The last day of half term started off with Edmund, and Jonathan being regaled with my tales of woe about the Sub Terra kickstarter. I have to say the publisher ITB have left a very bad taste in the mouth, making me less than enthusiastic about the game. There is no way I will ever back or buy one of their games again. In the meantime all I want is for them to fix the mistakes and missing items in my copy of the game. Then I need to decide if I want to keep the game or sell it on. 

After hearing my tales of deceit, poor quality control, broken promises and general inability to organise a piss up at a brewery we switched to lying and bluffing playing the classic Perudo aka Liars Dice. Which thinking about it is the game that best describes ITB.

While we were partaking in this battle of wits, Diego arrived. By the time he had purchased his usual beverage, Edmund was on the brink of being eliminated. 

It was just Jonathan and I, and three dice between us. In the end I was proven to be the biggest liar and bluffer.

For a city I hate, I sure like London (Second Edition). This time we were playing with the full player count. And with the help of Edmund a correction to a major misplay from the first play last weekend.

The rules correction did impact how many times we ran our cities, well for Jonathan and I. It added another element to consider, hand size. Last weekend we hadn’t been adding in poverty for each card in our hand when running our cities. It did make us run our cities less.

London held up well with the maximum player count. I liked it as a two player game and at the full count. There aren’t many games that can do this.

Edmund won the game after having to go to a tie breaker with Diego. More importantly I was third. Only four points behind them.

And that was our Friday evening of gaming. 

Remember my post about my students enthusiasm for Magic since being introduced to the game? They are even emailing me (at work) telling me about their new purchases.

After spending most of the day tucked up on the sofa sipping lemsip and having snoozes, fighting the symptoms of man flu, I dragged myself off my sickbed to play Guilds of London. Maybe we should have played Pandemic instead the way I was feeling.

Guilds of London was lasted played by Jonathan and myself in June 2016. Basically just after last years expo where we both bought the game (my copy was signed by the designer Tony Boydell, while Jonathan forgot to get his signed). Like Covert (and many others in our collections) Guilds of London has been kept away from the table by the cult of the new, and other great games. Which is a shame because this too is a really good game. It’s not a game for new players to the hobby, or those that like lighter games. Which is also a factor that kept it away from the table.

Naturally with with just two players we used the two player setup for the game. And after refreshing our faded memories about the rules, I took an early lead.

There was a major struggle for control for the Church of St Lawrence Jewry. 4 points and four cards were at stake. After three attempts to resolve it, we were still tied. The fourth time it went to Jonathan. But not long afterwards realised that the third tie I should have claimed it because I had a guildmaster adjacent to the tile.

It was not until the final three rounds that Jonathan caught up score wise and over took me to get the win.

Guilds of London is still a great game, with still its main problem being decoding the meaning of the cards. It should have had four player aids instead of just the two. 

After the game Jonathan and I chatted, but I wasn’t feel too good. Playing the game had taken it out of me. I was getting hot, and the effects of the lemsip were wearing off. 

A great evening gaming, but it nearly killed me!

Somehow Jonathan, Edmund, and myself managed to fight our way through the trials and tribulations of life to get to the White Lion last night to play games.

One of the hardest things to do for a game night is deciding before hand what to take along to possibly play. Too many games competing for attention. Thanks to the “I’m going” option of the Facebook event for the evening it helps narrow the options down. But it’s still a hard decision. You have to cater for those going (taking into account their likes and dislikes) and potentially for anyone else that turns up.

In the end, after minutes of indecisiveness, I grabbed Tiny Epic Quest, The Manhattan Project, Love Letter: Batman and Red 7.

Our first game of the evening was the classic worker placement game The Manhattan Project. 

When I recorded that we were playing the game in the boardgame stats app it showed as a first play! So it has been around two years since Jonathan and I last played the game. That’s so shameful. A great game like The Manhattan Project deserves to be played more regularly. But with so many games between us, and new stuff coming in, it’s so hard to get everything to the table.

With there being such a long gap since our long play we were having to refresh our memories of the rules, whilst explaining the rules to Edmund. 

I have the expansion for the game, which is modula (you only play with the bits you want to). The bit we have played with is the Nations module, which are some cards that make each player unique, giving them an ability that only they can use. I combine the expansion Nation cards with the cards from the Nations mini expansion.

