This week saw another game move off my pile of shame. Finally I got the game Biblios Dice to the table.

Debbie, myself and Debbie’s Nath learnt to play Biblios Dice whilst waiting for others to turn up.

While setting the game up, just like Dead of Winter I discovered that a dice was missing! This time a black dice, which I was able to use a regular white dice I had as a substitute. But regular readers of this very niche blog will know I’ll be testing the publishers support out when I get home. 

Talking of support Fun Forge still months after raising the issue with them of the broken figure, have not replaced it. They keep saying they will post a replacement but never do. It’s become a matter of principle now that they will replace the figure. But shockingly bad customer support from them.

Anyway once we had got what the game was about, and how to play. Which was pretty quick. We had a good time playing the game.

There are some nice touches to the game. Like being forced to move your counter up each of the tracks. Otherwise at the end there is a negative points penalty. 

I like the two end game trigger conditions. In ours it was reaching the top of the Bishop track. But we also had 50% of the other condition complete as well with a player at the top of two of the other tracks. 

The bonuses on the tracks at key points a nice touch. First player to reach one bonus spot gets the biggest bonus at that spot, next player gets a smaller bonus and so on. 

Plus player order on a track mattering at the end is nice when it comes to scoring a track. Tie that in with the manipulation of the points each track scores during the game, then things get very tactical. 

I love the dice selection, and the decisions you are forced to make, because there is usually at least two or more dice you’d love to be able to choose.

Auctions and bidding although not complicated is just right for this game. And I love what may seem like harsh reprocussions for over bidding. Loosing all your money, having to reveal victory points collected and being excluded from next auction. Tough but fair.

Overall a fun game.

While we were playing Biblios Dice, Jonathan and his daughter arrived. So while waiting for me to win Biblios Dice (spoiler I did), they tried to escape the Forbidden Island with their artefacts. But being a Matt Leacock game naturally they failed big time, with the game winning.

With us all now able to play a game together we played Qwixx. Jonathan had been wanting to play this game for a while. After being destroyed by his daughter at the game (I got my lowest score so far in this game), what did Jonathan think of the game? He went straight online to add it to his Amazon basket (assuming they would have it). So that’s a big he liked it I think.

What would turn out to be our final game of the evening due to The Angel getting rather busier than normal for the time we are there, and the loud “dance” music, one of my recent favourites Bohemian Villages hit the table.

As per usual for this game a player (Debbie) forgot to collect money before rolling the dice, so lost that money. Luckily it was early on, so just one coin. But a loud cheer from Jonathan and myself burst out when it happened.

Jonathan and myself were up to our usual self offering advice to the others on their turn to try and manipulate things to teduce the scoring opportunities of each other. Trying to get Jonathan’s daughter to choose Debbie’s meeple to kick off a building I said “remember all those cheap tacky birthday presents you didn’t like she bought you” only to be corrected by Debbie and Jonathan with “what presents?” Which helped my lame attempts at manipulation. 

Gaming etiquette was ignored this evening by Debbie’s Nath when he refused to reroll a cocked dice! Blasphemy! Not sporting and soooo wrong. So although he ended up just above (spoiler) last place Debbie or fourth. It was a tainted fourth because of this. 

Jonathan’s daughter and I destroyed the others in final scoring. And I narrowly beat her by three points. Our scores were my 66 points to her 63 points. The others were in the 40’s, not even close. What was nice was when Jonathan’s daughter having been possibly coached/egged on by certain irresponsible individuals (me) at the table returned the “in your face” to her dad. Family feud gold ^__^

But Jonathan’s daughter didn’t take defeat easily and threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to another game soon, promising to crush me.

A great shorter than usual evening of gaming, followed up with the now regular large lamb donar kebab. Which is a great way to finish off any gaming evening.

Friday evenings are still early days for trying to establish a weekly gaming meet up for Fenland Gamers. 

Our gaming started off with myself, Debbie, Jamie and his son Lucas playing Qwixx.

Qwixx is a new addition to my collection, and this was a first play for all of us.

This is a “light” game, it might even be described as a filler game.

Basically you are rolling dice, and crossing off numbers. But there is a little bit more to it than that.

There are six dice that you roll, two white, a blue, red, yellow and green die. The none white dice match the colour of four lines of numbers on a sheet that each player has. The numbers on the sheet are between 2 and 12, with two of the lines in ascending order and the other two are in descending order. 

On your turn you roll all six dice. You then add the two white dice together and announce that value to all the players. Everyone may then mark that number off one of their lines. Next you are then able to add the value of one of the white dice to the value of one of the coloured dice. You and only you may then Mark off that number from the matching coloured line of the coloured dice. If you do not mark a number off on your turn, you have to place a mark on your sheet in one of the penalty boxes. These are worth negative points at the end.

There is a complication when it comes to marking off the numbers. If there wasn’t life would be super easy. You can only mark a number off to the right of all the marked off numbers in the row.

If you have marked off at least five numbers in a row, you are able to lock the row off if you roll the right most number. When a row is locked the corresponding coloured dice is removed from the game. And you stop other players scoring more points with that line.

Two locked lines or a player marking their fourth penalty points ends the game. Then scoring commences. The more checked off numbers on a row the more points you get. Highest score wins.

This is a nice little game, with some nice little decisions to make. I like the white dice for all, and then having an exclusive number to use. 

The penalty for not using the dice being used for negative points and as lives is a nice touch.

Deciding on whether you can use a number is sometimes a hard decision because it may block off too many numbers too early in the game.

Yeah I like Qwixx. It’s a nice addition the the library of filler games, and ideal for our Costa gaming sessions.

We had just finished playing Qwixx when Jeff arrived.

With Jeff now with us we played Bang the dice game. Our first play through saw the outlaws win when the sheriff died. In our second game Lucas was the deputy and shot the sheriff! In fact it was Lucas who killed the sheriff!!! Which he found funny. Our third and final play of the game also saw Jonathan join in. Which once again saw our crazy deputy once again shooting the sheriff (this time Jonathan) to give the outlaws the win.

Six players, split into two teams of three. Sounds like Codenames to me.  With Jamie, Debbie and Lucas on one team, and Jonathan, Jeff and myself on the other. Jamie was thinking the odds had been stacked against him. 

Jonathan was our first clue giver, while that duty fell to Debbie. But Debbie gave better clues, while Jonathan struggled. So that should tell you our team lost. 

We swapped clue givers over. Jeff stepped up for us, while Jamie did the honours for his team. I think it was turn two for us when we nerfed ourselves and hit the assassin to steal the loss. Staying with the same clue givers we reset the board with new words. Guess what we did in the new game? Yep nerfed it again hitting the assassin again.

Our final game was a game of Coup. Which I mixed up by using the Jester and Bureaucrat, instead of the Ambassador and the Duke. Which it did a little, and added a little bit of confusion while people got used to the new roles.

I had to leave then because my aunt had been trying to call. I really wanted to speak to her because she’d had a big op earlier in the week. So on the way back I somehow picked up a kebab on the way home.

But a great evening of gaming.