Category Archives: Fenland Gamers

Fenland Gamers

Lost Gods And Pyramids 

ages, Fenland Gamers

Yesterday morning I had to visit the local post office collection point to pay import duty of £12.88 on my Kickstarter copy of AGES. I don’t mind paying the duty. I do mind that £8 of that fee is the criminal “handling fee” paid to the post office. But I had the final production copy of the game I was excited to open it up. More on this later in the post.

So lunchtime yesterday Jonathan and I met up to play Kemet and Last Will.

We were going to start off with Kemet. Sadly as we were setting up it was discovered that there were no pyramids (and later it clicked no creature miniatures). This was the source of a little amusement to Jonathan. It’s fair to say I was not exactly happy with this poor quality control by the publisher. 

But I’ve logged a support call with the publisher. So another test of a publisher has started.

So with the bits of Kemet I did have packed away, we setup and learnt Brewsters Millions. Oops no we didn’t, it was called Last Will, which is really the board game of the movie without the license. 

Although not nearly as bad as say Guilds of London the iconography of the cards does take a little decoding. Having individual player reference sheets would help with this. Sadly none are included with the game. 

I liked that seeing as we were playing a two player game it made adjustments and gave us both an extra counter to block off one of the card/worker/action selection spaces. That blocking took place before selecting of a space you wanted took place. But that selecting of the space you wanted also acted as player order for the later phases. 

I felt the “worker placement” phase limited, and frustrating. You have a max of two “workers” you can place, although it could be just one depending on the previous phase and the card/worker/action space you selected. I would have liked a way to get an extra “worker” to use here. 

I did like the changing card market place, that adjusted the card types populating it depending on round. So no “I’ll get that card next turn”, you won’t because it goes and gets replaced by something new.

You are building a “engine” in front of you on your tableau for spending money. But it’s also possible to get bonus actions. So for example my “engine” was giving me two extra actions each turn. Your starting tableau has a fixed capacity to start with, but it can be expanded using one of the options available in the worker placement phase.

The instructions could be written more clearly. But isn’t that a common complaint about games? We found bits confusing or just not clear.

I enjoyed Last Will. It was fun. I’d definitely play again if it was bought to the table. And that’s despite Jonathan winning!

Our second game was AGES. Now I know Jonathan doesn’t like deck builders! In fact it’s one of his least liked mechanics, sitting just above his least liked of roll and move. 

But still Jonathan played AGES.

I really do like the final production of AGES. The cards look stunning and they are good quality. The box is beautiful, and enough space to store all the cards sleeved. A little thing, but there are two foam blocks to keep the cards in place inside the box. I like that, attention to detail. The rule book is a big improvement over the original one. Overall this is a very good, no that’s wrong it’s a high quality produced game. 

There wasn’t much take that going on in our game. Maybe that’s due to the cards that came out. I think I was the only one playing locations and using their abilities. But that’s just the luck of the draw and trade row!

Jonathan struggled with the text size on the cards at times. But we are old, and eye sight at times can let us down. On a serious note though, although an issue for Jonathan it’s not unique to AGES. Imperial Settlers, War of the Ring to name one or two others that have the same issue. 

The elite phase of the game is one of my favourite mechanics of the game. I ended up buying one elite character just to stop its elite phase ability. It had hurt me that turn costing me points, because I had no starter cards left to get rid of, and had only good cards in my hand.

It was interesting watching Jonathan playing. He was scrapping a lot less than me, and buying more of the 2 gold value cards. So his deck was way more “bloated” than my lean and mean deck. That may in part due to Jonathan having less opportunities to scrap. He was aware of the value of getting rid of the starting cards. 

I have to admit I thought Jonathan was going to win with lots of little points. But in the end my convincing victory would have been a lot closer, if not a loss due to a misplay by Jonathan. If Jonathan had managed to buy the elite character I bought triggering the end game, that would have stopped me buying it, and would have ended the game. Plus those points I lost because of that elite phase would have come back and haunted me and cost me the win. 

