This week it looked like there was just going to be five of us.
So we started off with a game of Tokaido.
We were just about to start playing after doing the teach for new players when Charlene and Ben arrived.
Ben and Charlene played one of the Azul variants while we worked our way along the road between Kyoto and Edo collecting experiences along the way.
It really is great getting Tokaido to the table once again. Playing the “second” edition is a great excuse for doing so. The game is quick, almost serene, and looks beautiful. Sadly the whole experience is ruined by Marcin winning!
While we waited for Charlene and Ben to finish Dave went home not feeling too well.
Luckily I had a couple of six player games.
The first, Rebel Princess. A very popular game at the club.
We had such a laugh playing this game. Especially during the last round. That round had pet cards also counting as proposals. Marcin collected a lot of pet cards and a few prince cards in the final round. Twenty five points worth in fact. A record epic fail. It was safe to say Marcin was not even close to winning. Who won? Anthony.
It will come as no surprise that I’ve preordered the new expansion and promo tile for this game.
Our final game of the evening was another new club favourite filler, Flip 7.
It was this game that we learnt how to trigger Ben!
Marcin acted as the dealer for the game. While waiting to flip a card for a player he’d regularly shuffle the deck!
Wow did this get under Ben’s skin.
You play the player not the game is often said by gamers. This is filed away for later use.
Despite the constant triggering and surrounding banter Ben won the game.
This was a great social evening. It was great to see and play with Ben and Charlene again.
It would seem the golden age of club nights is well and truly over.
Last night we were down to just three attendees, myself (naturally), Marcin, and Anthony.
I don’t know what’s changed.
Still the three of us had fun playing some great games.
We started off playing probably the most chilled game I own or have ever played, Tokaido.
I love the art style of the game. So much so I have the art book for it. If we don’t count the MtG art books I have for the handful of settings they did them for. I have only one other board game based art book, and that is the one for Scythe. Thinking about Stonemaier have a track record of printing art books (ok just the one) maybe they will reprint the Tokaido book at some point.
I’m glad Stonemaier picked up Tokaido. They are a great home for the game. In all the excitement around them announcing their edition I don’t remember any details where the app version stands. I quickly fired up the app (by Acram games) and its splash screen shows the Stonemaier logo. So I’m guessing as far as players there is no change and the app is still supported.
Despite being the first to complete a couple of paintings, meeting more interesting people, bathing in hot springs with mountain monkeys, I didn’t make any charitable donations at the temples. That decision cost me the win leaving the door open for Marcin to steal the win.
Our second game of the evening was Biblios.
I’d never played Biblios before. I own Biblios the dice game. Which I had played once.
It’s strange to think these two share the same dna!
I like Biblios but boy it’s so different from the dice game.
Sadly Marcin won’t this game too.
Our final game of the evening was Rebirth. Which I had pimped out with third party bags for the tiles, and 3D printed score trackers from Duncan.
I really do like rebirth.
Next time this gets to the table I’ll have to play the Ireland map. Which is meant to be more “gamer”.
Despite the lead constantly leap frogging between Anthony and myself during the game. Anthony won. But I did beat Marcin by a point. His streak for the night was at an end.
With no Anthony to troll him this week Marcin was going to have a stress free evening.
It was good to see and play some games with Jonathan. It’s been way too long since we last sat at table and played a game.
We started off with a game of flip 7 which I won comfortably. Somehow Marcin reached the heady heights of 26 points and never managed to add any more to his total.
Our next game was Rebel Princess. Which Marcin redeemed himself by winning easily. Luckily he didn’t manage to keep a zero points score. Can’t have him matching my zero score in the last game.
Our final game was Wild Gardens. It’s an interesting action selection, resource gathering, contract fulfilment game.
This one took nearly two hour to play. It could have been quicker but when one player has ap what can you do?
Marcin won this game to.
It was a fun evening apart from the ap inflicted player dragging the game out. Plus it was really great to see Jonathan again.
Thursday evening I caught the Met Office YouTube channel warning that after the weekend the weather would once again get worse.
