Category Archives: Fenland Gamers

Fenland Gamers

FEG@TA 26Aug16

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night

It’s been a busy week and not much gaming going on. Hence the lack of posts this week. Plus I’ve also not had much to say. Which is unusual for me I know.

Anyway last night saw Jeff, Debbie and myself at The Angel for FEG@TA. The first at its new starting time of 6pm (last weeks didn’t happen because of holidays and such, or in other words I was the only one who could make it!) 

Earlier in the week Jeff and I had planned to play Tanks. But with “Calamity” Debbie (and she will kill me for just thinking that nickname up, but the poor girl has had a recent run of bad luck, which hopefully had come to an end) also coming along, Tanks was out, and our first game of the evening in. 

Since arriving (a couple of weeks back now) Jonathan and I have wanted to get our Kickstarter copies of Thiefs Market to the table. However life, the universe, and the usual unexpected things that life throws at you stopped us gathering with enough people to do so. 

So here I was, sitting at a table with two other people wanting to play games. We had met the minimum player count for the game. 

While setting up, we had the first player discussion to see which of us had most recently stolen something. Frankly I was so disappointed by the two goodie two shoes I was playing with. Obviously I am that Han Solo lovable rogue type, and the least trustworthy one at the table. So I took the first player token. 

After explains the rules as best I could, our band of thieves was ready to start splitting our ill gotten spoils, gaining notoriety, and trying to become the King of Thieves.

I have to say I enjoyed the game a lot. I love the first phase of a round where you are splitting the spoils (which are the rolled dice). That decision which dice and how many do you take, or do you steal from another player? I love the I’ll want x dice but if I take that many will I be too attractive to the other players that they will steal from me? This is a great mechanic. At one point I had a card that if I was stolen from I gained a notoriety point. So getting the first player token, then taking everything as the first player at the start of the splitting phase, forced the other players to steal from me and trigger that ability.

The buying cards phase is basically your engine building stage of the game. There is a lot of iconography. But the player aids break the symbols down, plus each card is explained on the rules sheet for further clarification if needed. And while you are learning the game things aren’t slowed down too much decoding them. The use of the cards as a means of giving the game an end and a clock is clever. So when you start being able to buy from the last deck you know that the game doesn’t have too many turns left.

During our game I thought Jeff was going to be the run away winner. But final scoring had the gap between his winning score and my second place score a lot closer than I thought it’d be. He had won by four points in the end.

For me the only main draw back is that this game is a minimum three players. I know why, I don’t think it will work with two. But it does mean to play with Nath, who I think will like this game, we will need to find a third player. 

I can see that the iconography may be a problem. But I think the player aids and the rule sheet mitigate this rather well. I also like that the player aids also summarise the setup, which to be fair isn’t complicated.

One thing I do like about TMG games or the ones I have that include it, like Harbour, is the social media winner card. Wisely TMG include one in this game. It just adds that fun bit at the end, celebrating the glorious victory. Or in this games case stolen victory!

I think this is a perfect game for FEG@TA and could be a regular.

So with Jeff crowned King of Thieves we moved on to clearing out dungeons in Welcome to the Dungeon.

I’d played Welcome to the Dungeon once before. Which longtime readers will recall was a two player game with Jamie. I wasn’t too impressed with it as a two player game at the time, and if my poor memory hasn’t failed me (and I can’t be arsed to go back and read what I exactly wrote) I thought it would be better with a higher player count.

Well our play through last night confirmed my suspicion. This game is far more enjoyable with even just the one extra player (plays two to four). It even improved the two player side once a player had been eliminated. 

Another game that has the potential of being a FEG@TA regular. Plus there is an expansion coming out later this year also.

Oh Jeff won this also by not scoring a single point. Despite Debbie and I both scoring a point each after successfully defeating the dungeon. Sadly we both failed to defeat the dungeon twice also.