Jonathan liked the Splendor like aspect of collecting the icons and having them out in front of you, and their dual use to trigger abilities and reduce the cost of elite characters.

As I said Jonathan doesn’t like deckbuilders. He’s also not a fan of sci-fi, and fantasy themes. Which just about covers most deckbuilders. So having one that uses a historical theme means at least the theme was more likely to appeal to Jonathan. 

So when Jonathan said he didn’t dislike the game that’s a big deal. Especially when you consider how he feels about the mechanic.

Me? I really like the game. I love the deckbuilder mechanic. I love looking for those combos, and pulling them off. 

It’s easy to screw up a deckbuilder, just look at the World of Tanks deckbuilder. It’s disappointing that folks can easily get hold of that travesty of a deckbuilder, whilst AGES that really deserves a wider audience isn’t as easily available or known about. 

I really do hope a bigger publisher having seen the final version picks this up, and gives it the marketing love it deserves.

Oh and I love the playmat. 

So despite the shock of the missing bits from Kemet, I had a great afternoon playing games with Jonathan. 

Fenland Gamers November Meetup

Fenland Gamers, game night

The second Wednesday of the month is our monthly meetup. Last night was that Wednesday.
While the Pandemic crew were working to save the world, Diego, Katie and myself decided to take a leisurely walk from Kyto to Edo. Determined to have the best experience possible along the way. Yep we were playing Tokaido.

I’ve had this game for a couple of years now I think. Well certainly since seeing it on the original airing date of Tabletop, and the initial post Tabletop difficulty of trying to get a copy. You remember those don’t you? An episode of Tabletop would appear on YouTube and all of a sudden you can’t find a copy of the game because everyone wants to play the it, so they rush out and buy it, clearing up any stock that is out there in the real world.

Anyway I have played Tokaido a couple of times previously. Once with Nath, and the other with some friends on a game night I had over a year ago now. It was a hit on both occasions. However those plays were before I started recording plays with the app.

Diego and Katie hadn’t played before, and this was my first time in over a year. Even getting the deluxe kit, didn’t get it back to the table despite wanting to play it.

In fact it has been in the bag for game nights a couple of times recently, but it just didn’t see the light of day for whatever reason.

Our game last night was with the deluxe stuff thrown in. So the nice plastic minis, metal coins, and the little plastic parcel score markers.

Tokaido is a beautifully looking game, But when it’s pimped out like this it looks even nicer.

There was a little back and forth between Diego and myself for the lead, with Katie trailing behind on the score board. But in the end, when we added everything up, my journey from Kyto to Edo was the most enjoyable! Yes thats the flowery way of saying I won.

I’m so disappointed with my writing about Tokaido above. I had promised myself the next time I played the game, and wrote about it, I would dig out some of my photos from doing the TGO Challenge, and compare the experience of walking from one side of Scotland to the other was like playing Tokaido, and having that great experience.

The world still hadn’t been saved by the time we had finished playing, in fact they were looking defeat in the face apparently, and wouldn’t be long. So we needed a quick game to play.

Step up to the plate newish arrival FUSE. FUSE plays in ten minutes. Potentially less but no longer. At the end of ten minutes you have either beaten the game, and defused all the bombs, or you have failed miserably and everything has been blown to pieces.

This was the first time for us all playing this co-op dice chucking game. So we set it at it’s easiest level. The game still kicked our butts.

But it was an enjoyable kicking. Look we are not in to that Tory stuff. Although its not very convincing I would imagine because this is the second time I’ve had to make this denial in a post recently.

You really do need the free companion app that you can install on your smart phone, that basically gives you a ten minute countdown with sound effects, and a way to record scores. It just makes life easier when playing, and a bit more atmospheric.

