Category Archives: Fenland Gamers

Fenland Gamers

Fenland Gamers Monthly Meetup June 2018

Fenland Gamers, game night

Time flies so fast when you are running out of it. Well that’s what it feels like being 50 now. It seems like only yesterday we were holding the last monthly meetup.
Last night once again we hit the heady heights of 7 members being able to attend. So once again we split up into 2 groups.

The first group decided to become the Scooby gang and investigate a haunted house by playing Betrayal at House on the Hill. Despite liking Betrayal I wanted to play Gavin’s game that I picked up for him from the UKGE, Outlive.

On the way back from the expo I had been listening to a recent Secret Cabal podcast where they had talked about Outlive, and how much they liked it. Naturally this got me interested in playing the game. So I was keen to give the game a try. Luckily Gavin was also interested in giving his latest addition to his collection a whirl to.

It would be fair to say that I liked Outlive. For starters I love the theme, the post apocalyptic setting isn’t an over used theme like say zombies. I think I have a handful of games with that setting, ok and one that combines it with zombies.

Does the theme come through? To some extent, you do feel that you are scrambling for scarce resources to survive. It’s not super thin and could be any theme, but it’s also not super heavy.

I like the use of leaders to give each player a unique feel and starting setup.

Once out of the box this game with all the components sprawls across the table. So you will need a bit of table space. The component quality is ok, lots of small bits of cardboard for the resources. I’d have preferred thicker player boards. I do like the meeples used to represent your workers who go out scavenging for your community. Having them stand up when used during the day phase and lie down to signify resting from the night phase. Brilliant mechanic that shows which has been used, it also thematic.

Being able to get “power ups” in the form of equipment, that needs to be repaired before you can get the benefit is cool. Plus if you have 2 pieces of equipment repaired and with matching symbols you get a bonus point at the end.

The radiation mechanic, which can kill you, forces you to either have survivors in your airlock to mitigate it during the night phase, or force you to reduce radiation by either visiting a specific location first, or get lucky scavenging in one of the city locations.

I like that each of your scavenger meeples has a number on the side to indicate the number of actions you can do with it at a location. These range between 3 and 5. These numbers are also used for hunting at specific locations, and to intimate other scavengers to get resources from your competition.

There is a lot to this game, and I’ve only scratched the surface. There is a whole resource management mechanic I’ve not talked about.

It’s a fun game, I’m hoping Gavin’s wife doesn’t like it so I can pick up a bargain. If not this will be in the collection at some point.

By some coincidence the Scooby gang finished almost the same time as us. So after packing away both games, it was near the time to head our separate ways.

A great evening. Looking forward to the next.

A Rare Friday Night Gaming

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

Wednesday was a bit emotional again because Striders ashes were ready for picking up. Once Nath can get up for a visit we will put his ashes where Bud and Barney are buried. Hopefully this will happen over the Summer.

After a post on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page to gauge interest Jonathan setup a Friday evening gaming session to play some of the games that folks purchased at the very recent UKGE.

For this session I didn’t take any games with me. Forgetting I’d bought a couple at the expo other then The Lost Expedition. But I knew that Jonathan had bought some, and looking forward to trying My Village (bargain of the expo). However that wasn’t on the cards this evening.

Our first game of the evening was Small Detectives, a game Jonathan bought to play with his eldest daughter who is a big Cluedo fan.

I was pleasantly surprised by this game, and that was not influenced by the fact I won. It’s a fun, deduction game. Super light, but that benefits the game because it plays quickly. Your movement around the board is determined by a card from your hand that you play. Which ever tile you end up on, as long as you are the only player on that tile, you get to investigate it. Which means you look at it secretly. However this means you can block others from looking at a tile, by ending up on the same tile. You also have to remember that the card you play will be passed on to the person next to you. So a nice little choice to make there when playing a card.

Yeah a nice little game that delivers that Cluedo experience.

Our second game of the evening was Finca. I liked this the first time I played the game, and this second play was no different. History books and my bgg logged plays will show I was first loser this time.

