Category Archives: Fenland Gamers

Fenland Gamers

I survived!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is a fun game.

History will record Marcin won on a technicality.

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

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

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

I now need to write up these decks.

New Games To The Table

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After going through the rules we started stamp collecting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Growing trees

Fenland Gamers, game night

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

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

This was Charlene’s deluxe kickstarter edition.

Wow! The production on this deluxe edition is phenomenal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to club nights

Fenland Gamers, game night

I’m back baby!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The final game for our table was Dandelions.

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

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

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

So yes I cooked the steak when I got home.

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

I played some games on my days off!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday Afternoons Game of Tapestry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A late flurry of gaming

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

Two days off over the Easter weekend have allowed me to get in some late gaming for the March stats.

Saturday saw me meeting up with Jeff and Charlene at the usual place to play a game or two.

Our first game was Arabella. Which if Jeff hadn’t got his final objective card I’d have won. And my victory would have been oh so sweet. Unintentional, and literally the games equivalent of winning Viticulture (base game) by not making any wine (which I have done).

All game I had the starting engine and a level 2 engine. Eventually Jeff and Charlene bought some carriages so my early investment in their shares started to pay off. But still with no carriages my dividends were worthless to them both.

This games end was triggered by Jeff reaching the end of the 10 money track on his sheet.

Somehow until we picked up Jeff was owed another objective card I was winning! It was insane. I would have easily have bet money that Charlene and Jeff were doing much better than me, and I was going to score hardly anything.

So yes Jeff won.

We followed Arabella up with Dandelions. This was probably the worst I’ve done in a game of this. I didn’t score a single majority. Jeff won this too.

The afternoons gaming was wrapped up with me introducing Ship, Captain, Crew to Jeff and Charlene.

Ship, Captain, Crew is fastly becoming a favourite little filler game. Four or five rounds take hardly any time to play. I won this time breaking Jeff’s run of victories.

I keep saying this but it’s true I had a great afternoon gaming with two great friends.

Sunday saw me meeting up with Charlene and her daughter once again at the usual spot to yep play games.

Despite being a relaxed afternoon of gaming we got five games to the table in about two and a half hours.

Our first two games were new to me.

Spots was a cool, light, dice game. It had Roll for it, Age Of War vibes with the completing dogs, with a nice buried dice mechanic that added a push your luck element to the game.

The other new game was Kohaku a tile drafting themed around making a koi pond. This definitely had Kingdomino vibes to it. A very quick light and fun game.

We followed up with a game of all in Parks. So both the Nightfall and Wildlife expansions were in play.

Dandelions hit the table next so that Annabelle could try the game, with a view to them teaching their Nan the game on an upcoming holiday.

Our final game of the fun afternoon gaming was, you guessed it, Ship, Captain, Crew.

New Arrivals

The first batch (there will be more over the years) of a club poker chip arrived.

When it comes to this sort of stuff I’m prioritising those that attend club nights regularly and are long time members.

Fenland Gamers Poker Chip

The BattleTech Alpha Strike Starter Box arrived. I’m writing more about this in another post. The counter pack has also arrived. But it’s fair to say that I’m dipping my toes into this game.

I also picked up a Dice Masters collection which I need to sort through. And I know this sounds like a cop out but this too will be the subject of another blog post.

Finally whilst waiting for repairs to my car I made the mistake of walking into Waterstones. Where seeing they still had a prerelease kit bought into the latest ccg to hit stores Star Wars Unlimited.

I’d tried so hard to not go down this rabbit hole. My wallet can’t take another ccg. But here I am dipping my toes.

Well the late flurry of weekend gaming gave me probably my best months gaming in over six months. The makes me happy.

Top 9 Games Played

Stats for the month.

All the games played in March.

Full list of games played

So so tired

Fenland Gamers, game night, life, the universe, and everything, outdoors, still alive

After having three days off where I got to game with Jonathan. Which was the first time in a longtime. Plus attend a Fenland Gamers club night (something that is a rarity these days). At which I got to game with more friends I hadn’t played with in a while (hello Ben).

Games that saw the table in these two sessions were Dandelions, Can’t Stop, Senso: Battle for Japan, Macao, Ship Captain Crew, and Sea Salt & Pepper. Plus two games that Ben owned No Mercy, and Come Sail Away!

It was back to work and a pretty full on four days that were quite frankly draining. Especially after one shift I didn’t have any real recovery time because of union meetings I had to attend. I actually ended up having a snooze in the car between the last union meeting and the start of my shift.

The knock on effect was I was too tired to write anything about the gaming I mentioned above. Or get to mention that it came to light Jonathan has been playing trick taking games wrongly for a very long time. Basically the mistake was playing a trump card when you could follow suit. You have to follow suit. If you can’t then you can play a trump card (if you have any) or “dump” a card from another suit.