So I mentally made a plan to go out with Dolly on my day off.
On our way out I needed to get some petrol inside the car, otherwise we weren’t going to get very far.
At the petrol station while paying I picked up a packet of beef jerky to use as a dog treat on the walk. Which wasn’t a bad option considering there were no actual dog treats to be bought.
We then headed off towards Roydon Common. But instead of parking at the first car park we carried on to the second car park.
This was a much smaller car park that was also in the woodland that I was aiming for on our previous walk.
We were seeing wildlife almost instantly. The woods were alive with bird song. I was pleasantly surprised seeing a butterfly fluttering across the path a couple of times. It was a brimstone I think.
The woods seem to be crawling (at l ast five) with Muntjac feeding just off to the side of the path. Dolly never even noticed them as they froze hoping not to be seen. Pretending to be a statue by the Muntjac allowed me to get the phone out for a photo.
Brew stopMuntjacMuntjacTodays brewBoundless Voyage Titanium Cookware Set with the Phantom – Ultralight Stove
The path we were on was the one I was hoping to connect up to when we came here previously.
Instead of connecting up with our previous route we cut across to edge of the wood that bordered the common.
It was on this return leg that we stopped to have a brew.
For this brew stop I was using the Boundless Voyage Titanium Cookware Set with the Phantom – Ultralight Stove.
While I was waiting for my water to boil I gave Dolly some water and we shared the jerky. By share I mean I had a couple of pieces and Dolly had the rest.
It was this return leg that I tried Dolly off the lead. I was forced earlier to briefly take her off so we could get over a fence using a sty and dog hole in the fence too far from the sty.
Dolly was really good off the lead. Didn’t run off, stayed close.
I think she enjoyed the little bit of extra freedom.
As we got close to the car park I put Dolly back on her lead. I’m glad she was. There was an owner getting out of his car, his dog not on a lead or his control. He had no idea I was there or with a dog. A fecking idiot. Luckily nothing happened but I hate stupid dog owners like this.
But that last bit aside Dolly and I had a great walk in the woodland. Plenty of little paths for us to explore on return visits.
This month, even taking into account it’s two or three days shorter, it’s been a poor month for gaming for me.
I think it’s fair enough to say life has thrown more than one spanner in the works this month to what feels like a gaming famine for me.
So I was pretty over the moon being able to get to last nights club night.
Before going I knew I wasn’t going to be late. After all I had work the next morning.
Yeah because of the family stuff the previous week I’ve ended up doing a seven day tour of duty at work without a day off. My next day off being this coming Tuesday.
So club night.
It ended up being five of us which meant we played Far Away.
For some reason I hadn’t noticed the copy I bought off Amazon wasn’t English! Luckily the game itself is language independent and I just needed to download and print off the English rule book off bgg.
Far Away is an interesting game. You play cards left to right in front of you over eight rounds. Then at the end of the eighth round you score your cards right to left.
Add in a drafting mechanic where the order of players drafting is based on the value of the card played. The player with the lowest value choosing first, and the highest valued card going last.
Plus if the card you play is higher than the previous card you get a sanctuary card that can help with scoring.
It is a fun game that sees you trying to draft and play cards that not only get you a sanctuary card but also give you symbols to trigger scoring.
Not many games get you to try and think like this.
Marcin won this.
Our next game was Flip 7.
This game ended the only fitting way it could with a big push your luck to get the flip 7 to win the game.
In what was the last round Colin had stuck with a score to take him over 200 points. I needed to get more than 40 points to hit 200. With a couple of plus points cards and even a second chance I had to go for the seven cards to get the bonus 15 points.
Each card flipped ramped up the pressure as I went for it. I couldn’t stick.
Luck was with me and I got the seven cards and enough points to snatch victory.
My final game of the evening was Rebel Princess.
I had a great game not taking a single point over the five rounds.
I love the changing rule each round. I do think my favourite rule card is musical chairs. “After each trick, every player passes a card face down from their hand to the player on their right, simultaneously.”
