Category Archives: Fenland Gamers

Fenland Gamers

Got to catch ‘em all

Fenland Gamers, game night

Another club night.

I took Splendor Pokémon and Tonga Bonga with me.

We split into a group of four (playing Power Grid), and a group of three (Dave, Colin, and myself).

We started off playing Splendor Pokémon on our table.

Whilst we set up a man came over asking what we were playing, and made a derogatory comment about being too old for Pokémon. And when we were asked if we played Monopoly I didn’t reply but Dave and Colin pointed out what a poor game it was. Shooting this man down. His partner came over and said their son collected Pokémon cards. The implication clear. It was obvious they thought grown men shouldn’t be playing “kids games”. I didn’t really interact with them. I thought it best not to. If they wanted to be ignorant and try and make us feel bad about playing games. They didn’t deserve my time.

A little known fact about the Splendor family of games (classic, Marvel, and now Pokémon) I’ve never won a game! If I include the two player Splendor Duel I have won a single game.

Despite having such a bad run with the game I really enjoy playing it.

Yes I no longer own the classic version. I didn’t see much point keeping it after getting the Marvel edition. I preferred what the Marvel edition added.

Splendor Pokémon is an import from Korea with no official english version of the rules. I had to rely on translated rules from the bgg website.

If you know how to play Splendor then you know a good 90% of the games rules.

You can only purchase the rare and legendary cards (which also can’t be reserved) if you have a master ball. So at some point you have to reserve a card on your turn to get the master ball to enable you to buy one of the face up or legendary cards.

You can also on your turn evolve your captured Pokémon (if the evolution is available). I like this a lot. The old card is replaced with the new evolved Pokémon. With the old card going face down under your trainer.

I like this version of Splendor and the little tweaks it added.

Dave won.

We followed up with a game of Tonga Bonga.

I do like this game. It’s very clever and deeper than you initially think.

But this time we never got to complete the game. We were in the closing round or two, when Colin had an emergency call that required him to leave immediately.

Dave and I called it an evening at this point leaving the other table playing Power Grid. The decision had been made easier with the fact I had no two player games with me.

Another fun club night despite the interaction with the “public”.

Gladiators in an arena

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was the fortnightly club night.

I took a bag of games on the lighter side. Amongst them was the recently arrived English edition of Strike! from the US Amazon store. This was a replacement for the european language version I had and was unable to find at home.

It’s the usual story for me. I’m unable to find something. Spend ages looking for it. Then over the following days the thought about it just naws away in my mind. Forcing me to keep looking at the oddest moments. Eventually to stop this driving me mad I have to order a replacement.

Then after the replacement item has been dispatched and can’t be sent back. Magically the missing item turns up in precisely where I’d been looking for it. This is how I’ve ended up with three copies of Knizia’s dice games book.

It was as I was leaving last night that the european version of Strike! turned up.

So now I have two copies. Not a total disaster. I could run a mini Strike! tournament at a future club night.

With only five of us able to make it. Or to put it another way. Only five of us with no social life outside playing games for this time of year could make it.

Yes the whole American Halloween fixation and traditional fireworks means a lot of folks have social commitments this time of year. So having five of us able to make it was a miracle in itself.

We started off playing Castle Combo. A frustrating experience at times. Some of which I’m sure was expert level trolling. Some of which was just annoying analysis paralysis. But still it’s a fun game. Despite Dave’s coin strategy, Marcin won with having a lot of keys.

Our next game saw Strike! getting to the table for the first time.

Strike! has been a thing for the Rolling Dice Taking Names guys for a few years now. Marty and Tony are split on their opinion on it. Is it dice in a bowl or gladiators in an arena? So to decide who is right they hold a yearly contest with listeners of the podcast split into two teams representing the opposing viewpoints at Gen-Con. The winning team means Strike! has to be referred to the opinion they represent for the year.

The reason I wanted to own and play it was as part of the research for my game idea. That is on the back boiler but not forgotten.