For me FUSE is leaps and bounds above Bomb Squad. Its more enjoyable, and although dependent still to some degree on who you are playing with. It is much much less so.

Our final game of the evening was The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction, while the Pandemic crew played Piece ‘o Cake. The Manhattan Project Chain reaction is a favourite, and probably one of my top Kickstarter backed games. Easily in the top three I think.

Diego and Katie picked the game up quickly, it is very easy to teach and after a turn most people get it. Diego pipped me to the win. One more turn and I would also have scored ten points.

Afterwards a little time was spend discussing Seafall, and Jonathan being lured by shiny metal coins in the copy of the game he was looking at. Plans were made for getting together and playing the prolog of the game. So that we could get a taste for wether this was a game we wanted to make a big commitment to.

Good byes were said. And another great monthly meetup came to an end.

 

Just another cog

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night I got my butt kicked and I liked it! 

Wow! Now hold on I know what you are thinking, it’s not like that. I’m not into that Tory MP stuff.

No we were playing T’zolk’in the Mayan Calandar board game.

Jonathan had got this worker placement game from one of the UK boardgame trading pages on Facebook. And it was time to get it to the table and learn how to play it.

Visually the board looks great, especially with the cogs on it painted black. The previous owner had painted them. Otherwise I wouldn’t say that the rest of the art for the game looks amazing, but I would say it’s ok.

It’s the cogs that make this game unique. You place a worker on the cogs, possibly paying a cost doing so, and ride it round until you hit an action you want to perform. And then perform that action.

Each cog has a different range of abilities based around a theme. Such as getting corn or wood, while another allows you to  place crystal skulls (oh crap I’ve just remembered that awful Indie movie, why oh why couldn’t Spielberg and Lucas leave Indie alone?) to score points and move up a temple.

You have various tiles you can build that give you an instant one off boost, or there are ones that are permanent power ups.

With four scoring opportunities through out the game, you need to make sure you are prepared. Which basically means you need to have enough corn in to feed your workers.

Going first is definitely an advantage. Being able to grab those zero cost spots on the cogs, pushing up placement for the other players.

My first mistake of our learning game was chiding the wrong starting bonuses. Which put me on the back foot right off.

As worker placement games go, this is an above average game. It’s not the best, but definitely not the worst either. I like it, and would gladly play again. Would I go out of my way to ask to play it? Now that’s the question. 

Quantum Creed Looping Cops!

Fenland Gamers, Game day


Well having totally mashed up four time travelling films and tv series to make a blog post title that is a complete disaster this post can only get better right? Wrong!

Yesterday as the Rock would say “finally! T.I.M.E. Stories has hit the table!”

I’m going to give a spoiler warning just in case, and I’m bound to, do disclose spoilers for the games first scenario/mission Asylum. 

So Jonathan, Will, Lucia and I gathered to act as time agents or whatever the game calls us. Whilst Jeff very kindly came along to act as GM/DM for the game. Jeff had played this scenario before. Apparently three times! For the rest of us this was the first time we had ever played the game.

My first recepticle was Vasil, who had a little addiction problem with “nose candy”. Which he apparently had managed to hide three vials of from the screws. And was now able during my control of him to use these vials to roll extra dice, or heal other players! But if he ran out took a permanent life point hit. 

All the recepticles had their strengths and abilities. At the start you are choosing at random which one you want to play, you have no idea which will be useful in the mission ahead. So you go with the one you like the look of. 


The game is fun. I thought there was going to be more puzzles. It was the impression I got from reviews on The Dice Tower. 

In reality it’s more discovering the pieces of the main puzzle, and getting items to unlock more items, and locations.

There are still one or two things we haven’t done in the game. Which means there is a little mystery in the game, that we will never know unless we go back and solve them!

Surprisingly I cracked the main puzzle! Jonathan had been working on it, taking on the mantle of code breaker, making copious notes from the collected clues. But we all put our heads together to solve it when we reached the key point in the game when it needed to be solved to progress.