Jonathan had forgotten about testing bombs, which he remembered after I tested mine. But at that point it was too late he’d screwed his game plan up. I was the first to test a bomb, therefore picking up 8 whole points. There was some pressure from Edmund but I’d got a good engine going on my player board that meant I was mostly just doing actions on my board and not the main one.

I managed to grab the win. But Edmund and I had ran way ahead on the points front. 

We really are blessed with some great worker placement games in our collections. It’d be fair to say we enjoy that mechanic. We must try harder getting them to the table. But it won’t be easy.

Our second and final game of the evening was a learning game of Red 7.

I’d picked this up at the Expo. Since it’s release a couple of years ago now it’s had really good buzz. 

Having now played the game I can see why. At first it seems so simple. 49 cards, split between 7 colours each numbered between 1 to 7. Each colour is associated with a rule, for example for Red the rule is highest value wins. Each player starts with a hand of 7 cards, and a face up card in front of them called their pallete. On your turn you can play a card to your pallete, to the canvas (like a discard pile) to change the rule. Or do both. The only condition is you have to be winning at the end of your turn or you are out.

This is a real thinker. It’s great fun playing it in the basic mode, or the advanced. Basic mode is a single round game. Advanced is first to a point total based on number of players. With 3 players it was 35 points. The advanced mode sees cards being removed and kept to one side to track points. The winner of a round scores the cards that meets the winning criteria. They go under that players player reference. So removed from the game. Which adds another level of strategy you have to consider. Plus it’s possible to draw cards in the advanced mode. It’s so much fun in advanced mode. It gets even more thinky! 

Plus we didn’t use the optional rule that brings into play the icons on the odd numbered cards!

Oh Edmund rocked this game and won the basic game and the advanced one.

This was a fun game. Lived up to the hype. Will definitely be hitting the table again.

A great evening gaming again, with great people. Cliched I know. But it’s true.

Same time next week?

Last night an assassin managed to stop Jonathan and Chris attending the weekly Friday evening meet up. Luckily Edmund and I have far superior ninja skills and managed to dodge the assassins attempts on us.

Our first game of the evening was a game I’ve been wanting to get to the table since I purchased it. That game is Broom Service. A game I’ve referred to as Kiki’s Delivery Service the boardgame! 

Seeing as this was our first play and we were learning from the rule book, we played the basic game.

This was despite my loss a nice game.

The pick up and deliver aspect with the correct coloured potions having to go to correct coloured castles. Added to the fact some of the castles once delivered to are blocked for the duration of the game, is fun.  The delivering and blocking a castle does add a kind of take that, foil your opponents plans element to the game.

I really liked the action selection process. Each player has ten cards to choose four from. Those four cards will be the possible actions you take that round. Each card has a brave action and a cowardly action. Then the starting player selects one of their four cards and plays it. When they play the card they select which of the two actions on the card they are going to do. If it was the cowardly one they donthe action immediately. If it was the brace action they may not get to do it. They have to wait and see. Now one player order the other players also have to play the same card if they selected it in their four cards. When they play the card they two have to decide which action to do. If it’s the brave action the previous player who selected brave gets to do nothing that turn. It’s only the last player to play that card and selected the brave action that gets to do it. All the others that played it and selected brace get to do nothing. So you have a push your luck element here. Plus this whole selecting cards trying to choose cards that have actions you want to do, but also having to work out which actions other players maybe selecting. Add in a dummie hand for lower player counts adds even more things to consider. Play an action that matches one of the dummie actions and you lose 3 points. And these change each round. Yeah I like this mechanic a lot.

I also like round cards that add some new condition/rule to that round. These can have positive and negative consequences. Plus these are a great way to track the seven rounds.

The art is a lovely cartoon like style. Lovely counters for the potions and witches. It’s an attractive game. 

Luckily for me Edmund didn’t lap me on the score track, that would be embarrassing. He only nearly doubled my score. 

Our final game saw us slowing the place down, going back to art school in Kanagawa. I’m not going to say much about this. I’ve spoken about it the past. It’s a beautiful looking game, with some lovely mechanics and decisions. Sadly I lost to Edmund again. 

A great evening gaming with a really great guy.