Our final game of the evening was Azul. Jonathan and I have now both played this at 2, 3 and 4 player counts. We both really like the game as a 2 player game, and is probably our preferred player count for the game. But it’s still an enjoyable game at the higher player counts also. History will also note I won this game.

It was a great evening gaming. But records will show that only one of the games played was purchased at the expo.

Below Average

Fenland Gamers, game night

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! If you don’t want to read possible spoilers for game 6 of Charterstone then look away now, and come back for the next post.

I’m going to be honest, it was hard for me emotionally to take part in anything yesterday.

During the day, holding in the emotions was a real battle. Arriving home was not good. I struggled to hold it in, and was very short with mum when she was trying to tell me what she had done for me. I just wanted her to go, so I could have leaky eyes. Selfish I know. I know mum is hurting as well. But I find it hard to talk about Strider without the emotion coming out of my eyes.

Despite being a mess, I managed to pull myself together for our irregular campaign game of Charterstone.

It was game 6 for us last night. The half way point of the campaign. The guidepost had us competing to get top spot on the quota track, with a temporary rule that when you visited another persons charter to use one of their buildings you rolled the charter die, and if it match either your own or the other persons charter symbol you both got a vp point. We were also using the peril tokens for the first time, that actually did something this game also. One of the objectives required you to have 4 different coloured peril tokens, and there was also a quota track for them too.

I was out of the starting blocks on the vp track quickly. Probably a big surprise for the others. But my lead didn’t last for long before Diego steamed off into the lead. But I did manage to hold second place until the end scoring. Not getting on the prestige track does let me down. But still I’m racking up the glory points, and building buildings.

At the game end Diego, Jeff and myself shared the honours for winning the guidepost. So we let Jeff do the honours of revealing the game end surprise. This time we had to go off to a url, enter in the combined score for the game, and get ranked. If we were above average we opened one box, and if below average we opened a different one.

I liked the novelty of this. However I’m not sure what you would do in the future if you were playing Charterstone and the site wasn’t available anymore. I suppose you could house rule it at that point, or flip a coin.


As you can see from above we were as this blog posts title told you, below average. So we got to open the appropriate box, which was funny because Jonathan lost his big meeple and had it replaced with a spectral worker instead. There is a catch to having this, I think unless he removes the spectral worker by paying I want to say 9 coins he can’t claim something. My memory isn’t with me as I write this the day after, and I don’t have the rule book to hand, as that is in Wisbech and I am at the hotel the night before UKGE kicks off.

It was good getting out, and taking my mind off things. It was still hard walking into the house and not to be greeted by Strider when I got back.

Jonathan thinks like me

coffee shop gaming, Fenland Gamers, Game day

This afternoon was spent at the local Costa in the company of Jonathan enjoying a game or two of Azul. Which Jonathan edged a win over of 3-2. We still haven’t played the game with more than 2 players, but we both love it as a 2 player game. Hence why we rattled off 5 games in a row.


After the enjoyable games of Azul. I got to try The Mind. Wow. This game is probably unlike any other game you have played before. It’s so simple, yet so complex. It worked well with 2 players, and will be interesting to see how it plays at the higher counts. I can see the game being heavily dependent on the people you play it with. Particularly I’m not sure I’d play it with none gamers who may not get it. If the box was a bit deeper you could sleeve the cards. Which if I owned the game I’d want to do. However it will only fit the cards without sleeves. A little oversight, but the publisher isn’t the first or last to do this.

Oh for the record the Costa cold brew isn’t as good as mine.

May 2018 Fenland Gamers Monthly Meetup

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night it was the second Wednesday of the month once again, and yes we are back to Wednesdays after that very brief dalliance with Tuesdays.

Because of the numbers that turned up we split up into 2 groups to play. Gavin, Jeff and Katie played Gavin’s recently arrived copy of Sagrada. Whilst Jonathan, Jeff’s son and myself played Majesty: For the Realm (from Jonathan’s collection).

I hadn’t played Majesty before, and after a little banter between groups directed at Gavin who also owned the game but didn’t have the nice play mat that Jonathan did, we got on building our engines in this nice little engine building game.