After that brief flash of glory, I soon became the villain! 

Which I think is unfair it was a majority decision. A naked woman was involved!!! Will went to the toilet at a crucial moment when the vote was taking place. If he’d been there to argue his case. Did I say there was a naked woman? 

Anyway we voted to do as the naked woman requested, which I thought would lead to a final big boss fight. The alternative was to disobey her (she was naked, why would you?) and fight these stone statues that I suspected would come alive, and then fight a big bad.

But no following your pants apparently has bad consequences. I think there might be a life lesson in there somewhere. We instantly failed the mission. No big boss battle! 

Then Will came back from the toilet to face the consequences of his weak bladder. 

See when you look at it in the correct light, the real lesson here is don’t go to the toilet during a key vote. Which leaves my rule of life “do what the attractive naked lady wants” still in place.

Jeff was great as the DM/GM. He had a brilliant wicked cruel streak, planting seeds of doubt at really appropriate moments. I think it really helped having Jeff there, being familiar with the rules etc. It also gave me confidence in playing the game. Going into the game I was worried about the resetting the game part, and how that all worked when you ran out of time. In fact I’d had that concern ever since reading the rules months ago. But between Jeff and actually playing the game that concern vanished.

This is a game that will be dependent on the people you play it with. Have the wrong people and I don’t think the experience will be that enjoyable. We had a fantastic team.

UPDATE: forgot to say how awesome the art work is on the cards. And how clever it is that the backs make up the scene of the room you are in. The art really is stunning.

We had a great time. T.I.M.E. Stories deserved all the praise it has received. If this had been any other month I think I’d be saying this is my game of the month! However as I pointed out in my previous post about game of the year, it’s too early to make that decision. It’s the front runner for sure. And has set a high bar for the likes of Kemet, Scythe, Lunarchitects, and Mechs vs Minions to beat.

I have set a date for The Marcy Case, the second mission and first expansion for T.I.M.E. Stories. So early 2017 hopefully sees the team back together taking on the next challenge.

FEG@WL 4Nov16

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

It’s Friday, it’s five to five and it’s Crackerjack! Oh no wait it’s six and it’s Friday Evening Gaming at The White Lion.

I love starting my weekends this way. Gathered with old friends and making new ones, playing great games, enjoying great beverages, and finishing the evening off with “meat by-products” in a naan with salad and chilli sauce from one of the finest cut-my-own-throat dibbler wanna-be’s in Wisbech. 

Last night was no different. Lucia and Will joined us for the first time. And it was great meeting them. Despite Lucia winning our game of Love Letter Batman , and me not getting a single point. 

It’s one of the things I love about Fenland Gamers as a club. It’s not about winning (ok it might be) but about having a good time. It’s not an uber competitive must win at all costs, throw a temper tantrum if you don’t win. 

We have friendly banter, a laugh and joke about losing, and making sure I finish higher than Jonathan. 

Our second game of the evening was a first time for all of us but Jonathan. But he hadn’t played it for a long while. So it was kinda a level playing ground.

Oh the game Finca. This apparently according to Jonathan is a hard to get game now days. Well unless as Rocket argues I want it more than him, and I bribe one of his kids to “relocate” the game to my collection for me.

It’s a nice game. It makes great use of a rondel disguised as the sails of a windmill or finca as it is called in the game, to collect resources (fruits) and delivery tokens (donkeys) to complete various orders around this island you are on to villagers.

You get four one off use power ups that if not used give you points for each one left. But sometimes you want that power up to give you that little tactical boost.

On each of the zones/areas on the board are a small pile of orders to complete. Clear six(?) of these piles from around the island and the game ends and it’s down to adding the points up. In the meantime when a pile has been completed, a bonus token is awarded to the player with the majority of the indicated fruit type on the token on their completed.

History and my game play tracking app will record I lost, while Will won.

