 Played Games of 2023
Obviously games like MtG or Dice Masters are going to be in the top spots. It’s nice to see Dice Masters back in the mix. It’s a great game that I’m glad I decided to get back into.
Dave is the new Jonathan!
It used to be Jonathan was the person I played games with the most. But since Fenland Gamers has taken off with more people attending in the last year, the opportunities to play have got less.
In steps Dave a new member to the club who joined in August! Dave has become a great friend and opponent in such a short time.
I’m glad I can call all those I’ve played with friends.
The Raw Stats
Ok here are the raw stats for 2023 as presented by bgstats.
Very Challenging
I didn’t complete a single challenge this year. I may let them roll over for 2024. I still find it hard to believe I have so many unplayed games in my collection.
I hope 2024 is a better year than 2023 for everyone. Hopefully that will be the case when the Tories get obliterated at the ballot box.
After much deliberation I have finally decided which of the 43 new to me games that I played in 2023 is my game of the year.
It wasn’t an easy decision.
But before I reveal the results of that deliberation, last year I did a couple of “minor” awards. So this year I thought I’d repeat those two categories before doing the big reveal.
Roll & Write of 2023
I played 4 new roll and writes this year. A drop from last year. However these four new games were pretty good.
Here are the four contenders. They are a great demonstration of how varied this genre of board games can be.
The winner is Motor City.
Motor City is the follow up to last years winner Three Sisters. It’s definitely the most complex of the four games.
Like it’s two predecessors it can seem a bit overwhelming with its two pads. I felt it wasn’t as combotastic as Three Sisters. But it’s still a very nice ‘on the heavier side’ roll and write. It feels totally different to the previous two in the series.
Expansion of 2023
I didn’t buy many expansions this year. There were the promo packs for Rolling Realms. But I’ve not got them to the table. So ineligible for this award.
I think there can only be one winner for this award this year, and it feels a bit of a cheat. It is touted as a stand alone expansion. The winner is Dune Imperium Uprising.
I love Dune Imperium and I love the changes introduced in Uprising.
And now for the big decision, and the one you are really interested in.
GOTY of 2023
My game of 2023 is…
Lord of the Rings the living card game revised edition.
I think what swayed it for LoTR is Nathan. When I played it with him Nathan was keen to play the game and take on the next scenario. He asked to play it again.
And even though I’ve played one or two of the other contenders with Nathan also. It was that reaction and the fond memories of playing with him that contributed to the decision.
Plus as I’ve written in previous posts I’m a Tolkien fanboy. So I love the theme.
Even with just the revised core set FFG included a fun to play campaign with some nice variety in the scenarios. It was interesting to see FFG play with different mechanics.
Each year (usually a bit later than this post) I choose my game of the year (GOTY) from the new to me games that I have played throughout the year.
I’ve decided to shake things up a little this year by dedicating two posts to it.
There is this post giving you the contenders for this year. Which will be followed by a post announcing my GOTY.
Let’s start by using the cool 3×3 image the bgstats can generate of the top 9 played new to me games of 2023.
I should point out that being in this 3×3 is no guarantee that the winner will be one of these games.
My 3×3 of top 9 played new to me games of 2023
What surprised my with this 3×3 is Stonemaier Games account for a third of the games in this top 9 played.
Ok it’s time for the raw data showing all the new to me games played in 2023.
Technically I have only played 43 new to me games in 2023. Bgstats records Dice Masters as a new to me game. Which we all know it isn’t. But my plays of Dice Masters was before I had started using the bgstats app to record all my game plays.
I also shouldn’t include 51st State Ultimate Edition as a new to me game. It’s just a new edition (no changes to the game, it’s just a fancy version) of a game I’ve already played.
So excluding these two games narrows the field only slightly. It doesn’t make the decision any easier.
I know it’s been a day or two since the last post.
But that’s the drawback of working 7 days a week and having currently 2 jobs. I just got to survive until the start of November. Then I’m down to one job and hopefully (shift dependent) more gaming.
I am going to be late or behind on posting.
Thankfully I know you will be understanding and supporting. So I feel less guilty on that front.
So how bad has the current normal hit my gaming?
Well as the 3×3 image and the underlying stats show pretty badly.
Long gone are the golden days of yester year when I was clocking up crazy gaming numbers each month.
But even taking into account the more subdued gaming stats of this year. Septembers numbers are very poor. Almost looking like my stats when the pandemic was finally taken seriously by the UK Government and we entered lockdown.
I’m not sure I’m going to beat these numbers in October. But whatever gaming I do get to do I will treasure and savour even more because I know it’s a rarity for the time being.
Thanks to the car taking me out of action for two weeks my May gaming was pretty sad.
But to be fair those games I did get to play were pretty cool and played with friends.
Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game;
Letters from Whitechapel;
A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition);
Terra Mystica;
War of the Ring: The Card Game;
Amun-Re;
Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest;
Red Rising;
Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition.
I’m hoping this weekend at UKGE a couple of them will join my collection.
Oh and today saw the release of four more promo packs for Rolling Realms. Three are the standard based on third party games. With the fourth being a new solo campaign for the game that can be used with the majority of cards with the game (yes that includes promos too) called Beyond the Realmiverse.
And yes within minutes of them going on sale they were in the virtual basket and ordered.