There are some nice little touches to this game, that although clearly a gateway game is enjoyable for more hardened gamers. The take that mechanic within the game is simple and quick, and more importantly generally doesn’t target a specific player, but all those that can’t defend against the attack. Naturally if only one player can’t defend against an attack then it might feel like they are being targeted.

The sliding trade row, with items positioned nearer the supply costing more is a nice mechanic. Similar in style to choosing a race in Small World, but instead of using coins, you use meeples from your limited supply.

You are building an engine basically with the cards you are placing in front of you. But you are also having to pay attention to the cards that other players are collecting. At the end bonuses are awarded on majority for that card type. So you are trying to maximise the coins you collect when you place a card in your tableaux, but also trying to minimise giving stuff to your opponents, while making sure you maintaining your majorities, or sneakily stealing one.

Oh the play mat was a custom one that Jonathan had made. I actually liked it, and thought apart from having a 5 value coin would be the other addition the actual game needs.

Yeah I liked this, happily play it again.

Unusually both games ended at the same time. Talk about good timing. It even meant I could get a good photo of Jeff holding the social media winners boasting card for Sagrada. Yes that means he won the game.

The groups mixed up again for the second game of the evening. This time Gavin, Jeff’s son and myself played The Flow of History, while the others played Vikings.

Let’s just say despite getting The Internet I was still first loser as Jeff calls it. But I still on a second play of this game enjoy the game. Gavin won the game, despite constant protests during the game of “I have no engine” or “I have no resources”. He did protest too much I think, and then sneakily won!

Jonathan had a few days earlier grabbed a charity shop bargain for me of this old MtG Official Encyclopedia for a whole pound of the realm. Which was very kind of him to do.

The Vikings game finished before ours, so they started playing a Rick and Morty themed game of some kind. A lucky escape for me. It’s not a game that really grabs me.

It was really great to see what for our meet ups was a very good attendance.

Jeff earns Avenger status

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Yesterday nearly ended in disaster before it even started. We were meant to be playing Xia at our regular haunt. However despite numerous attempts to confirm that it would be open, the best answers I had been given were “I think so” to “don’t know”.
So I turned up early to make sure and get set up. So I was a little more than disappointed when once again it was closed. Our alternative venue wouldn’t be open until 2pm. For today that would be too late. So I tried letting the others know not to come. Then I waited. Waited in a hot car with the windows open, just in case my message hadn’t got through. During that wait the venues laundry service turned up and after a little frustration of finding out the place was closed, drove off.

Then dead on time the others turned up. My frantic messaging had been in vein. After some discussion through opened car windows, a brief phone call, Jeff offered to host the game at his along with a bbq afterwards.

Our 3 car convoy made its way to Jeff’s house picking it’s way through the Fenland country roads to his remote Fenland castle of solitude.

There was hardly any wind, so we setup Xia outside, so we could enjoy this brief glimpse of a British Summer.

Being outside, and having a game plan didn’t make any difference to the end result. Despite thinking I was going to play the game more aggressively, arming my ship, giving it armour plating, forgetting to initially give it engines before realising my mistake and swapping the missile for an engine. I still just floated around space aimlessly not doing much, somehow getting 4 game points. A point was for rolling a natural 20, I completed a mission, and I think the other 2 points were for from those tokens you can collect on the board.

So while I was executing my game plan poorly, Jeff and Chris were doing a much better job of racking up fame points, and doing stuff like trading, and completing missions. And that was despite the game smacking them in the face on their first turns by destroying their ships or inflicting lots of damage. It was brutal to watch, and yet funny.

In the end despite late pressure from Jeff, Chris reached the target 10 fame points first, and claimed victory.

Afterwards I got to enjoy a rather nice burger, and great company, before I had to head on home.

Thanks to Jeff you get to see me modelling one of his stylish sun hats, along with arms that should have taken up the earlier offer of sun lotion.

A big big thank you to Jeff and family for saving the day and feeding me.

