Yesterday started off in a more somber, reflective mood as I said good bye to a friend of the family. Jean was more than that. Growing up she was a second mum really. Certainly her youngest daughter and my oldest friend Ginette was like a sister. With my brother we were always getting into trouble together. Mainly (and Ginette remembers it this way too) caused by my brother. It’s a miracle we never ended up with any broken bones. I certainly learnt a lot more about Jean and what an amazing and interesting life she had before we were born. Plus I finally found out how old Ginette’s older sister Kay was. I knew she was older. Heck she used to babysit us. But not that much older. It’s older than I thought.

OMG!

Wow!

Last nights Friday evening gaming blew away our previous record attendance of 12 with the amazing number of 16 people turning up to play games.

It’s just simply astonishing.

It’s amazing to see so many people turn up to play board games.

There is one drawback of this new found success. I hardly get to game with Jonathan.

Whilst Jonathan was doing a teaching game of Railways of the World (Mexico map I believe). I was introducing three newish members to the world of Roll and Writes. and Flip and Writes.

Our first game was new to me and a learning game of Cartographers. Which falls into the flip and write genre.

I really liked playing this game (and yes Gavin these are games, unlike that jigsaw puzzle Barenpark).

The ambush card is genius. Each season (rounds really) you shuffle one ambush card into the explore deck. So if you don’t draw an ambush card in a season it’s possible to have multiple ambush cards in the explore deck and naturally at that point draw multiple ambush cards in a season.

When you draw an ambush card you pass your sheet to the player next to you (direction indicated on the card). This is where you get to throw a spanner in the works for the other player. But they also get to do the same to you. If the drawn ambush creature is not surrounded then each empty space is a negative point at the end of the round. So obviously you are going to try and draw the ambush creature shape in the most inconvenient place on their map.

Relic cards forcing you to draw the next shape drawn over a relic space on your map can be annoying.

I do like the changing end of season scoring, and that it’s a combo of two of the four cards, not all of them. The fact these are drawn randomly at the start adds a nice bit of variability and replay ability.

Ok I like this so much I will be getting the expansions for it. Which are map packs, more ambush cards, skills card and whatever the Heroes expansion adds.

My second and final game of the evening was teaching the amazing combotastic roll and write Three Sisters.

Compared to Cartographers and many others Three Sisters can be considered on the heavier side of things. Especially when things start comboing off. But it’s still such a fun game.

The preference from the new to this genre was they preferred Cartographers. But they really enjoyed them both. But plans were loosely put in place to play/try the even heavier Rome and Roll.

I think everyone had a fun evening game. I left with a game of Lords of Waterdeep on the go, and Liars Dice/Perudo starting up.

Last night didn’t quite end up as planned.

Yesterday morning I tweeted how I was looking forward to playing my favourite game of all time (do I really have to say it? You all know what it is by now. Oh ok) Scythe, that evening. That’d I’d also be teaching it to two new players.

Indeed that was the plan made on Saturday at the end of D&D so that Mark and Lizzy could learn the game before joining the Rise of Fenris campaign this coming Saturday.

Reality, life, call it what you want had other ideas.

I arrived early to get Scythe setup. As usual I wanted to maximise play time for everyone by having it so that once everyone had arrived we could dive straight in.

There were no tables so I set up the ones I needed, plus the one I thought Jonathan and his Railways of the World players would need.

Brief aside before carrying on with the retelling of the events of last night.

As the photo below shows I now have the realistic tokens for Scythe. I know that’s a major shock. After all I have been vocal in my preference for the wooden tokens that come with the game. However these were the final upgrade I needed to make my copy of Scythe the equivalent of the Kickstarter Art Connoisseur Collector’s Edition.

What surprised me last night was how they grew on me last night as I was setting up, and taking the photos (below). I actually quite like them!

I just need to save up and get the metal mechs (I need four sets, which ain’t cheap) to have everything you can officially buy for it.

Right back to my ramblings.

As I was setting up Scythe Jonathan arrived and not long after so did Shane.

With Scythe setup we just needed Mark and Lizzy to arrive.

However Shane asked if I had heard from them. Which I hadn’t. Apparently Lizzy was ill and wouldn’t be coming.

Bugger.

I asked Jonathan if he wanted another two players for Railways of the World.

After Jonathan started setting up for a five player game, and I had packed away Scythe, it transpired Mark was on his way.

“John got room for one more?”

While we waited for Mark to arrive there was banter and a brief discussion between Jeff and Jonathan about how best to setup the game so it didn’t go on all night.

Some cubes were removed from the board.

Once Mark arrived Jonathan explained the rules. For three of us this was our first time playing the game. Luckily there was no “it’s just like Agricola” moment.

I have to say despite nearly coming last, I really liked Railways of the World.

With three copies in the club now (Gav just bought a copy) I don’t feel a need to get my own. But if I want to play a railway themed game this is the one I’d play. It’s so much more fun than Ticket to Ride.

I like the bidding for first player at the start of each turn.