We had a blast playing Strike! In the end we played five games of it. There was laughing, banter, incredible dice rolls. For such a “simple” game of just throwing dice into a bowl it was so much fun and addictive.

Our final game of the evening was Sushi Go which saw Anthony win this card drafting, set collection game.

Another fun club night.

A Couple of Gaming Sessions

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night

Friday evening was once again club night.

For me it was a light evening of gaming with my friend Jonathan.

That’s right Jonathan had made it to club night, and it was great to be able to game with him. It’s just a shame that Diego was on the other table. Then it would have been like the old club days.

We started off on our table with a game of Castle Combo.

Apparently this game had been getting a bit of buzz which had completely passed me by.

I quite liked this card driven tableau building game.

You are building this 3×3 grid, so in total you are getting nine turns before the game ends. So in that time you are trying to purchase cards that generate you money (to buy further cards), get keys, and meeting end game scoring conditions.

The symbol reference card is handy and very much needed through out the game as you learn the iconography.

It’s fun, accessible, fairly quick. And probably why I ordered a copy this morning. At £17 plus postage not that expensive either.

Our follow up game was Big Shot. My copy had arrived that morning. It was an odd experience with Martin our third player not taking out any loans, not winning a single bid, and finishing with the original money token he started with.

We finished off our evening with a game of Sushi Go. What more can I say about this fun drafting game? It’s a great filler game.

Sadly it was a clean sweep of victories for Jonathan. But great to share the evening gaming with him.

Sadly our Saturday afternoon plan of playing Cosmic Encounter was a three player game.

I used the Cosmic combo cards to select the alien races we would use for this session. After scanning through the 34 cards I settled on the quick-start set up.

I do like these Cosmic combo cards. They are a great way for 3-5 players to choose alien races around a theme such as trade or really aggressive. Shame FFG didn’t make these available as a separate print on demand deck for existing owners of the game.

We also used the tech cards (and associated rules), flare cards (played wrong btw) plus the reward deck.

Three players was fun, but a very different experience to our first game.

I liked the tech cards, and will probably include these in future plays. They give an additional choice to make if you win an encounter as the aggressor. Do you initiate a second encounter or draw new tech cards to gain new tech?

Charlene managed to beat Anthony and myself.

Our afternoon of gaming was finished with a game of Big Shot. Yes it’s fastly becoming a favourite filler game. Quick to teach and play. I managed to win this one.

A great afternoon of gaming with plans starting to get TI4 to the table.

Fallout the board game

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was the fortnightly club night.

Still numbers are not back up to the heady heights that we were seeing earlier in the year. Marcin even commented so when he arrived.

That being said the seven of us that were there had a good time playing games.

We split into two tables. Four on one table playing Azul, and Camel Up. Whilst Marcin, Dave, and myself were on the other table playing Fallout the board game.

I’ve owned this game for a few years now, and it’s sat there on my pile of shame ever since.

It was only recently that I purchased the official play mat, plus the second expansion Atomic Bonds. This second expansion makes the game co-operative. Something I’m not keen to include. But you never know. It was a completeness purchase.

However the first expansion New California remains elusive. Mainly because the English version is out of print (you can pick up a German version very easily).

I think what has made the situation for New California even worse, and also driven demand for the base game is the popularity of the Amazon tv series.

I have played the modern third person version Fallout 3 back in about 2010 on my 360. I didn’t complete the game, or even get close. But I did enjoy the experience. I even went back and played a little of the original turn based rpg Fallout on a pc.

Obviously I enjoyed the recent Amazon tv series based on the Fallout games. Unlike a major trend over the years of adapting video games badly to the silver screen, Amazon actually did a decent job.

Last night we played Marcin’s copy of the game that had the New California expansion mixed in.

We played the introductory scenario Welcome to the Commonwealth with the extended map. I was playing the robot Mister Handy, Marcin played the Ghoul, and Ben was the Brotherhood Outcast.

The game was great fun.

I think it captured the theme really well through the art, miniatures, quests, and mechanics.

On your turn you get two actions. One is exploring. That allows you to flip over an adjacent unexplored tile. So you get that exploring feel, discovering new areas, revealing new threats.