International Tabletop Day 2018

Fenland Gamers, Game day


It’s the weekend before I turn 50. And for the last couple of years it’s fallen that close to my birthday, so I treat it like part of my birthday celebrations. This year I also get to see the latest Avengers movie too (which I haven’t at the time of writing, but I’ve still got time to do so).

We started off our International Tabletop Day gaming session with the deluxified version of The Flow of History that I’d backed on a Kickstarter last year.

How to describe the game, it’s a civilisation style card game with that’s bit of an engine builder with a kind of auction mechanic.

The auction like mechanic is used to purchase cards to go in your civilisation (read engine). On your go you get to take one of about 4 actions. One of which is to put a bid on a card that has not been bid on yet in the market place. You can only have one bid active at a time. If on your next turn your bid hasn’t been sniped, then you are able to claim/complete that bid. You don’t have to, you can leave the bid there and do one of the other 3 actions available. One of them is sniping another players bid. That’s basically where if you have the resources you can match another players bid and take the card for yourself. The draw back is that player you are sniping the card from gets the money back plus half of the supply of resources rounded down. Which could be giving them lots of resources to snipe back with, or secure a card with so no one else can get it. It’s a rather nifty mechanic that can be quiet tactical, because you could put a bid in hoping to be sniped because you know another player needs the card.

There is some combat but it’s a very easy system to follow, quick, and doesn’t slow down game play at all. Plus it takes away the “so and so is just targeting me” because it relies on players building up defences and trying not to be the weakest. Being the weakest is the main criteria for selecting who to target in a combat, unless there is a draw for that honour. Then the attacking player gets to decide.

There is a hint of variable powers with the initial government card you get during setup. It kind of directs the direction you will take your civilisation. Mine had the military/combat symbol so that hinted I should be utilising this in the cards I selected.

I love the quality of the components of this deluxified version that TMG produced, especially the lovely metal resource coins. Metal coins are always cool.

I really liked the game, definitely a good decision to back this. Can’t wait to play again. Oh yeah, Jeff won this one with Diego and myself tying for first loser.

Our second and final game of the day was Anno 1701: Das Brettspiel. This is a German language only game I believe, which is a shame as I really like the game.

If you like Catan I don’t see how you wouldn’t like this game. It shares a lot of similar mechanics of Catan with some extras. Extras like unique player boards that you will develop, and depending on dice rolls get resources from. Plus you also have an exploration element where you are trying to explore islands to get bonuses and possibly extra resource opportunities. Then you have a too and fro for victory points on 4 tracks represent fire power, trading, happy populace and one other. Basically the leader on each track gets to claim a victory point, lose the lead and that point goes to the new leader instead. So until a player gets to the max position on the track that victory point isn’t safe.

Yeah a fun take on the Catan style of games. I might even have to track down a copy and print out the translated rules. It’s fairly language independent, with minimal text on game components.

It’s these extras that I really like. I enjoy Catan, but this for me is a better experience for a gamer. History will show that Diego managed to snatch victory away from Jeff, scoring a massive 3 victory points in his final turn. Well if he hadn’t Jeff would have won.

A great afternoon gaming, and some great first plays. How do you top that? Visit the local pet store to get some stuff for my mums cats litter tray. How life in the fast lane.

More Epic Space Battles

Fenland Gamers, Game day

I’m going to start this post off with a clip from the most pointless sequel ever The Huntsman Winter’s War.


It’s that last few seconds where evil Queen played by Charlize Theron leans over and almost whispers “and you thought it was just a Game”. I’d like to pretend I’m a mine of movie clips and quotes for all occasions , but sadly I’m not. I just happened to be watching this first thing over my coffee and chocolate chip brioche, and thought “oh how appropriate, that sums up TI:4”.

We were due to start playing at 10:30. So to cut down on the prep and let us start playing as quickly as possible I got to The White Lion early to set up. The official FFG 20th anniversary 3ft by 3ft playmat looks awesome.