Our final game of the evening was a game that really does not get enough love Bohemian Villages. Jonathan and I love this game. It’s easy to teach and quick to learn. A blast to play. 

Jonathan has the new promo mini expansion from the Brettspiel Advent Calendar 2016. This basically adds three new tokens to the game that you can claim one of if you score thirteen or more on your dice roll. One token is a one off use that anables you to change two dice to a side of your choice. The other two give permanent abilities that either allow you to add one to a dice value or subtract one from a dice value.

I went for the add one to a dice value early on. I found that very useful through out the game. Jonathan got both of the permanent tokens. Which we both agreed at the end was over kill, you only really need one of them. 

But this promo is a nice little addition to the game. It gives you another thing you can do with your dice. I think I’d always play with it (if I had it).

Somehow I had a mare this game and ended up last again! With Jonathan who had been trailing all game taking the victory! 

So another Friday without a win! But despite that I had a blast. That journey to last place each time was fun. 

After a little gaming geek type chat, it was off to binge on “meat by-products” in naan, to bring a great evening to an end.

Fenland Gamers 2016 Survey

Fenland Gamers

A couple weeks back I ran a survey on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page. 

What was the purpose of the survey? To hopefully get some feedback on how we could improve the club for members.

So in the spirit of openness here are the questions, and anonymous responses from that survey.

There are 51 members of the clubs Facebook page. 32 members saw the post about the survey. Or as a rounded up percentage 63% of the pages members saw the post.

We had 10 people complete the survey. So that’s 31% of those that saw the post actually clicked the link and took the survey. So rounding up that means the survey was completed by 20% of the pages members.

So some interesting numbers and feedback to crunch, process, cogitate.

FEG@WL Extended Edition! 

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

With half term coming to an end Fenland Gamers celebrated it with an extended Friday evenings gaming session. 

Our extended session started off with Jeff, Jonathan and myself playing Piece o’ cake. Which is no longer in print. However it is coming out again rethemed around pizza. 

This really simple “I split, you choose” mechanic based game is really deceptive. 

The splitting the cake into enough pieces for each player can be really really tough. You are trying to split it so you get left with something of use for yourself, whilst tempting the others with pieces that won’t score them too many points or give them an advantage. 

Then again choosing which slice to take can be just as tough a decision.

No despite its apparent simplicity this is a nice quick filler game. Don’t be surprised to see the pizza version in my collection at some point in the future.

The history books recorded that Jonathan won the game.

Our second game of the evening was Roll for the Galaxy. 

Yep I know what you are thinking, “wtf how did you get Jonathan to play a sci-fi themed game?” 

Well like BA in the A-Team and getting BA in the air, we had to use copious amounts of drugs, brainwashing and hire some of the best hostage negotiators to get Jonathan at the table to play this game!

And you know what? Jonathan enjoyed the game. Yeah I know. I have to respect Jonathan a lot. Despite knowing the theme was one he didn’t like, he still gave it a shot. 

Our game will have the history books recording a victory for Jeff. However that was down to a split decision by the judges because we tied on the victory points. But his number of credits and dice in his cup broke the tie.

Next up to the table was Splendor, with the official playmat being used. 

That playmat may seem expensive. But it is a really nice mat. It feels quality, thicker than the playmats you get for the likes of Magic etc. Plus there are some nice setup prompts reminding you the correct number of gems to use Baer on players , and the same for patron tiles.

After taking an early lead and getting the first patron I wasn’t prepared for Jeff’s engine kicking in and taking him to the victory. Jonathan and I tied for last place.
We were joined by Diego and Les, with no sign of Debbie. So Ticket to Ride hit the table. 

I was totally and utterly shit at the game this time. I got blocked out of completing one of my two starting tickets. And it tanked from their. 

Jeff once more walked away with the victory. Are you getting a theme here with the games we played?

Luckily I managed to avoid any “banter” for being last.