Debbie had to go after Welcome to the Dungeon. So I introduced Jeff to the joys of building nuclear bombs in The Manhattan Project:Chain Reaction.

You know how I feel about this game. I’m not going to waste your time with more glowing platitudes about this game. All you need to know is that I won breaking Jeffs winning streak for the evening.

A great evenings gaming (that was finished off with that meaty pig out of a kebab). I’m planning to take Thiefs Market and The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction to The Hobbit Hole (my FLGS) this coming Bank Holiday Monday. So if you’d like to try the games hit me up there. I’ll also have the new Star Realms United expansions with me.

There she blows

Fenland Gamers, game night


Last night Jonathan and I meetup to do some good old fashioned whaling, when his latest addition to his game collection New Bedford hit the table.

New Bedford as you may have guessed deals with the highly emotive and controversial subject of whaling.

But does it glorify whaling? I don't think it does. In fact I would say that although its a major source of scoring points. The majority of the game is all about worker placement, building up the town of New Bedford, and gathering resources. With the whaling itself an end product, an ends to a means. In fact and I'd love to test this theory, you could almost remove the whaling phase and not miss it from the game. I certainly don't feel that the game glorifies whaling in anyway. Especially when it is set in the mid 1800s.

Overall this is a nice game as worker placement games go. There are some nice things about the game. The components themselves are lovely. I love the Meeple whale used to track the rounds. The Meeple ships look nice, although the publisher could have used easier colours to distinguish between for the base of the boats. The large ships wheel as the first player marker is lovely.

It's just a shame that from what Jonathan described Dice Hate Me didn't put as much effort into quality control on the expansion, oh and missing out a tile from the main game for solo play!

Having played New Bedford I can now see what Dice Hate Me were trying to do with the game Nantucket. New Bedford feels like a game, is a pleasurable experience. Whilst Nantucket isn't. I particularly think that this is evident in the whaling phases of the two games. Within New Bedford, it comes across as thematic, part of the game. Pulling cardboard chits out of a bag, felt like you were whaling (minus harpoon). If you drew out a sea tile, it felt like your nets were coming up empty. Whilst the cardboard coin tossing of Nantucket just felt horrid.

A bit like Harbour if you use another players building on their side of town. Then you have to pay them a dollar to use it. In out game that wasn't a bad exchange for the gain five dollars tile that Jonathan had. Pay one, get four back. However I did manage to build up a nice engine that allowed me to send out ships using half the resources needed. So to go the max distance out that usually would require six food, I only needed three. Plus I had a powerful tile that allowed me to land three right whales for free.

I think for replayability this game will need the expansion with the extra tiles. Plus the rule book could be clearer in some parts.

This isn't a great worker placement game, but an average one. You'll have a nice time playing it. I'd definitely play again if someone said “hey lets play…”. Would I go out of my way and ask to? Nope.

Jonathan ended up winning our first play of the game. But only by three points. Which was basically the extra points he earnt from a couple of bonus tiles that he had on his side of the town.

We finished off our evenings gaming with me teaching Jonathan 7 Wonders Duel. Jonathan had wanted to try the game. I guess after reading me harping on about it so much since getting it.

We used the wonders as suggested by the rule book for a first time playing the game. It seemed the right thing to do considering this was Jonathan's first game.

While I was going for the science win, Jonathan was going for the military. Neither one of us was able to complete our chosen path to victory so it ended up going to a points victory. But who would win that? Luckily for me, it was me!

But still for a first game Jonathan did get a respectable fifty points.

Overall I think Johathan was pleasantly surprised he enjoyed the game. Especially considering he's not. Fan of 7 Wonders.

After some gaming related chatter, we said our farewells.

Winter Is Coming

Fenland Gamers, game night, game of thrones, Uncategorized

Here is a short time lapse of my first time playing A Game of Thrones the boardgame with Jeff, Ben and Jonathan.


In all I think we played our four player game in little over two hours. Surprisingly quicker than I thought it would be. 

