Last night was the October monthly meet up for the Fenland Gamers at our amazingly generous hosts The Luxe Cinema.

The evening started off well. Jonathan had finally joined the Ice Blast Crew! It’s the drink of choice for the group. Jonathan and Nathan had a rare opportunity to direct the banter at me. I give as good as I get, and it’s nice for them to get this rare occasion where they have the upper hand. My turn will come again.

We split into 2 gaming groups, a group of 4 and group of 3.

Jonathan, Gavin and myself started off playing Kingdomino. I hadn’t played Kingdomino before. I know it had a bit of buzz when it came out, and it’s got an expansion and a follow up, was even nominated for an award or two. But it had not made my radar for something to play. Gavin was keen to try it, and I was happy to give it a go.

Wow. How much fun is the game? Lots. It is quick to teach, simple mechanics to grasp, and quick to play. I love the tile selection mechanic used to determine the order of choosing in the following round. It presents some nice tough decisions to make with such a simple mechanic. Do you go for that tile you really need and chose last next time? Do you hate draft to block someone else? Which could also potentially mean you get to chose last. Or do you try and get that first selection for the next round because there is a tile you really must have?

Then you have the placement mechanic working along the lines of the pub classic dominos, and being limited to a 5 x 5 grid, and getting an end game scoring bonus if your start tile is in the dead centre of a completed 5 x 5 grid.

That is literally all there is to the game, a handful of simple mechanics that seem to work so well together to create a fast, fun game.

Somehow in our 3 player game I managed to run away with the victory. But we then added a fourth player, taught the game in seconds, and we were back playing. This time I was getting less of the selections I really wanted. A few rounds I was finding hard not to be the one choosing last, because that was the only option I was left with. There was very little denial drafting going on. I thought Jonathan was running away with the game, he had large scoring areas that we had failed to prevent. Sadly those scoring areas were also ones I was going for early on also. But when it came down to the final scoring, I lost to Jonathan by 4 points. That was a lot closer than I thought it would be. So yes I was first loser.

Our second game of the evening was another new game to me, No Thanks!. Wow another simple game to learn, but so much fun. You either take the current card or pass and place a token on it. If you have no tokens in front of you, you can’t pass. So you are forced to take cards until you get some tokens. The idea is to have at the end of the game the lowest score. That’s an over simplification of the card bit, which involves collecting runs of cards, say 33,32,31,30 but you only score the lowest value of the run. So that example run would be worth 30 points. I also didn’t mention that there are 9 cards removed at the start of the game from the deck. So there may or may not be a run, and you get stuck with a high value card. Sometimes you need to take that high value card because there are just too many tokens on it, that the points it will give you out weighs the fact you need those tokens. I lost the first game we played on the tie breaker. Gavin won our second game, and I won the third and final game. And yes it was that much fun.

For me No Thanks joins the ranks of Red 7, The Mind and Love Letter: Batman that are fun little filler games that should always be in the bag. So yes this will be joining the collection real soon.

Our final game of the evening was The Resistance. 8 resistance fighters, but they had been infiltrated by 3 traitors. A fun way to have everyone playing together at the end of the evening. Luckily I was using my copy of the game that I use with students. With the mess that the Ice Blast drinks create from the ice on the outside melting, and one or two players being less than careful with game components, this worn copy of the game was the ideal one to use. And these two points are starting to become a bit of an issue on club nights. Our hobby is an expensive one, some of the games we own and play are beautifully made and expensive. So you would hope/expect those playing to show a little respect to using someone else’s game. Sadly it’s not happening. Which does make you reluctant to bring games along to play.

However back to our hunt to find those traitors to the cause, who were sabotaging our missions. Our first mission was a roaring success, despite us having to refresh our memories to the rules. Mission 2 was foiled, there was definitely a traitor in our ranks. But who? Mission 2 had 2 people from the initial mission and 2 newbies. It had to be one of the newbies. Mission 3 was a roaring success. I’d been on all 3, and I think by now the majority had been on a mission. So despite having been on 2 successful missions I was under suspicion. Mission 4 I wasn’t on, but somehow a traitor had managed to sneak on to the team and once again sabotage it. It was all down to the final mission. We thought we knew who weren’t spies. The final missions team was selected, and it was a failure. The traitors had won. when the smoke cleared, we had identified correctly 2 of the traitors. But Jonathan had done the con job of the century and managed to avoid suspicion the whole game.