I just love the element of chaos it brings.
But being able to navigate the game to win with zero points was pretty cool.
It was great to get out and play some games. Let’s hope life decides to slow down the challenges it throws at me so I can play some games.
A reoccurring theme throughout this blog is life gets in the way of gaming.
It’s certainly why last Fridays club night has turned out to be the first gaming I have done this February.
Another reoccurring theme for club nights is how attendance has dropped from its heady heights of having double digit attendance figures.
This was even commented on by Anthony this week as Marcin, Anthony, and myself were the only ones who turned up.
Our opening game of the evening was Snowcrest.
I’m not sure how I really feel about Snowcrest.
The box art is lovely. And the animorphised characters on the cards are ok.
But it’s the theme or lack of it. Even now I couldn’t really tell you what the theme is. Was I attracting characters to my monastery or town? I really didn’t think the art or mechanics did anything to help here.
The mechanics are cool. The building a tableau to give you actions to do. The having to do a refresh once three cards in a row/column have been flipped is nice.
On your turn you do a single action. Which is very quick. You play a card, do an action on a card, or refresh. You just want to do more on your turn. I found I was getting impatient when any delay happened, wanting the others to hurry up because I knew what I wanted to do next.
There is no player interaction.
I think the jury is still out on this one.
Marcin won.
Our next game was Flip 7.
I like Flip 7 but it is not the greatest card game in the world.
This push your luck card game gave me some pontoon vibes with its stick, twist each turn.
It is a fun filler for sure.
Somehow I managed to win.
Our final game of the evening was Rebel Princess.
This really is a great trick taking game. As a three player game all the ones, elevens, and twelve cards are removed from the game.
Instead of using the recommended rules cards for first time players, we shuffled them up and chose five randomly. The difference really is those recommended cards are simpler and easier to follow. The five we had this time we really fun. One had us passing a card from our hand to a neighbour at the end of each trick. Another had us put half our hand face down only to be played after the cards left had been played.
It’s these changing rules that help keep it fresh. It will be rare that you get two games the same because of this.
I think all three of us managed to pull off the feat of getting all the princes and the frog prince to get that all important -10 points for doing so.
In the end after the five rounds Anthony had won.
The three of us had a fun evening. Plans were made for the following Friday because I will have the new Paranoia board game by them.
Friday evening, must be a Fenland Gamers club night of some description.
This time it was a regular club night.
To which six brave souls braved the cold winter night. Storm Éowyn (so cool to have a Tolkien named storm) barely touching this part of the country. It seems being on the opposite coast of where it hit protected this bit of the fens from the worst of the storm.
In the warmth of the sports and social club gathered the six hardy souls. Beverages in hand we settled in to play some games.
Our first game of the evening was Spectacular.
For a six player game it was a fairly quick play.
The theme of building a zoo/safari in this dice and tile drafting game doesn’t seem that strong. The mechanics really don’t support or enforce the theme at all. Yes the art is there. But it felt like the theme really could be anything.
There is definitely feelings of other games mechanically. Or should I say it has similarities. I definitely got a Cascadia vibe with the tile placement and creating zones.
The drafting and placing tiles in your zoo/safari park reminded me of Moving Wild. Which I think did it better with the cards.
But having said the above it’s still an enjoyable experience. I’d definitely play again.
We had a lot of fun playing the game. Anthony I’m sure was trolling Marcin over the rules and how to play during the game. I was correcting Marcin over the incorrect for using dices throughout the game. Pointing out dice is the plural.
Dave just romped home with the victory.
Our second and final game of the evening was my recently arrived copy of Rebel Princess.
This really is a fun trick taking game.
There are no trumps. So it’s highest value in the lead suit that wins the trick.
Each player has a unique power they can use once each round. Which reminds me the game is played over five rounds, with the lowest score winning. How do you score points? You get points for each marriage proposal (basically prince suit cards or frog prince card) you have in the tricks you won.