After establishing that Debbie had not died from her cold and turned into a zombie, Bohemian Villages hit the table.

Well I think you can guess who won the game. But it was fun played my with five players. And even more fun with Jonathan coming in last with a really low score! Yes some friendly banter was had.

Our final game of the evening was the same game that started the evening.

Long story short Jeff won this too.

This was a great extended gaming session. 

Finally I don’t think we have enough pictures of me. So here are some taken by Jonathan during the evening of fun!

Ramble on

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night, zombicide

Oh wow I’ve managed to write a second post that has a title of a Led Zep song title! 

We really are lucky at the Fenland Gamers in the locations we play at. 

Thanks to the kindness of The White Lion Hotel we had use of the lovely big table to play on yesterday. We get to use this fantastic table 99% of the time we game there. And I think I speak for all the members in our appreciation and gratitude for being allowed to game there, and the warm welcome we get.

Yesterday Jeff and I met up lunchtime to play War of the Ring (First Edition) before the evenings entertainment of Epic Zombicide.

I’d never played War of the Ring before, but it was on my list of games to play, along with Battle of the Five Armies. Plus being a Tolkien fan who wouldn’t want to play it? 

I chose being the Fellowship over the forces of Mordor.

The turn order isn’t too bad to learn, from there its specifics.

My overall tactic of using my armies to draw out the armies of darkness, giving the ring bearer a clear path to Mordor, was confusing to Jeff.

It meant the ring bearer was sitting in Rivendell for a few turns. Even separated from the fellowship. 

The main flaw with my plan? Apart from poor implementation? It left too many easy points for Jeff to pick up undefended.

I enjoyed the game a lot. I liked the ability to pass when taking actions. It meant that I could choose which actions by Jeff to react to. Which is handy when he has more actions to take on most turns (unless he’s ultra unlucky with his dice rolls).

This is a long game to play and set up. However when playing the time flies. There is little downtime. 

This is definitely a game I want to play more of. There is a lot to this game, and it does need multiple plays. And my words above should really be considered initial thoughts, and only scratch the surface of the game.

With Sauron enjoying his comprehensive victory, it was time to see what the zombie horde could do.

Yep it was time for Epic Zombicide. That’s right day two of back to back Epic Zombicide. How insane is that?

So today’s Epic Zombicide was a three by six map that Jeff and I put together.

By the time Debbie had arrived after finishing work, we had setup and were ready to fight for our survival.

In this Epic! scenario we once again had to make it to one of the two exits at the other end of the board. However we also on the way stop in one of the buildings to find a map we needed before leaving.

With that tweak I felt that the game was more balanced and a little more challenging than the previous days initial trial of Epic Zombicide.

Naturally tweaking the draw deck for zombies is another way to increase the difficulty level. Like I could include cards that spawn out of the sewers, tweak the search deck with more aargh cards etc.

I really do like how this plays for introducing noobs to the game. And it’s nice having a location games of this scale can be played. Plus as one of the photos above shows we can get nachos! 


I just need to finish off my inserts now for the final two boxes. Which is basically the tokens, cards, and characters.

Yesterday really was a great afternoon and evening of gaming. I had a totally enjoyable time. Oh and we out ran the zombie horde! 

Song Remains the Same

Fenland Gamers, formula d, Game day, game night, zombicide

Yesterday at my place of employment on our day off, my colleague and I met up to take on the zombie horde in Epic Zombicide!

I set up a six by five city map, with our soul objective of getting from our start position to one of the two exit points.

I’d tailored the search deck with a mixture of weapons, and useful stuff (no food basically). We were up against regular zombies, brutes, skinners and toxic zombies. Plus those crowz. 

Throughout the map were randomly placed cars to be searched and driven. In the car search pile I did have one aargh card shuffled in. Just to give it a little tension while searching.