After the game as we were clearing up, I was once more the brunt of banter from my good friends. This time teasing me about being a fanboy who wouldn’t sell out. So yes that time had come again real quick. Twice in the same evening. I must be getting old. I enjoy the banter, it’s good fun, nothing nasty. Although I forgot to pay Gavin back for his awful joke on Twitter the other day. It was truly awful and deserved retaliation. Ok the joke was “which spice girl can carry the most petrol?”, “Jerri Can”. See it was bad.

Then the evening went tits up once more. The frickin’ idiot who I talked about previously, broke my folding table I use for gaming. The folding table the club uses for our game nights now at The Luxe. Snapped two rivets connecting the legs to the supports that keep them in place when set up. The support collapses, is held rigged by a sliding metal ring. But no if it won’t collapse, just repeatedly force and break it. Not a word of apology, offer to fix it, or replace it. To say that I was not happy was yet again an understatement. I really don’t know what to do about the guy.

Jonathan kindly offered to take the table home and fix it. The earliest I could even start to look at repairing the table was Sunday. Which would totally screw up our planned Friday evening gaming session at The Luxe. Hopefully it is just a matter of replacing the broken rivets with screws or bolts, and that no other damage was done.

Otherwise it had been a great evening of gaming.

Last night was the fortnightly Friday evening gaming session at our now current home for gaming The Luxe Cinema.

Our first game of the evening was a learning game of Lost Cities:Rivals. I’m a big big fan of the original game Lost Cities. It has a great app (that makes me lazy on the scoring). But it’s a 2 player game only. So to hear that there was this game based on it, with an auction mechanic, that plays 2-4 players, yeah I was going to get it.

There is a surprising depth to the game once things click. But it’s a learning game so it takes a round or two for things to click, it’s expected.

On your go you either add a card to the market from the pile, or start an auction for the current cards in the market. And that’s the first big decision you have to make based on the market. Just how many or badly do you need any of the cards in the market? Do you risk adding to it, or try and get the cards with an auction? The amount of money you have, and of the others could also influence that decision, you may not even be able to afford to bid. Running out of money means until you get through the current pile of cards you just have to watch as your opponents take cards that you may need. When a pile of cards runs out, money that was spent in the auctions gets redistributed evenly amongst players. Which is a nice touch. I also,like the hate bidding to try and force up the price, and take out opponents so you have free reign of the cards. I also like that the winning bidder can also remove a single card from the market from the game. A great opportunity to deny another player a card they may need.

Amazingly Jonathan and I tied for top spot. I enjoyed the game, definitely want to play it again.

Our second game and final one of the evening was the evergreen gateway worker placement game Stone Age. I’d only played this game once before, which was nearly 3 years ago (before I started logging game plays).

I went back and read my thoughts on Stone Age from that first play. I still agree with them. Although it’s great as an entry level worker placement game, I did kinda think it was an average one on the whole. There are worker placement games I enjoy a lot more. But after our game last night I think calling it average is doing it a disservice, above average is more accurate. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an enjoyable experience.

Our game last night was a little one sided with the real battle for first place between Jonathan and myself. Despite sitting behind the pack on the score track for most of the game, Jonathan was in striking distance of a big points rush during final scoring. Which I knew would be coming because he was going for the set collection end game bonus.

The reason for it being between Jonathan and myself was the other 2 players hadn’t played the game before, and I didn’t think my previous play really gave me an advantage, being so long ago. But being a more experienced player, and fan of the worker placement mechanic did help. Jonathan naturally was the more experienced player of the game, and he did point out key strategies of the game during explaining the rules, and during play. Also advice from both of us was given through out the game.

But that didn’t stop one player making a couple of really dumb ass moves during the game. The first was mid game on his first player turn not taking the farm, and allowing Jonathan to nab it and gain an advantage on the food front. Until the late game, that farm track is important. You need to hunt less to feed your tribe. Allowing you to gather more resources, grab more buildings etc. It also allows you to add more tribe members and yes get to do more on a turn. That was a massive move for Jonathan, and allowed him to get that extra worker.