Each round at the start you give a number of cards to the players next to you. Plus a special rule is revealed that changes the game for that round. Both determined by the same card.
These two factors of variable player powers, special rule cards give a massive amount of replay-ability.
There is a rule that if you get all the princes and the frog prince in a round instead of getting seventeen points which they add up to (the frog prince is worth five points) you get ten points instead as a reward!
This really is fun. You are trying to get rid of your prince cards whilst not winning a trick that has prince cards played. Which is harder than you think.
Theme wise it’s not that strong. But had me thinking Love Letter because of the shared emphasis on Princesses.
Rebel Princess might after just one play have become one of my favourite trick taking games. Yes it’s that good.
Dave also won this game. A clean sweep of victories for him.
With no more six player games we called it an early night.
It was a great night especially catching up with one or two friends who aren’t able to make club nights as regular as they would like.
It seems the gaming has stalled this month. The difference between last night and the previous Friday was gaming took place a week ago.
Last night no one apart from me was free! Life happens as they say. I can’t be too disappointed because it meant I got extra doggy snuggles.
Nico and Dolly snuggling up to me
There was also a chance to game session today but it starts too late for me.
But the previous Friday gaming did take place with initially five of us, that grew to six while we played our first game.
Our first game of the evening was my recently arrived copy of Lure and its Deep Waters expansion.
I decided to go all in even for this initial learning game because the expansion added an extra die for each player and some cards.
This is an interesting game where players using their dice are bidding to go first in attempting to catch the fish cards in the middle.
So secretly each player selects a number of their dice (hidden behind their screen) with lure tokens and everyone reveals the amount they selected at the same time. The player with the lowest number of dice goes first in attempting to catch the fish. This reminds me of that old game show Name That Tune where contestants bid to name a tune using the least number of notes. With the lowest bid getting the attempt to name the tune using the number of notes they bid.
A player catches fish by rolling the dice they used for their bid. If the total of the dice and lure tokens is greater than the value on the fish cards, and they meet any other criteria on the fish (such as having a die with the value of 2 in the results, or all odd value dice) the player can capture the fish. In fact any of the available fish they qualify for.This means it’s possible for a player to take multiple fish, even all of them, leaving none for the other players. In this situation the other players get a lure token.
There are special dice that are not six sided. But if you use them you lose them for a turn. Kind of like a cool down mechanic.
I do like this mechanic. It makes a nice change to the bidding mechanic. You have to weigh up when to use your special dice, how many dice you need to capture the current fish, if you are going to use lure tokens.
(Shipp, 2024) provides a definition of “Theme in hobby board games is a subject in a setting (that may be unspecified) with at least one connection point to the mechanisms which results in an undetermined progression of events at both the mechanical level and the thematic level.”
So the question is does Lure feel thematic?
Obviously the art of the game helps convey the theme. Here the cards have drawings of fish on them.
There is no setting in the sense we can assume it’s a current day fishing trip of some sort.
But I do feel that there is connection mechanically and thematically with the dice rolling and catching fish. Not meeting any of the fishes criteria does feel like you failed to catch anything. Using your special dice feels like you are using a fancy special lure to catch a fish.
It’s definitely not the strongest of themes. But it’s there. It doesn’t feel pasted on.
For the record I won the game.
Our second game of the evening was Tiny Towns.
When Tiny Towns first came out there was some buzz around the game. At one or two points in the months afterwards I nearly pulled the trigger and bought a copy. I can’t recall why I never did.
But I was glad that Charlene bought her copy and we got to play it.
It’s interesting thinking about the game. I liked it. It was fun. But I felt that this game abstracted the theme a bit too much. To such a level this almost felt like an abstract puzzle game. It’s hard to make cubes thematic. And we constantly referred to the cubes by colour over what they represented. Maybe if they had used wooden tokens that were coloured and shaped like the resource they represented.
Somehow Diego won this game.
My final game of the evening was several plays of the trick taking game Seas of Strife.
This really is a good example of a themeless game. The art on the cards really has no connection with the mechanics of a trick taking game.