We managed to get everyone out. And that’s despite whenever we thought we would investigate a building it only made things worse. The building I was going to look in revealed a fattie. While the one my colleague was going to go into introduced an abomination onto the map! Luckily it was a regular abomination with three hit points, and I had a weapon that did three damage.

For me this randomly thrown together scenario and objective was easy. Maybe too easy. But for introducing a noob to the game like my colleague, I think this was pitched nicely at the right level.

Tomorrow it’s more Epic Zombicide. I may step it up by putting an objective that forces us into a building to achieve before making a dash to the exit point.

Last night saw the start of season two of our Formula D League.


Spoiler alert, the Formula D machine that is Katie continued off where she left off from the inaugural season of our league, with a win.

Katie won the first season with a clean sweep of victories.

For our second season we upped our game and moved on to the advanced rules. We haven’t gone “complete” advanced and started using weather and deciding our own wear points. That will be season three. 

In the meantime we are still wondering what exactly we have to do to beat Katie.

During both laps there were brief moments when I was in front. But on both occasions that lead was squandered somehow. Most of the time I was battling it out with Jonathan for second place. 

Somehow in the last third of the final lap  I went from second place to fourth! Debbie did amazing to come up and take third from me on the final two corners.

In fact I’m still in shock.

Wow the advanced rules! Having all those   different wear points. It makes decisions like over shooting, collisions, dropping gears far more “interesting”. They all have different impacts on the various aspects of your wear points. And severly  limit the number of times you do any of them. 

The overshoot spin out rule on corners is cool, and adds even more consequences to the action.

Jonathan particularly liked the changes to the pit stop rule. Which made it more realistic. And I did like it too. Like a real pit stop the only thing that gets repaired are the tires, plus you have to roll for how quick the tire change was done. Brilliant.

Plus we now get debris on the track from collisions etc. Cool!

Yeah the advanced rules are fun, forcing you to be more thoughtful in your driving! Love them.

But who will dethrone Katie?

Shadows of Porta Nigra

Fenland Gamers, game night

Finally Porta Nigra hit the table. That’s another one off the pile of shame. Which is getting smaller and smaller.

So how did this bit of shocking news happen?

It all started with an innocent Facebook post enquiring what games members of the Fenland Gamers group were playing this weekend. I’d got nothing planned, except continue making inserts to organise Zombicide. So I was curious if others were enjoying life, the universe, etc. 

Not long after posting this probing question I received an invite from Jonathan to play some games at a long time Fenland Gamers haunt.

This was the first time either of us had played the game, so we were learning from the rule book (once again – yep we tend to break that gamer rule about not doing this).

It took a turn or three to get the hang of what’s what within the game. But it was a quick game to pick up.

I liked the use of the players deck to control the duration of a round. That was neat. 

Having the player choose two or three actions depending on the card from the available ones on it, with a mechanism to take extra actions, was really neat. 

Despite the limited choice you still have to make some tough decisions, the first being which action card to play from a hand of two. Then which actions and the order of them. 

You are having to manage your resources, aiming for majorities in each building area, whilst trying to score as many points for your building. 

Jonathan managed to get a bonus card that gave him 30 points at the final scoring. Which put huge pressure on me to try and negate that. That pressure only increased when that bonus got power up’d to over 50 points. It’s only in the third and final round was I able to cut that damaging point surge to twenty odd points with my own 30 points surge.

I loved the end of round scoring where you counted up number of building blocks used to build your buildings so far to split between money and points. I went for a fifty fifty split each time. 

This is not a low scoring game I beat Jonathan by 2 points, 254 to 252. Which was much much closer than both of us thought it would be.

When the light was just right we got some awesome shadows on the board from our buildings. Plus I have an excuse to use a photo of me that is really all about the shadows taken by Jonathan.


Porta Nigra is a lovely game that looks attractive when you are playing it. I love that 3D element of it. 

We will definitely play this again. The problem is when now?

A great afternoon of gaming, thank you Jonathan for the invite.