The second dumb ass thing had me nearly rage flipping my table! I don’t think I’ve ever called another player a “twat” at the table before. But I did last night. Basically in the fading memory I have. We had a building pile down to one tile, the ass hat was first player. If Jonathan put a worker on it he’d block it to allow an extra turn or two, something he needed to allow him to get cards to complete that massive scoring set he was going for. I knew he was close. Ending the game this turn, was in my interest and give me a chance. The other two were not in the running. They hadn’t been grabbing end game bonus cards, and only had a couple. Their final points wouldn’t be too far off where they were on the score track. If they were to stand a remote chance of finishing above Jonathan they too needed it to end this turn. There was no benefit for the person to drag the game on for a couple more turns. No way they were going to get back in the running. Their first move was a worker on the final hut. During the rest of the placement stage they put another worker on a hut, and we played out our placements. Then when it came to resolving the workers, they didn’t claim the last hut! WTF! Did they just do that? This was handing the game to Jonathan. And then to justify it with “I don’t care, this is payback for D&D (dire wolf cleaning his privates jokes)” was just twattish. It really felt like they had just given Jonathan the game. We were now looking at another 2 rounds. Exactly what Jonathan needed.

Luckily Jonathan was first player and didn’t block that hut with his first worker placement. Naturally I did with my first worker. But it was a great last round for me, and also for Jonathan. I got a great end game bonus card.

As expected during end game scoring Jonathan had a 7 card set for a massive points jump, and some bonuses. I had a 4 card set, something I’d gone for as a way to try and mitigate that big points gain I knew Jonathan was getting. What I hadn’t been tracking was my bonuses. With 7 huts, and two 2 value tools and one 3 value tool my multiple bonuses really added up and shot me to the win. I ended up with 197 points. My tools bonuses gave me that win. Jonathan ended up second with 152. Without the tool bonuses I would have been a close second.

But I’ve decided I’m not going to be playing with that player again. Even before the dire wolf jokes in D&D I had the feeling that they were targeting me in games. I don’t need that agro. I never thought I’d be writing something like this, let alone thinking it. I’d like to reflect why I feel this way, and the root cause. But that’s not me, I’m a force of nature like my attack chihuahuas Nico and Loki.

Despite that little blip, it was a great evening. The Luxe and amazing staff, were fantastic hosts.

As yesterdays say nothing post pointed out, last night was the monthly gaming meet up for Fenland Gamers at our amazing host The Luxe Cinema.

I started my evening of gaming by being way too early. I should have checked the start time. For some reason I thought it was a 6:30 start instead of it’s actual 7pm start. Which is ironic really because I’m the one that created the repeating event on the clubs Facebook page! Instead I enjoyed the company of the staff with some banter, an iceblast, and some warm flavoured nuts.

It was a good turn out for a monthly meetup, with club regulars and some new faces.

With my copy still in the dhl transit system in the US (I’ve been stalking my package via its tracking number), we got to play Gavin’s copy of Tiny Epic Zombies that had arrived a few days earlier.

Had either of us actually read the rules before hand, or watch any how to play videos? don’t be silly, this is Fenland Gamers we are talking about. This was the first time the contents had been out of their seals and plastic bags. I did have some sleeves with me, so I presumptuously sleeved the cards for him, whilst he read the rule book about setting up the game.

Katie was given the honour of choosing how we would be playing the game. So Katie chose the competitive mode, with AI zombies. But there is a variety of modes you can play the game, so if the competitive side isn’t your bag, then there is a co-op mode. don’t like AI, then you can play one against many. With the one taking on the role of the zombies.

I think we got the basic turn structure right, and the core mechanics. But I’m also sure that we made some rules mistakes as well through out our game.

Gavin wasn’t too impressed with the rule book. But in the past I’ve not had an issue with other Gamelyn Tiny Epic rule books. I’ll have to reserve judgement not this until my copy has arrived and I have had a time to read through it.