Despite starting at 10:28 to go through the selecting of races, setting up the tiles of our galaxy, placing initial forces, choosing our initial secret objective and other game play set up steps, which did include a brief how to play for our new player, the process still took 40 minutes. A very brief break for the usual refreshments, bodily movements, and nicotine hits for those that needed them, then saw our empires start competing for glory and power.


For a long time the game was fairly peaceful, no battles. Just some trading, swapping promissory notes, etc. Our galactic empires expanded, planets grabbed, borders established. But the expansionist ambitions of Jeff with his 2 war suns was starting to become a big threat on the board. Somehow I managed to grab Mecatol Rex and hold on to it. If only I’d been able to pull off the same stunt with my home worlds against Jeff. The fall of my home planets gave Jeff 2 of the 3 final victory points he needed to grab the win when it came to claiming the open objectives. A completed secret objective was the third.

So since getting Twilight Imperium 4th Edition last year, this is the third time I’ve played it. Which isn’t bad considering the share scale of the game. But the more important fact is Jeff has won all 3 games. Although I seem to be improving because I got a score of 7 this time. My highest score so far.

We had a great day playing TI:4, and what I still find amazing is despite it taking a long time to play, it just doesn’t seem that long, and time flies. It like you start playing in the morning and then the next thing you know it’s the evening. Time travel folks.

Can’t wait to play Xia next and then to organise the next session for TI:4.

Big Lizards and Elves Rule The Planet

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night, magic, MtG

Today instead of the planned games of Brawl we ended up playing Commander. This meant I could try out the new decks. First up for my testing was Elf Tribal. Dale played with the Plunder the Graves precon. Whilst our opponents had a snake themed deck, and the Heavenly Inferno precon.

Surprisingly there were no board wipes played during this first game, and unbeknown to me this would be a trend for the days games of Commander. with no board wipes my Elves were able to run rampant, build up a big board state and just win.

The second Commander game saw my Dragon Tribal getting an outing. So Dale played my Dinosaur Tribal deck, whilst once again we were up against the snakes deck and the Guided by Nature precon this time. So basically big creatures against 2 decks that were going wide. There was a kind of early board wipe when I bought on to the battlefield my Deathbringer Regent, that destroys all other creatures if there are 5 or more other creatures on the battlefield. Which at the time I played him there was. After that for some reason the Dinosaur deck refused to play ball for Dale and gave him nothing. While I was just allowed to get lots and lots of dragons on the board. Mainly in the form of 3/3 cat dragon tokens (through Wasitora, Nekoru Queen), and 6/6 red dragons with Utvara Hellkite. And that is the one that was making things insane for me. I think my killing blow to Dale if it was real would have been a Dale looking up at the sky, and not seeing the sun. Mainly because due to the share number of dragons flying in they blocked out the sky.

After playing my now standard legal black aggro deck against Dale and a new deck he had created (I won that game). I played Commander again. This time I played the Dinosaur tribal deck, and it worked for me. I got Huatli, Warrior Poet out early, and from there each turn I was getting a 3/3 green dinosaur token with tramp. I was getting other dinosaurs out, including my Commander. Once again unchecked and no board wipes my board state was too powerful.

My fourth and final Commander game for the day was with my Elf Tribal and with the reoccurring theme of the day of no board wipes hit it’s grove and just laid waste to my opponents. I have to admit during the games I did have a tinge of guilt at times, usually when I had such overwhelming forces and was just about to unleash total destruction on them.

Afterwards Dale and I played some games of Standard using the new Challenger decks. Sadly the Approach deck didn’t do too well this time against the Hazoret one.

I don’t feel that my Commander decks are that good. It’s just with no board wipes and not kept in check they were allowed to do their thing. The tribal element was working well. Which reminds me, I need to revisit my Dinosaur Tribal deck and try and squeeze in these new tribal cards I have. So a Dinosaur Tribal v3 deck is on the cards.

In the evening it was the monthly meet up for the Fenland Gamers. Our first game of the evening was Snow Tails. This was a new game to us all apart from Gavin who owned it, and had played it once.

This is basically a husky sledge racing game in the style of Formula D, but with out the dice rolling. That part has been replaced by cards.