In the end Jeff won taking the required seven castles, whilst I had been knocked back into last place. Yes I was in the lead early on before the others ganged up on me. 

I was surprised how little conflict went on in our game. I seemed to be the main aggressor. Something I paid for in the long run. 

I enjoyed this first play a lot, this will definitely be coming back to the table.

My only complaint about this game and the up and coming Iron Throne game (based on Cosmic Encounter) is the minimum number of players is three. So unless I can find a third volunteer when I visit Nath, neither would see the table. And I know that Nath would enjoy this game.

If you are able to get the players together this is a nice game to bring to the table.

There once was a man from Nantucket…

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night


Last night saw the weekly FEG@TA back on track after last weeks was cancelled.

The FEG@TA last night was only attended by Jonathan and myself. So what resulted was a pleasant evening of two player gaming, whilst the loud music and alcholic fuelled buffoonery raged around us.

Our first game of the evening was the two player worker placement game with a whaling theme Nantucket. Jonathan had got this for $3 as an add on to the game New Bedford (also about whaling) on Kickstarter.

For those that are already thinking tl;dr here’s the spoiler on what I thought of this game, it’s a pile of shit. It’s a stinker. It really is. 

The rules could be written better. Some bits were unclear. A player aid with the scoring for the whaling coin toss phase of the game would have been a great and much needed addition.

And now I mention it the coin toss mechanic used for the whaling phase, I hated. With cardboard chits for the coins this just doesn’t work. It feels so unsatisfying. 

Oh those cardboard coins! Whose bright idea was it to give the head side of the coin the image of a whales tale? Then two silver coins add up to one copper coin! Since when has copper been worth more than silver.

This is barely a game. I can’t think of one thing about the game I like. Maybe Jonathan and I are missing something. But this was not a pleasant experience for either of us. At $3 I think Jonathan was over charged. Oh Jonathan won this game.

Our second game had to be good to pick us up after such a start to the evening. So out came our current darling game The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction. I romped home with an easy win against Jonathan. It nearly was a whitewash and would have been if he hadn’t managed to finally score a bomb card just as I loaded up a bomb to take me to the game ending ten points. The cards just hadn’t been with Jonathan in this game. In one go I played 13 cards! Now that’s combotastic.

We followed this up with another crowd pleaser The Great Heartland Hauling Co. which we played using the expansion that comes with the game. The expansion basically gave you the chance to get upgrades/abilities. I grabbed two of the three that were on offer. One allowed me to move diagonally, the other allowed me to stay put by paying a dollar. Jonathan managed to nab the one that added an extra move space to a fuel card if you wanted to. But only after I had taken the other two.

I went on to use the staying put ability to great use irking Jonathan by tieing up one or two high value tiles. If I’d started doing that earlier and haf a bit of luck on the card draw to get the necessary cards I think that tactic of frustration could have won me the game.

In the end I was left with a lorry load of goods that flattered the victory Jonathan had.

I liked the addition of this expansion. It added a new element to the game that changed things up a little, while not taking away from the main game play.

Our last game of the evening was Valley of the Kings. Jonathan doesn’t do deck builders normally. But there was enough in this game that he enjoyed the experience. And that was despite me romping home to a comfortable win.

So despite Nantucket we had a fun evening playing games, with the spoils of victory split evenly between us.

The art of Odin

coffee shop gaming, Fenland Gamers

Yesterday I put the “can anyone come out to play?” post up on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page to try and find someone to play a couple of two player games with.

Odin’s Ravens had just arrived, and Sun Tzu had been with me for a week. I was eager to play both.

Luckily Jonathan said he would be free once he had completed his chores. So a time was set for us to meet up at Costa.

Jonathan was already there when I arrived. So beverages bought we setup to play our first game of the afternoon Odin’s Ravens.

For such a simple game there are a remarkable number of decisions to make during the game.