However because there is no theme does not mean the game isn’t fun.
The twist from your usual run of the mill trick taking games is that you don’t want to win the trick.
But after a handful of fun games it was time to head home.
It was a fun evening of gaming. Sadly thanks to life not repeated this week.
Shipp, S. (2024) Thematic integration in board game design. Boca Raton ; London: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group (CRC Press guides to tabletop game design).
Friday was the first club night of the new year. Yes technically not a proper club night but a get it to the table night. But still it was attended by eight members. A very good turn out.
We played an eight player game of Shadows Over Camelot with its expansion.
I’d never played the game before and we were lucky and honour that Jeff had bought along his copy.
This is one of those classic games that is out of print. So copies especially with the expansion that go for silly money when they come up for sale.
Along with Battlestar Galactica it’s probably the most famous and highly rated hidden traitor game out there.
Although I think The Thing board game should be up there with them.
Being probably the inspiration of the other games mentioned. You can see some familiar mechanics. Such as the shuffling up of cards before revealing them. The ability of the traitor to reveal themselves and then create chaos. Unique character abilities, and other similarities I’ve not listed.
I do like hidden traitor games. They are like a co-op game but with an edge. Everyone is meant to be working together to achieve the collective objective. But did you fail that mission because some-one had crappy cards and had no other option, or was that the work of a traitor?
We had a great time playing the game, plenty of laughs and suspicion being thrown around with comments like “that’s just what a traitor would say”.
Plus the traitors failed, and King Arthur and the knights of the round table succeeded.
A great evening of gaming.
Sunday saw me up early and over to Charlene’s for some gaming. Apparently it was Ben’s idea to start at 10am.
So on the way I stopped and picked up a selection of croissants to have with a hot beverage.
We started off the days gaming playing Fromage.
Fromage was interesting because it’s got this cool down mechanic and rotating board that’s split into four quarters in a “worker placement” style game.
It’s fun. I like how you can only do something in the segment of the board facing you. Each segment is different, and focused on a particular mechanic like area control, or getting pairs.
I manage to trigger the end of the game, and sneak a victory by a single point.
While Charlene was tied up in the kitchen we had a quick three games of Strike.
What can I say it was quick and fun. It’s a great little filler.
With Charlene back, her daughter Annabelle joined us for a game That’s Not A Hat.
This a bluffing game where you need a good memory. Sadly none of us had that. We struggled to remember our own card let alone what others had.
But somehow I won not getting a single point when the others managed to get at least one before Annabelle triggered the game end by getting three points.
For me my day of gaming finished with a game of Distilled.
Distilled is interesting. It has a drafting element, only lasts seven rounds, unique player powers.
The distilling mechanic is interesting because the ingredients cards you have collected to make a recipe are shuffled together and the top and bottom are removed. From the remaining cards you possibly make the recipe, score points, earn money, and get the drinks label to gain a bonus.
You always get two basic ingredients each round during the draft. It’s now you also spend money to buy more powerful cards like better ingredients, or fancier bottles, and even employees.
You can have up to three employees that usually give you some sort of ability to use each round, and an end of game scoring bonus. You are kinda building a mini engine.
I took an early lead completing my signature recipe before the others.
We took a brief pause during play for pizza that Charlene generously provided. However that wasn’t enough of a distraction to stop the others catching me up on the points and overtaking me.
In the end Diego won by a single point beating Ben. I wasn’t even close.
A big thank you to Charlene for hosting, and her generosity of providing the pizza. It was a great day of gaming.
I think that possibly this weekend saw my last gaming of 2024.
This time of year just so happens to be the busiest time of the year for those working in retail.
Which is why after Tuesday I am working 7 days straight without a break. Not only that but for 5 of those days I’m starting an hour earlier (5am) but also finishing an hour earlier (midday).
But on the plus side once I step outside of work Christmas Eve I’m off until the 8th January. Yeah a nice break.