The quests or encounters you can go on have some great thematic text to read out.

Combat is simple and quick. You roll three dice, hopefully getting the required bits of the body to defeat the enemy and not get any hits in return. The “AI” to move/activate enemies on the board was very simplistic. Which involved turning over an agenda card and looking at icons on the bottom of the card for what gets activated.

With the learn of the game, it took us roughly three hours to play.

Obviously I want to play some more of the game. I really did have great fun playing it.

I survived!

Fenland Gamers, game night, life, the universe, and everything, star wars, Star Wars Unlimited, still alive

It’s Saturday morning. I’ve been awake from bloody early a.m. on my day off.

The status update of my McDonald’s breakfast seems stuck on “picking up my order”.

I’m just too knackered after my seven day tour of duty at work.

I’ve come out of it feeling battered emotionally. I won’t go into details but the frustration levels have been through the roof.

So I feel I’ve earnt this lazy start to my day off.

Yesterday Mini Rails arrived from Zatu without any problems. Which has been my experience with them every time I’ve ordered from them. That will shock some. But for me my experiences have been positive.

Also through the letter box came the new Zelda game The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Where I think for the first time you can actually play as Princess Zelda. Another entry in my long to play list.

Last night was a “get it to the table” night for Fenland Gamers. Which saw Marcin, Anthony, and myself play Marcin’s copy of Coimbra. Which frankly I’m shocked he owns based on its theme alone! It’s not exactly post apocalyptic.

However it’s a fun game that has dice drafting, and then using those dice to do something, with the value of the die being used determining the cost of what you purchase. Plus the colour of the die comes into play in a later stage of the round.

Each round player order changes based on number crowns each player has accumulated that round.

You have a bit of engine building going on with the cards you purchase. Add in also trying to move a pawn round a map to collect bonus tiles, and racing up four influence tracks to try to have the most in each. This a lot to try and do with the three dice you draft.

It’s also only four rounds and plays very quickly.

It is a fun game.

History will record Marcin won on a technicality.

Along with Mini Rails the final cards of my two new decks arrived.

Those two incomplete decks got an outing on Tuesday just gone when Marcin and I play Star Wars Unlimited (SWU) using our Twin Suns decks. I suppose you could say that this was the SWU equivalent of the popular MtG singleton (one one copy of a card) format Highlander.

The two incomplete decks worked well. Or I should say as intended. So I have three Twin Suns decks. Marcin has two. Which means if we have a fourth player join us we can lend them a deck if they have no deck of their own.

I now need to write up these decks.

New Games To The Table

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night

Despite me starting this epic seven days of work without a break (currently on day 4 as I write this post) I’ve managed to get some gaming in.

It was club night Friday evening with only five people able to make it along. Is this the new normal? Why has attendance slipped?

The only five player game we had was Tribes of the Wind. So I was glad to be able to get this latest addition to the collection to the table.

This is a nice game. It even played well at five players, despite one of those players being well known to suffer from analysis paralysis (ap). Even with an ap inflicted player we played the game in about an hour and three quarters.

Although on the table space we had five players was rather cramped.

Production is great, and I really like the art by Vincent Dutrait. He has also done the art for After Us, the Amun-Re 20th Anniversary Edition, Broom Service, plus many more. The three mentioned I also own, and love the art.

I love how you need to take into account the cards your neighbours are holding. It means that whilst you can plan your next turn while waiting for others to take theirs. That plan might go out the window because the cards held by a neighbour have change meaning you can’t play that card you wanted to.

It’s cool that when you build a village you get to choose a village card that is duel use. You can either use it for an immediate benefit, or for its end game scoring bonus.

Each player board is unique. Well in which conditions you need to complete to be able to select one of the four unique guide cards each player has. You get up to two of these cards. They act like ongoing special abilities throughout the rest of the game.

They are also unique in the distribution of pollution on your player board.

The uniqueness is continued with the starting tiles that give differing starting resources.