The first being what mix of cards to draw to make your initial hand of five cards. How many Loki cards (special one use cards that give you a power up of some kind) do you draw, and how many landscape cards (cards that allow you to move).  You also get to repeat this decision at the end of each turn when you draw three new cards.

You then have the decision during the game of when to play those Loki cards. You only have a limited number for the whole game, and once used are out of the game.

Then when you do decide to play your Loki card you then have to decide which of the cards two abilities you will use. Will you use the one that helps you or the one that puts a spanner in your opponents plans. 

The art work is really nice on the cards. 

Jonathan and I both really liked the game. And that’s despite Jonathan winning by the skin of his teeth. 

Our second game was Sun Tzu. We played with the beginners variant. Which means with all 21 army figures, no Warlord cards, and the +2 and +3 removed from the game.

Before playing I had wondered why you would ever want to play the -1 card. But during play the lightbulb switched on. 

This is a game of differences. I liked that you had a hand of base cards to call upon each turn, which were then supplemented by one time use more powerful cards. I also liked that you could only use the number 6 card once in each of the areas you are fighting over.

I also liked that at the end of a turn you draw two cards, choose one and place the other at the bottom of your draw pile.

There is a fair amount of decision making and trying to second guess your opponent. Like when to play your more powerful cards and where.  Which I liked. 

For a tenner from The Works this is a nice little two player territory control game. For the history books I totally beat Jonathan’s armies to get an undisputed points victory. 

We finished off our game session with a two player game of The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction. We’d played a three player game as our first game. Now I wanted to see how it faired as a two player game.

In our game I’d taken an early lead and built on it by building two bombs worth four points each. Jonathan jumped back into the running by building a seven point bomb. I was thinking about how to get another bomb built for the win, when I remembered I didn’t need to. All I needed to do was load a bomber for two points and get the win. It was a much simpler task to do that than build a third bomb. Quicker too. It took me one more turn to do this and win after I’d figured out this plan.

I really liked Chain Reaction as a two player game. It worked very well. This is proving to be a great card game.

I’ll close this post today with an image I put out on Instagram (which then gets pushed out to Facebook and Twitter) of part of my game library.

She stole my precious 

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

With the arrival of my Kickstarter exclusive deluxe copy of The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction (it came while I was away visiting Nath), naturally I wanted to get it to the table.

So a quick post yesterday on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page enquiring about availability of others during the day to meet up and play was made. I do feel like I’ve jumped back to eight year old Darren when I make this kind of post. The eight year old me standing in front of a big red door, knocking several times to get some-ones attention. Who is then confronted by an irritated and stressed mother who I have just dragged away from some important task to answer the door. “Can Johnny come out to play please?” I ask hopefully. As eight year old me awaits an answer so does old man Darren sit there checking Facebook for any replies, constantly hitting refresh. 

Debbie replied she was free after 5pm when worked finished. Or in eight year Darren’s world of the seventies when she had done all the chores her mum had given her. 

We arranged to meet up at the grown up play ground Spoons just after five. 

Later in the day I also got messaged by Jonathan that he too might be allowed out to play. But if he wasn’t there by five thirty to start without him. 

So to cater for Jonathan not having completed whatever chores he had been allocated I packed two two player only games. New arrival and über bargain from The Works Sun Tzu and 7 Wonders Duel. 

I had chosen a nice table to sit at that sadly was inappropriate because although the gush of cool air as the main door opened was refreshingly nice, it also blew away cards on the table. So Debbie and I relocated to another less breezy location within the establishment.

Just as I was setting up The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction Jonathan arrived.

This was a learning game, and although I’d read the rules a couple of times, watched a couple of YouTube videos, I still needed to use the rules to setup and explain the game. But that is an accepted part of this sort of gaming session. None of us have played the game, we are all learning, and at times none of us have had time to read the rules either. 

The rules are simple enough and fairly quick to teach. In fact the most complicated part I’d say is the set up! And that isn’t overly complicated.

Naturally The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction is a card game that captures the essence of the worker placement big brother The Manhattan Project. 