A nice twist to the game format is that crossing the finish line first does not mean you have automatically won. What counts is how far past the finish line you finish. So unless you crash out of the race by taking on too much damage, then you still have a chance of winning.

Managing your sledge with the cards so you determine it’s speed and whether it pulls to the left and right is at times tricky. Especially when you have to negotiate obstacles and corners. Plus there are various check points on the track that if you are going to fast through them mean you take on damage.


And I do like the damage mechanic of this game. You have a hand of 5 cards. When you play 1 or 2 cards on your turn you then draw back up to 5 cards. But if you take damage you draw a damage card instead that reduces the number of cards you have to play with, and stays in your hand. They can’t be removed from your hand. So when you take a fifth bit of damage that’s it you have crashed out of the game.

This is a nice game which I found although similar to Formula D, was also different enough to be a refreshing take on the genre. In our game only 2 players finished the game. Jeff, Gavin and myself crashed out of the game.

Our second and final game of the night was Roll for the Galaxy. Like a couple of recent games I’ve played at meet ups this was another game that hasn’t been to the table since October 2016. So I was a bit rusty on the rules, and don’t think I did a good job of explaining the rules. I do like this game, but I don’t think I’ve won a game yet. Which is my way of saying I didn’t win, that honour was taken by Jeff.

After all this I gaming it was time for home and some hunting for highlights of Liverpools victory over City.

Been a long time since I rock n rolled

Fenland Gamers, Game day

It was a long day yesterday. It started off making the journey over to my FLGS The Hobbit Hole to pick up my pre-order of the final ever Duel Deck for MtG, Elves vs Inventors. This according to all the reviews I’ve seen wasn’t a great last hurrah for the product range. I was just getting it to not even add to my little collection of Duel Decks, but to harvest it for cards, particularly elves. The rest of my pre-order were the four new ready for prime time FNM Challenger Decks. These decks currently at present market values represent great value for money. The Hazoret Aggro with it’s copy of Hazoret and Chandra currently is amazing value. Both cards at time of writing were clocking in at £20+ a copy.


My intention is to also break up these decks and use the cards elsewhere. But first I want to play some games with them.

Whilst at my FLGS my pusher of cardboard and plastic known as the store owner John showed me the promo cards for the store championship being held the next day and for the open house the following weekend. Both elf cards. At the store championship a full art steal leaf champion, and the open house will have a full art Llanowar Elves. Both look rather cool. Yeah I want these for my Elf Commander deck. So I signed up for the store championship. I’m going to use one of the Challenger Decks to see how these do against more serious players (I’m lead to believe one of the stores regular FNM players is an ex pro player). Let’s put WotC claims to the test.

After my visit to my FLGS it was a rush back to Wisbech and The White Lion to meet up with Jeff and play War of the Ring. This was the second time I’ve played the game (the first time was the later part of 2016), so I needed a brief rules refresher. Once again I played as the free people of Middle Earth. Once again I got my butt kicked. I’m pretty sure that Jeff was taking it easy of me. I need to play this more often and look into tactics a bit more if I’m to progress at this game and be more of a challenge to Jeff.

We had a little time to kill between my shameful defence of Middle Earth and an evening gaming session. So Jeff kindly agreed to play some Magic using the new Challenger decks. I’m not going to say much about these games here, but save my thoughts until after the store championship when I will give my thoughts on the decks.

Six thirty came, Jonathan and Nathaniel arrived and Istanbul fully loaded with all the expansions and the kebab shop promo hit the table. Shockingly this is another game, although a favourite of ours that hadn’t hit the table since late 2016 also. That is the problem with having so many games between us. So many good ones there is never enough time to play them all. Apparently partners, families, work all want a piece of our time.

Jeff won our game of Istanbul, and the important part is Jonathan didn’t score more highly than me, we finished equal second. Friendly rivalry is always good.

It had been a long day, and a brain burning one too. So Jeff and I said our good byes and left the other two to play a Rick and Morty game of some description. Besides despite having a sandwich and chips for lunch at the hotel I was hungry and tired.

I love days like this.