The iconography is easy to pick up, as is the learning curve. As I pointed out in just under two hours we learnt and played the game.

Yeah I liked this game a lot. Sadly I didn’t win, the ap inflicted player did.

Afterwards I had to pack away and get home rather quickly. My curfew was way earlier than Cinderella’s. With work and the start of the seven days the next morning I needed to be in bed and sleeping by 9:30pm.

Sunday saw me round Ben’s as soon as work had finished. Diego and Charlene would be joining us.

I had suspected Charlene might be. So I had put Stamp Swap in the car.

After punching the cardboard Ben and I set up Stamp Swap. By which time Charlene had arrived. Not long after followed by Diego.

After going through the rules we started stamp collecting.

This is a fast game. The three rounds flew by.

I loved the drafting of the stamps in the first phase. Especially with some of the stamps being facedown unknown to anyone. The I split, you choose of the second phase. Great fun and just as tactical as the drafting. Followed by the puzzle bit of fitting the stamps in your play area. I really enjoyed how these three mechanics had been melded together.

That last phase is heavily influenced by the four goals and the final scoring goal. At the end of each round you select one of the four available goals and score it. Once selected you can’t select it in further rounds. Plus you only get to choose three out of the four.

Each player may has a unique end of round scoring card, also directing your focus of stamps to draft.

Yeah for me this is another Stonemaier hit. Who knew stamp collecting could be so much fun.

Having been robbed of a joint victory by a bs tie breaker we followed up with a game of Mini Rails.

I hadn’t played Mini Rails before. But I liked this share based game.

Each round you get to do two actions once. Build a track, take a share. Which share or track you buy/build determines your turn order for your actions next round.

It’s not a heavy game or a massive high scoring game. But it gets very tactical because the share/track you want might not get you where you want in the turn order next round. Plus the trying to manipulate the share price.

How much did I like it? Well a copy is now on its way to me. Zatu have it for under £20. A big discount. Might be due to a new version due to hit kickstarter soon (fancy meeples, and new cuter art, same game). But I’ll take the cheap option.

Our final game of the afternoon was Nokosu Dice. Love this trick taking game that utilises cards and dice. Which apparently is hard to get hold off, and if you can it’s for silly money.

Charlene just smashed this one breaking Diego’s run of wins for the afternoon.

It was a great afternoon of gaming, with great friends.

Growing trees

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was the fortnightly club night. For the middle of Summer having eight folks turn up was pretty good.

On the table I was on we were learning and playing a four player game of Undergrove.

This was Charlene’s deluxe kickstarter edition.

Wow! The production on this deluxe edition is phenomenal.

The wooden tile holders in the shape of trees just take a beautiful looking game with an eye catching table presence to another level.

The tiles are I think wooden, beautiful artwork, really nice feel to them. The wooden mushroom first player marker is overkill but still impressive.

There is a great learn the game mode that takes each player through their first four turns. Each unique and doing something different. Then at the end of the fourth turn it gives you advice on your next turns.

I like the flow of the game with each player taking it in turn to do one of the possible actions. Plus it is possible with the right tile(s) out on the board to combo or get more than one action on your turn.

With several goal cards to choose from each game, and a reasonable number of tiles the replayability is there.

There is a bit of decision making and tactics involved in where you start to grow your trees. Its location, location, location. You have to factor in not just the points the tile will give you but also what action the tile will allow you and anyone else with roots on it to do. It’s almost like you are building an engine in plain view of everyone.

I will say the iconography took a few rounds to get used to. But once it clicks.

Yeah I liked the game (and not just because I won). I’d happily play this again. Would I add it to my collection? I’m not sure. It’d depend on how much the deluxe edition and the tree tile holders (they are a separate purchase) are. It’s the only edition of the game I’d want.

Back to club nights

Fenland Gamers, game night

I’m back baby!

Or at least for the time being. Who knows where work shifts will take me in the future?

Yes last night was a Fenland Gamers club night, and I was able to attend.

It’s that time of year when folks are on holiday or tied up with Summer plans/events of some kind. So to have seven people turn up for club night wasn’t bad.