Gavin and I did find that the text on the objective cards was a tad on the small side making it hard to read. But then again this wasn’t helped by the lighting. And I’ve found that an issue with one or two other games, in perfect lighting the smaller text is readable (just for the these aging eyes), but in less than optimal lighting it’s a hard task to make head or tales of things.

Component wise it’s up to the usual high standards you’d expect for a Tiny Epic game. The ITEMeeples look super cool with the weapons attached. Mine looked really epic with a chainsaw and machine gun. I didn’t care if I won or not, I had a cool looking ITEMeeple. The motorbike also has that “wow, cool” factor. And looks awesome on the game board. These have that wow factor now, but will that wear off over multiple plays?

Katie and I both managed to complete one of the three objectives needed to win. But the game clock for the AI kicked in meaning that everyone lost. The AI clock for us was the search deck (not clear on how the call it, and no rule book to confirm) running out. I did like this as a mechanic for stopping the game from just going on and on. Although I’m not sure with the objectives we had how they could have been completed in the time given.

It certainly was a fun experience. Definitely going to get more plays, and trying out some of the other ways of playing the game.

Our second game of the evening was another new game for me, Smash Up. I know I’m very late to the party for this one. But I really enjoyed playing this.

I was playing ninjas and an Irish lepicorn mash up. So I was able to like put curses on bases to punish other players, or punish them for destroying a minion with the lepicorn cards. But with the ninja side I was able to play cards when bases were being scored. Gavin had zombies as one of his decks and that had graveyard (or discard pile) shenanigans. Very thematic.

The whole majority control fighting over bases works really well. And it was fun discovering how the mash up of decks worked. I thought mine worked together really well. Despite that I don’t think I was playing it optimally, and my last place only emphasised that.

I definitely can see myself playing this again. I think it might even be good enough to add to my collection.

It was a really fun evening, great to see knew and old faces. Our hosts The Luxe Cinema were awesome as usual. And we are really grateful to them for allowing us to game there.

Last night it was that time once again for a Friday night gaming session. For the second time we were once more graciously hosted for this session by the wonderful The Luxe Cinema.
Our evenings gaming started off with a new game that Jonathan bought at this years UKGE but hadn’t got to the table yet, called Road Hog: Rule the Road.

On the whole production wise the components are pretty high quality really. The only slight negative would be the flimsy cards. The game tiles for the track are really pimped out. They have a rubber backing! No need for a play mat here. There was one issue with the cards with what turned out to be two cards stuck together. When separating them there was a little damage that left the back of one marked. Not cool. Solved by sleeving. But replacements needed really from the manufacturer.

Luck plays a large part in the game from the roll of the two dice, to the cards that you get. For some this luck element may be a turn off. In our game it worked in my favour.

There is also a big take that element. Which also for some is a major switch off. Once again something I’m ok with. In our game it was more a one against many. Me against the rest. Mainly because I was the one in the lead for the majority of the game. For example I was getting boxed in my the traffic in an effort to slow me down, and even stop me. But luckily I had the cards and dice rolls that mitigated this and allowed me to escape the traps.

There is a lot of variability potentially between games with the unique placement of cars and trucks during setup that players will then need to negotiate during the game, plus which tiles that you use.

We could have used a longer track. But for the type of game that this is, it felt about right with the 6 or 7 tiles that we used. Anything that was longer I think would have been too long play wise and warn out its welcome. It is a light game. But still a fun experience. And I’m not just saying that because I won it comfortably.

As you can see I’ve tried experimenting with my camera angles for photos during gaming sessions. I quite like the results.

Our second game of the evening was a return to the table for King of Tokyo. I think the last time I played this was with some students a couple years back. I think, apart from a couple of promo characters I have everything for this. I just need to merge back in to the second edition the 2 characters that were left out from the first edition. We played just the vanilla version of the game, no power ups. Well we were playing with 2 new players to the game. Although to be fair, we could probably have played with them. They aren’t that much of an overhead to learn. Jess narrowly won by being the last monster standing.

Our final game of the evening was the classic Perudo/Liars Dice. Yeah a club favourite, and a great way to end a great evening of gaming. Somehow Jonathan won without losing a single die.

We had a great evening, great selection of beverages and great hosts with The Luxe.

Yesterday was the second Wednesday of the month, so yep that time of month again that sees members of Fenland Gamers get together to play some games.