Like its big brother it’s a race to build bombs and reach a points total, in this case ten points to trigger the end game. Person with highest score wins.

This is a game of combos, and using your cards either as a worker resource or as a production unit of some kind. With the odd card that gives you extra card draw or ability to force an opponent to discard, or even steal a card from an opponent.

Turns are usually pretty quick. So little analyse paralysis, if any. Some player interaction. 

I love the fact it used art from its big brother. So it’s instantly familiar if you’ve played the big brother, even when it comes down to decoding the cards. But even then this wasn’t an issue because Debbie hadn’t played the big brother before and quickly picked things up.

In my deluxe version I have wooden tokens to use instead of the cards to represent yellow cake and uriduim. These are really nice and a nice addition. 

Chain Reaction for me really does capture the essence of its big brother, it’s light, quick to play and learn. It really is a nice game, I’d definitely recommend getting a copy.

We followed up trying to blow up the world with a game of Harbour.

I like Harbour. It can be frustrating because it is very reliant on what the starting buildings are in the middle. In this game I was locked out of one building because I didn’t have an anchor, and could only use half of another’s ability for the same reason. 

Jonathan this time found the ever changing market a source of frustration. Which it can be, but still I do like that mechanic. 

The lead moved around the players as we bought buildings, screwed each other over manipulating the market, but despite that Debbie edged in front and skilfully completed the four buildings required to trigger the end game. 

Points totalled Jonathan and I drew for last place or if you want to be positive about it second place. But romping home with a massive lead was Debbie. So Debbie robbed me of my title of Harbour Master. 


I will get a rematch to try and claim my rightful title back. 

Oh the above card came out near the end of the game. We thought it was an insanely powerful card. I hadn’t seen it before. But wow!

Anyway with my precious stolen it was time to go home our mums were calling our eight year old selfs back in for tea. 

FEG@TA 29Jul16

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

It was a mini meet up this evening, a kind of pre-con aperitif so to speak. What con? The yearly Madhouse Minicon held by Madhouse UK that run a turn-based fantasy game. 

Ok due to the continuing knock on effect on my social plans from two/three weeks ago, I wasn’t going to be spending the weekend at the minicon. This weekend if the plans work out will be spent gaming with Nath.

Debbie, myself and Lucus started our evening of gaming off with Dalek Dice. I won. But still think I prefer Zombie Dice to this.

Afterwards some con attendees arrived. So while Jamie introduced them to Dalek Dice, Lucus and I played Magic the Gathering using a couple of dueling decks. In our first game Lucus was just unable to get any creatures out to defend himself or to attack. He had land,in fact enough to summon creatures. Sadly it was all swamp, and he needed water! So I was able to happily field creatures and swing away at will. 

We swapped decks. And things went much better for Lucus. He was able to get some creatures out to attack with, and even inflict damage. However by that time in the game I had enough out on the battlefield to get me another win.

I like dueling decks. Magic without the collectable element. You can just play a game with two “evenly” pre-built decks and have fun. I do enjoy the deck building side, it’s just my pocket can’t handle the full on booster collectable experience, or justify the expense because I don’t play it enough.

What was to be my final game of the evening was 7 Wonders Duel with Debbie. 

I like this game a lot. It really is a great two player game. Which is why I think this has been the third week in a row this has managed to hit the table.

This game was particularly close and came down to the last card of the third age. If Debbie had gotten to the card first we would have had to start counting victory points. Which was going to be a hard one to call. I had nearly thirty coins, would have had ten victory points from the war track. But Debbie had a lot of cards giving victory points in front of her. 

However we didn’t get to that scenerio of points counting. The last card was mine. A war card doing three attack. Which gave me the instant war victory. It doesn’t get closer than that. Well maybe winning by one victory point. 

I think out of four games now, none have come down to points. They have all been instant wins split evenly somehow between war and science. 

Still love this game. 