Seven isn’t a bad number to have. It means a split of three and four over two tables. Only Marcin and myself had games with us. Which naturally meant we wouldn’t be playing a game together.

On the plus side Jonathan and I did get to play together. I do miss playing games with Jonathan. Sadly Jonathan is still going through his gaming doldrums.

Jonathan, Chris, and myself played an all in game of Parks using the new play mat I picked up at UKGE. It’s a nice play mat, which I never knew existed. I only found out about it when Charlene told me a stand had them at the expo.

Parks is a lovely game. It has a depth that isn’t at first apparent. Which I like. Plus it looks gorgeous, with some amazing art and meeples.

My tour of the US national parks won me the game.

The final game for our table was Dandelions.

After losing to Chris who said he had no idea what he was doing (that stings) Jonathan and I headed off to our respective homes.

I stopped off at Asda and picked up a ribeye steak along with some other bits. I had reasoned I could get a kebab (which I do enjoy) or have a good steak for about the same money.

I’m really into steak at the moment. I like mine simply seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, with fried onion. None of those various sauces. I like the taste of steak, and don’t want to hide it with a sauce.

So yes I cooked the steak when I got home.

It ended a fun evening of gaming perfectly. Plus it was great to share a game or two with Jonathan again.

I played some games on my days off!

Fenland Gamers, Game day, Game Design, Sunday Afternoon Gaming

Last Friday was the start of three days off work after a nine day tour of duty.

Which just so happened to time nicely with the fortnightly Fenland Gamers club night.

So Friday was one of my now rare appearances at a club night.

I was on a table with Colin, Charlene, and Annabelle.

We started off playing Scooby Doo the board game from CMoN. Which Annabelle loved the Scooby and Scrappy minis.

It’s a co-op game Pandemic like where you are trying to stop the monster.

The game has great table top presence. Lovely painted minis.

It’s fun, and despite us only lasting three or four rounds before losing to the zombie.

We followed our defeat at Scooby Doo with a game of Splendor. I did crap at this. Scoring a single point! It’s a good job I enjoy the game.

After being totally humiliated at Splendor it was time to redeem myself with a glorious victory playing Spots. I don’t think it will be too long before I add this to my over crowded collection.

Next I introduced Colin to what is fastly becoming a filler game of choice Ship, Captain, Crew.

My final game of the evening was a new game I got LCR. Which is a nice quick filler too. Which also doesn’t have player elimination. Even when you run out of chips you are still in the game because you might gain some on a subsequent round.

I had a great evening game. It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to game with Colin. So that must be the highlight of the evening for me.

Sunday saw Charlene and Annabelle join me in a pre-arranged game of Tapestry.

Sunday Afternoons Game of Tapestry

This was an all in game using all the expansions and the new balanced civilisations. So no need to take into account any adjustments.

We dealt each player three civs to choose from. There are so many when using the expansions. Just wanted to give everyone a greater chance of seeing something they liked.

This is how our starting civs, cities, and blueprints went.

  • Aliens/Forest blueprint- Windmill – me
  • Renegades/Tropical blueprint-Birdwatching Perch – Annabelle
  • Urban Planners/Mesa blueprint- Villa/Urban Farm – Charlene

Also when we had to draw a Tapestry card we drew two, chose one discarded the other.

Somehow in this game it ended up being my most aggressive game ever. Previously I’ve rarely gone conquering but this time I got to the middle first and conquered two territories to get that bonus also. Plus I got to the end of the military track to get the second place bonus for reaching the end of a track. So that was also a first for me getting all three bonuses.

I did take an early lead on the score and kept it all game. Although during the end scoring Charlene came from behind to give me a big scare that she might snatch victory. However my lead was big enough to absorb that late surge and hang in there for the win.

It was great to get Tapestry to the table again. And a great way to end the three days off.

A late flurry of gaming

bgstat, by the numbers, Fenland Gamers, Game day, stats

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.

Top 9 Games Played

Stats for the month.

All the games played in March.

Full list of games played