Last nights monthly session was kindly hosted by Wisbech’s premier cinematic experience The Luxe Cinema. Which was a change from our regular venue (for the last couple of years) The White Lion. New owners will be taking over The White Lion at the end of the month, and apparently it’s facilities will not be open to “outsiders” (guests only?). So we have at the moment lost our free gaming location. Which means we are looking for a new forever home(s).

Part of the club ethos, nah DNA is that members should not have to pay to play. Our hobby is expensive as it is. But finding locations that are suitable and free is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.

Luckily the great manager at The Luxe is a tabletop fan, open to trying new things, and a visionary (I hate saying nice things about him, his ego will get as big as mine, although his dress sense is worse than mine, just) and wants to see the cinema as a hub for the community. After a chat at the tail end of last week, we came up with a plan which saw us arranging a trial “date” or two. Which is how we ended up playing games at The Luxe last night.

Part of the unwritten contract we have with our hosts like The Luxe, The White Lion and Fen Rock is that because we are being allowed to use their facilities for free, that we will purchase our beverages and snacks from them. With our current heat wave, the fact I could purchase a large Tango Ice Blast at The Luxe was really nice.

When I arrived at The Luxe an area had already been cleared for me to put my folding table up. Knowing the size of the table, the number of potential people coming to play, a warning was given earlier about bringing small foot print games. Table space was going to be a premium to fit everyone in. No large games this time.

We split into 2 groups, Jonathan taught and played Pandemic the Cure with one group. While the rest of us played the latest Kickstarter hotness to be delivered to one or two of us, Mint Delivery.

With great timing both games finished within seconds of each other. I’m not sure if Jonathan and co managed to save mankind. But I suspect that they doomed mankind to a plaque ridden doom. James in our group won our game.

After replenishing our beverages, our groups changed slightly, with James joining the others to play Bohemian Villages. Which left Gavin, Katie and myself to play the other half of Gavin’s Kickstarter delivery, Mint Works. The second edition has been tweaked from the first. The tin is deeper to match that of Mint Delivery. Plus the red mints that represent 5 white mints, are now included. Before this second edition the only way to get the red mints was in the promo pack that was printed. Which also has a second edition that does not include the red mints now (they forgot about this on the Kickstarter and they are having to send out red mints separately for those backers that bought the promo who had the first edition of Mint Works and needed the red mints). I like the improvements, the game hasn’t changed, they are just tweaks really that are cosmetic. I crushed this one and was victorious.

Because Mint Works is that quick worker placement fix, we were finished well before the other group. So I broke out Love Letter: Batman. This is definitely my favourite version of Love Letter. Although The Hobbit version comes pretty close. Our game came down to a tense final round, where the game could have been won by either Katie or Gavin. I wasn’t close at that point. But luck was on Gavin’s side and he took the victory. Which meant we had finished once more as the other group were doing final scoring. No idea who won. I suspect Jonathan.

That bought us to about the right time for finishing the evening of gaming. The initial after session post-mortem with the manager was positive. But there will be more trial “dates” and more post-mortems before both parties make any final decisions/commitments.

A big big thank you to The Luxe for hosting us for the evening. You were amazing hosts.

Last night Chris hosted a game of Mansions of Madness: Second Edition at his humble abode.

Real long time sufferers of this blog (hence known as the suffering) will remember the last time I played this game. That ending was running through my mind and bringing a smile to my face as I drove to Chris’s Pad.

I do like the game. But for me the thing that still stops me adding the game to my collection is the app. However I do appreciate the app also makes the game!

There were some nice touches to the scenario we played last night. I liked the changing board state. Rooms would disappear and get replaced by something else. Rooms would move around the board too.

That was pretty cool. And I can’t see how that could be done so seamlessly and quickly without using an app.

We ended up in a basement with a moving library room connected to it, holding a valiant last stand against wave after wave of horrors, before losing the game.

Somehow mine was the only character that didn’t go insane! Which compared to my only other play was a miracle and minor win in itself.

We had a great evening, and it was generous of Chris and his fiancé Jordan for inviting us into their home. Amazingly I didn’t steal their 2 lovely well behaved dogs.