With that earlier start I won’t be making the lcg/ccg/tcg evening Tuesday. Not the “get it to the table” night next Friday. I need to be getting to sleep a bit earlier than I usually do. Which makes evening gaming not an option. Or I could but I’d be shattered the next day.
This past Friday was the regular club game night. Although the discord event only showed 4 interested we ended up with 9 attending. So one of the better attended club nights of recent weeks.
We split into 3 tables of 3.
On my table we started off with a game of Ra.
I do like this auction, push your luck, set collection game. That’s why I backed the last kickstarter to get the Ra Traders expansion. Which I’m looking forward to adding to the game once it comes out.
Luckily I won this game of Ra.
Next we followed up with a couple of games of Cubed: Next Level Dominoes.
This was Colin’s game.
Yes it’s dominoes like but with colours and height involved when placing your tile. But in reality when playing I did not think dominoes.
It was fun, and the player with the lowest score at the end wins. How do you score? Each tile you are left with at the end is worth points depending on number of colours on it.
I didn’t win either of the two games we played.
Our final game of the evening was Splendor Pokémon.
Once again the losing streak continues. I was one more turn away from grasping victory when Colin triggered the end of the game with 18 points. My next turn if I’d had a chance to take it would have netted me 7 points and a total of 20 points. But alas I never got to pull off my power play.
Master Chief broken?
Saturday saw Dave and me playing Halo Flashpoint.
Our first game was a capture the flag game. I had the newly arrived Master Chief on my squad.
This game had a maximum of 8 rounds. With the highest score winning if neither player got to 3 points first. Which I won by a single point. And that was because I actually captured the flag and got it back to a scoring zone in the last round.
Our second game was using the oddball scenario. This is a 6 round game with the winner at the end with the highest score winning, or the first to 11 points.
Dave had Master Chief on his squad for this game.
Once Dave claimed the oddball with Master Chief it was nigh on impossible to get the oddball back.
Master Chief is sooo hard to take down.
I think he’s too powerful. That or I was rolling badly against him.
Definitely for organised play (coming early next year) he needs banning. Without the figure being easily obtainable he is just too much of an advantage to those that got him as the pre-order reward or in the limited supply paint kit.
With the points racking up fast with the oddball in Master Chiefs hands it was an easy victory for Dave.
So that was possibly my last bit of gaming for 2024.
Last night it was once again time for us to get it too the table. A club night specifically for getting those unplayed games from the pile of shame to the table.
This time saw Marcin bring the board game In Too Deep. A cyberpunk themed game with definitely some Philip K Dick A Scanner Darkly vibes.
In this game players play officers of the law infiltrating a notorious criminal gang, trying to collect enough evidence to take the gang down.
You do this by jacking into a criminal and taking over control of them. The perp is then manipulated into trying to complete the conditions of one of the two cards you hold. These cards are a main mission and a side mission.
Once you complete a main mission any criminals you are jacked into are released.
To say this game is chaotic is an understatement. You could try planning your movies whilst others take theirs. But often you may not even be in control of the criminal you had, let alone them being where you need them. The board state itself changes so much it almost feels like luck completing a main mission or side mission.
We did find in the later stages of the game that those of us still holding one of the stage three main missions that there was no way they could be completed. They required too many things to be in place that never would happen with the limited number of actions on a turn, and the constant changing board state.
I forget what the cards are called but when you complete either mission you get these cards that basically behave like corruption. Representing how deep you have fallen into the undercover role becoming that criminal you are meant to be bringing down.
This is an interesting little mechanic because at the end of the game the player with the highest score from these cards gets that deducted from their score (unless another condition isn’t met then they don’t). The cards also act as end game bonuses. You have a balancing act of trying to keep as low value cards as possible but getting the best end game bonuses as possible. Something not made easy with the better end game scoring being on the higher value cards.
I liked that when completing a main mission you got a choice of a safe reward or a risky reward. The risky reward drawing you more of the above cards than the safer option.
I think the theme came over nicely. The miniatures of the criminals were really good. Great sculps.
The game did take over three hours including teach. With some turns by players taking a looong time.