As I write this life update I have two much needed days off. Followed by a day back at work. Followed by four days off. What am I going to do in those days off? It’s not long enough to visit Nathan and give mum time to recover! Yes mum needs recovery time after I go away. I’ve factored it for UKGE for example. Apparently looking after Nico and Loki the two attack chihuahuas can be very taxing.

I’m in the process of buying a small dice masters collection. Which will help with the cube building. More on this once it happens.

Until the next big expansion for Marvel Champions Age of Apocalypse comes out (tomorrow/next week?) I now have a complete set of cards. I ordered the final three hero packs that I needed (Venom, Gamora, and Drax) that arrived at the start of the week. The nice thing about getting these older hero packs is the fact you don’t have to pay full price for them. They get nice reductions.

I just need to get the game to the table, get a storage solution, and sleeve the thousands of cards!

Having Tuesday as a dead game night at the moment is killing me. It was really cool that on a Tuesday those of us that liked ccg/tcg/lcg type games had a regular evening where we could play these style of games. I need to be more proactive in my efforts to find somewhere.

Oh I did get a quick chance yesterday to play around with my fire starting kit! I need to start playing around with this more. Get more confident in using it, and develop my fire starting skills.

So yesterday using a piece of fat wood (resin rich pine wood) I created some tinder to start a fire with. Then using a fero rod and striker to create sparks managed to get the tinder to light. This little exercise did not involve me building this into a roaring fire. Its aim was to get the tinder going. I followed this up with using the fero rod and striker to start a tinder wick. Which started first strike! Wow that was impressive.

My final little play with fire for the afternoon was to start a trangia burner with the fero rod and striker. Which worked really well. Why hadn’t I done this back when I was doing all the meth stove reviews?

My Kelly Kettle Trekker also arrived. Looks a lovely bit of kit. Although the pot and lid look too small to be of any practical use. I can’t see them being used at all, and replaced by one of my titanium pots.

Hopefully I’ll get to try out the Kelly Kettle on one of my days off. Who knows I might even film my initial efforts with it!

What’s new pussy cat?

bgstat, by the numbers, Fenland Gamers, gaming stats, life, the universe, and everything, stats, still alive

January was a slightly better month for me gaming wise than the previous two months. But still the numbers weren’t great.

However I should be grateful that I got to play some games. Especially that some of those games were with Nathan.

Now I am hoping now that Nathan is driving, and has a new car. That Nathan will be able to navigate the British roads to find his way up to mine. Enabling us to play some of the bigger games that are not an option at his due to the clash between game foot print and the size of his table. Or in simpler terms his table isn’t big enough. To be able to at last share my favourite game of all time Scythe with him will be amazing.

My top 9 games for January 2024

What I do find incredible from last months stats is that I played 10 (not 11 as Knock Out Whist aka Trumps was not a new to me game) new to me games. That’s two thirds of the games I played in January.

I have ordered twenty new custom d6 dice for Fenland Gamers members to have. It’s a new design for the six face, that has the club name and year.

Like the previous design (which I still have some left) I’ll be giving them out to regular club members for free.

I even have a design ready to go for UKGE this year to give to club members that make it to the show and the annual club picture that gets taken there.

Plus I want to do a club poker chip. But I have to buy them in quantities of fifty to get them at a reasonable price. They are also a bit more expensive. So they will have to wait until later in the year.

There is only so much I can finance out of my own pocket for this sort of stuff. I’m not on some CEO banker salary.

I like being able to do stuff like this for members.

Whilst I’m talking about Fenland Gamers and this ties in with the last life, the universe, and coffee post, I am testing the waters on the viability of Sunday sessions. At the moment I have created one club event to gauge interest. I’ll write more on that in future I’m sure.

Payday was Friday. Which was just at the right time to enable me to order the latest offering from Stonemaier Games, Wyrmspan, along with the optional deluxe component kit. I’ll leave the neoprene playmats until the next payday, along with the Rolling Realms promo packs.

Interesting enough this release of Wyrmspan has an initial print run of 100,000 copies. That’s a crazy number. Usually (I think I’m remembering this correctly) publishers print twenty to thirty thousand copies of a game initially. Then if the game does well do a second print run.

We know Wingspan sold an insane number of copies (well over 1.5 million by now I would think). But does that incredible success translate to Wyrmspan?

I can’t wait to see the next state of the nation post/email from Stonemaier Games where they give the total number of copies sold for each of their games.

Until Wingspan, Scythe was the bestseller. I’m just curious to see if Apiary and/or Wyrmspan have it in them to challenge Scythe for that number two spot. I am expecting them both to do well.