As the following photo shows I’m getting back on track with the halfling wizard. Ok seeing as my character in our intro D&D campaign is called Dram, I might as well call the mini Dram.

Felt better doing the painting a second time. Still going for the full,worn, weathered feel to the look.

Last night deceit, half truths and smuggling where the order of the day as we tried to smuggle contraband past the Sheriff of Nottingham.

It’d been a while since we had played the game last. And this was a first time for Nathanial and Jess.

Since Jonathan and I last played the game I had managed to get hold of the mini that the publisher did for the store game kits. This mini replaces the cardboard standee used to signify who is currently the sheriff. As minis go it’s rather nice, and I bet it would look awesome painted.

At some point I should get the expansion for the game. But considering how often we get or play them game there is no great pressure.

It would appear from the result of our game that I am indeed the most deceitful. But we knew that before the game. I lied, bluffed and bribed my way to victory.

Our second and final game was also another favourite game that we haven’t played for a long time, Dice Town. This is another game with expansions which I don’t have. And yet again the amount of times this hits the table, would it justify getting them?

I’m pretty sure me asking the question not once but twice will have shocked my friends.

I was denied victory by one point. One point that I had until Nathanial played a card taking a gold off every other player at the end. That card gave him the win by one point. If he hadn’t played it, I’d have won by 3 points. Those types of victory are the sweetest. Nathanial seemed to be really happy with stealing the win. He said this was the first time he’s beat me. But I’m sure that’s not right. Sadly I can’t confirm either way because at the moment on the app I record game plays he gets logged as anonymous.

But still despite the heat we had a great evening of gaming.

Throughout this post I may or may not discuss things that if you are playing or plan to play Charterstone you may not wish to know. In other words SPOILER ALERT! Stop reading now, go read one of my other posts if you like, and we’ll meet up in my next post.

Our guidepost for game 7 was going to be won by whoever had the most reputation at the end of the game. So that was me out. I think in our previous games I managed to get onto the reputation track just the once. There was also a temporary rule that if you used another villagers building they got the money or resource paid to activate it.
Like the last game I managed to take an early points lead. For me success is amassing points to reach the multiple of 10 milestones. Reach 10 points that’s a bonus star, reach 20 that’s a second bonus star, and so on. Bonus stars at the end of the game mean if I complete a row I can get that bonus at the start of each game. I also at the end of the campaign get to score points for each bonus star I have. So I’m taking the long game into account. With the losers also getting to store more stuff between games, I’m building up a nice little engine I’m hoping to just collect those bonus stars, build buildings and let the others fight for first place.

In this game I built a 15 point building, opened box 43 that gave me a new persona, and a new 20 point building to build next game, and now added rules that allow players to build over existing buildings (except basic buildings). Guess my 3 point building is getting demolished next game.

Unlike previous games, I actually ended up with 4 of the minions by the end of the game. Helped by Jonathan building a building that allowed me to get a minion everytime we could chose a bonus from the friend characters we had in front of us. I do find that minions are more of a discouragement for players to use a building than encouragement. Mainly because you don’t want the other player to get the benefit of that minion for using the building with the minion on.

Jonathan at the end of the game had the most reputation, and managed to amass enough money to remove the spirit worker he had been given last game. Despite getting on the track, and for a large part of the game in the running for sharing the third place points, I still walked away with no points.

So it was left upto Jonathan to scratch off the foil from the guidepost and read out the reveal words. For being the most reputable this game Jonathan had to decide how the end of campaign scoring would be done. Would it be we all had the same end scoring, or would we each have different end scoring at the end of the campaign? Jonathan went the communist route and chose that we all had the same scoring when the moment called for it.

After end game scoring I came in last, sadly missing out on reaching the 30 point milestone for the third bonus star, and having to settle for just the 2 this time. But I am now keeping 2 minions between games, so I’m happy.

We had a great evening once again playing another fun installment in this campaign. I’m hoping that the session gave one of our group a break from the slings and arrows that life had thrown at them during the day.

Roll on Fridays gaming session, and a second play of Outlive. Yes my second hand copy of the game arrived earlier in the day. With luck and the postal service on my side (fat chance) the KS exclusives might also arrive by then.