But that was it. I was flagging. Strider had been sick in the night, and had been in and out for over an hour before hand. I think he was feeling sick but just couldn’t be during that time. So I was really knackered. I had started to drift off earlier in the afternoon! Debbie had also decided she was going to head off. The place was starting to build up with con attendees. Not much gaming at that point, more social, renewing friendships stuff.

This last photo shows how I finished off the evening. Yep stuffing lots of questionable meat into my face!

The case of the tin soldier 

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized


Last night four of the most promising detective minds in the kingdom gathered to solve the second case in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, the case of The Tin Soldier.

With the combined intellect of an amoeba it would seem we totally failed to solve this case. We had picked up the importance of one or two clues. However our theory was so wrong, just like the Parliamentary Labour Party and its contempt for democracy and its party members.

I’m very undecided about this game. It does seem to rely on the fact you pick up on the slightest of clues to be able to successfully solve the cases. With much reliance on you chasing red herrings, and running down many rabbit holes.

I don’t know even in the cold light of day, having slept on it, and attempted two cases now, and writing the above short paragraph. I think I’m falling down on the side of not being a big fan of the game.

It will be interesting to compare this to say Time Stories once I get that to the table. 

FEG@TA 22Jul16

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized


Last night it was once more the time to celebrate the start of the weekend by playing games whilst enjoying adult beverages at the weekly FEG@TA. 

My gaming started off playing 7 Wonders Dual with Debbie while we waited for others to turn up. I won this game with a military victory. I just need a points win over Debbie and I’ve beat her using all three win conditions. But that may sound arrogant. Oh wait it is, but I will laugh the loudest if next time we play I lose big time.

As we were finishing Jamie and his son arrived. So a current favourite Qwixx hit the table. Debbie knocked it out of the park in this game, winning with an epic 98 points. That’s an amazing score. A well deserved win.

We finished Qwixx just before Jonathan and his daughter arrived. And she had only one thing on her mind, to destroy me at Bohemian Villages. Something she had been plotting all week since I beat her (and everyone else) last Friday.

So while the “grudge match” which Jamie’s son wanted in on took place, the others split off to play Pandemic the Cure.

Our game of Bohemian Villages saw mind games, plots and alliances. Mainly against me. But once more I was victorious. Do I feel big and clever beating two kids? Oh yes too right I do. What we can be sure of is Jonathan’s daughter will be plotting my downfall. 

During these two simultaneous games being played Jeff arrived. 

Niagara looks a nice game, visually attractive, especially with the moving discs simulating the flow of water and having the board on top of the game box then acting like the waterfall. I didn’t get to play, that will have to wait for another day. I instead I played another game of 7 Wonders Dual with Jamie. This time I lost to a science victory. But it was close, we were five cards from going to points, which I would have won. In our game we had some nice chaining of multiple actions to be able to build two or three wonders between us.

Our evening of gaming ended with a game of Dalek Dice. Dalek Dice was ok. It’s a more complicated push your luck style dice game along the lines of Zombie Dice. I don’t think the additional complication improves things. I prefer the simplicity of Zombie Dice, it flows better, and is more fun.

So that was another great evening of gaming, which can only be finished off one way. Yep dodgey meat in naan, salad and chilli sauce. So one or two of us headed off to the Charcoal Grill to pickup some totally unhealthy meat to take home and eat.

Same again next week…

FEG@TA Tonite

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized


Just a reminder that this evening is the regular weekly Fenland Gamers meet up that we have at The Angel Inn in Wisbech.

Start time is approximately 5pm, finishing roughly around 9pm-9:30pm. Followed usually by a run to a near by perveyor of dodgey meat with chilli sauce establishment to top the evening off.


So if you fancy getting out of the house for a reason other than the enjoyable pastime of collecting pokemon in Pokemon Go, playing some great games whilst enjoying a grown up beverage, followed by the optional questionable meat in a wrap. Then we’d love to see you at The Angel this evening.