When I was sharing with a friend at work Friday morning that I had ordered Wyrmspan she said my face lit up. I guess I’m pretty excited about getting the game.

Myths and trains

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night

Friday morning was the last morning of my visit with Nathan.

Usually I get a whole morning with him before setting off after lunch. But this time I had to leave before lunch so I was back in time for a Teams call.

Leaving earlier meant I was back in time to attend the Fenland Gamers club night. But more importantly able to try Cyclades.

It’s been on my wish list for yonks. I even backed the Kickstarter for the second edition (granted at the $1 level to get me access to the backerkit) last year.

So what did I think of Cyclades?

I enjoyed it.

I liked the bidding mechanic for the gods and your place in turn order for taking your turn. Which then determined where you were next round in the bidding order.

But did I like it enough to buy the second edition?

Now that is a tough question.

I have Kemet (first edition plus expansions), Cry Havoc, and Scythe. Those three were good enough to fight off Inis taking one of their spots. And I did like Inis just not as much as the others.

And I think Cyclades is falling into that same situation. I like it but enough to get rid of one of the three already mentioned? If you asked me to play one of them right now, I think I’d still go with one of the three over Cyclades.

So it looks like I’ll leave it to Ben to buy the new edition of Cyclades and play that when it arrives (Q4 of this year?)

Saturday saw Jeff and myself meet up to try the 18xx roll and write Arabella. Which had arrived that morning.

I’d only heard about Arabella days earlier via a tweet on X/Twitter. It intrigued me. However nowhere seemed to be selling it. Unless I wanted to import it. Luckily there was a copy in the UK going on the bgg marketplace. Which I snapped up.

When it arrived it was still in shrink.

When I read the rulebook I thought wow this is going to be on the heavier side of roll and writes.

There was one hiccup to playing Arabella. When I told Jeff it was an 18xx inspired game he was apprehensive about it. He is not a fan of 18xx games.

I’d never played an 18xx game before. So this was going to be a way for me to dip my toe in to the 18xx water.

For this first game I went against the advice of the rulebook and didn’t use the AI to add a third player. I want to be able to just focus on the game and not have the overhead and distraction of running the AI.

It is interesting that there are no setup adjustments for player count. Well not if you discount the placement of cubes during setup.

Arabella didn’t disappoint.

It is on the heavier side of the roll and writes.

I really enjoyed it and surprisingly so did Jeff.

It had the feel of an 18xx but not the drawback(s) according to him. Particularly the share side.

We both agreed the wooden dice are ok, but would it have hurt to use plastic ones?

The rulebook is ok. Slight grammar errors. Plus it was not clear that the white dice are your starting dice. But I’m giving a little leeway as the designers are east European I believe, and it could just be a translation issue.

The game does start slow as you start to build your railway, but boy does it ramp towards the end.

Arabella is also a very mathy game! Especially when running your trains or calculating the share dividends.

I definitely need to play this with more players. I think it’s going to be a very different experience.

We followed up with a game of one of Jeff’s Christmas presents Star Trek Away Missions.

This is a fun two player Star Trek game. I played the Federation with a ST:TNG crew, whilst Jeff played the Borg.

It was the intro scenario we played.

So basically I needed to complete at least five mission cards over the three rounds to get my objective points at the end.

This is a skirmish like game or shares some of the mechanics. Players take turns activating a character in their squad/team. The game that comes to kind with that activating mechanic is Star Wars Imperial Assault or Last Days.

There is hand management as well to consider not only for your mission cards, but also for m

Because the game is played over three rounds it is very quick.

I liked it and would play again.

Brief club night report

Fenland Gamers, game night

I made a second club night last night.

It looked like there was going to be seven of us for the evening. However two turned up who hadn’t indicated they were coming. It also didn’t help that they came in and went out without saying a word! Turns out they went to get something to eat first. Would have been nice to know.

Whilst that was going on Marcin, Diego, and myself played Apiary.

The following is how the faction and hive mats went.

  • Sime & The Warre (Me)
  • Jemit & The Poppleton (Diego)
  • Iber & The Skep (Marcin)

I had a blinder of a game. I wasn’t sure if I’d done enough to overcome the early lead on the score track that Diego had taken.

But once again getting a lot of seed cards, playing combos, getting three planted, plus three honey comb tiles meant I had enough end game scoring going on. Plus I barely explored once again.

As the final scores show I did really well. Even improving on my previous 100+ score.

Diego’s score was better than my first time playing.

Our next and final game Vaalbara was played with now two well fed members. Diego rocked this one and easily won the game.

Whilst we got two games in, the other table managed to play one four player game of Amun-Ra.

It was a great evening.