Another thing I like a lot is the almost sandbox like approach it has to building tracks. You can literally build a track anywhere on the board. Ok it might cost you a fortune to do so depending on the terrain crossing.

The having to upgrade your trains to be able to move goods further along the built tracks is cool.

But there is the whole making connections and delivery engine you are building to push you up the income track, whilst trying to get as few bonds as possible. Obviously the two most experienced players had this off to a tee. Eventually I managed to break even and then make a small profit. But this whole core to the game is so much fun and can be very cut throat.

As the results show the three more experienced players finished top three, with Shane almost breaking into third place.

Still a great evening of gaming with great gamers!

Here they are Jonathan’s photos of the evening to end the post with.

Last night was the fortnightly Fenland Gamers club night, and what was to turn out to be a record breaking one.

Since the reintroduction of in person gatherings last year our club numbers have grown to what I thought was the lofty heights of between 8 and 10 regulars on a club night.

But we went into the stratosphere last night with 14 turning up!

Jonathan had already prearranged a game of Railways of the World. So as they got setup to play it, the rest of us decided what we were going to play. We had one table playing Dinosaur Island. Whilst on my table we played Libertalia.

Out of four plays now this is only my second win.

For this game we used the stormy side of the board with its “meaner” loot abilities.

There were certainly days on the voyages where I had no loot tokens or even a crew on my ship.

At the start of the last voyage I was on 33 points, Jeff was on 28, and Ben was leading on 36. It was anybodies game to win really.

But when your opponents both take out each other’s Wind Nymph leaving it open for you to have yours out and collecting coins, you have to chuckle.

The game is fastly becoming a favourite. It’s quick to teach. Plus it’s a relatively quick game.

As the scores show I did narrowly win this game.

Next we played a new game to me from Oink Games called Scout. Which is a trick taking game.

After a very confusing rules explanation things became clearer once we started playing.

It’s actually a nice little game. So nice I’ve added it to my wish list.

On the last round I should have let the game end when I had a chance. But I took one for the team and it cost me dearly. I wouldn’t have won. But the others would have had much much lower scores.

You know how this post ends.

Last night was one of the “every other Friday” nights for Fenland Gamers.

It was looking to be a very well attended evening. If the advanced maths were correct it was looking like twelve would be attending.

However reality, life and whatever else you can think of reduced that number down to six.

Although as the evening got underway we were not to know that. We thought it would be down to eight.

With Gavin drooling over the resin bloodbowl figures Colin had printed for him. Diego, Chris, Nino and myself started playing Libertalia.

For this game we used the stormy side of the game board.

I’d like to say I did a good job of explaining the rules but at best it was adequate. And that would be very generous describing it as so.

During the first voyage there were too many misplays that were my fault. An example of a major one being triggering the anchor abilities at the end of each day instead of at the end of the voyage. I don’t know why that was in my head that they did trigger them. But it was for whatever reason.

I won because of the tie break condition. But in reality it was a tainted win. The victory really should have been Diego’s by a country mile. He has the moral victory!

The next game we played was a six player game of Survive Escape from Atlantis.

Which meant reading very quickly the expansion rules.

I did a really shit job explaining the basic rules. No other way to describe it.

We forgot to put the squid out when a whale was added to the board. Not a big misplay. Just meant we never used the squid mini expansion.

I did get frustrated with a couple of the others during the game who insisted on reading what the red bordered tile did that they had just drawn, instead of rolling the dive dice and finishing their turn. And then reading the tile description. I didn’t hide that very well at all.

Despite the above everyone seemed to enjoy playing it.

I have to say I didn’t get much enjoyment out of last nights gaming session. Afterwards I felt down about it. Even this morning as I type this post I don’t feel any more positive about it.

It’s a combination of things about the evening I think.

The misplays during Libertalia upset me a little thinking about them.

Moving the wrong coloured counters, not seeing a word when reading card text. It’s easy to dismiss them at the time as mistakes. Let alone the anchor error.

I’m pretty sure others think I’m trying to pull a fast one during the game. But I’m not they are genuine errors made by whatever brain fart causes them to happen.

I’d like to say it’s just old age. But I’ve been doing that sort of thing all my life.

Last night there were too many happening early on in the game.

The poor attendance also got to me. Particularly the two that just didn’t say anything. Although one apparently did post rather late it turns out that they’d not be attending. That message wasn’t picked up until I got home.

It meant Gavin and Colin were kinda left out when we could have included them in the game of Libertalia, split into two groups, or played a different six player game.

Then there was the guilt trip I felt after Diego pointed out in a conversation with Gavin that we didn’t play any of the games he, Gavin and Colin had bought along. We just played my two games.

I know if everyone had turned up we would have had multiple games going on and they would have got games to the table.

But still there is no excuse for me “forcing” my games on them. I need to change and be more thoughtful of others and not so selfish.

I wasn’t on my A game last night. And it was bloody obvious to all and sundry.

At the moment I might step back from the fortnightly gaming, and have a little break from it. I’ll still organise adhoc sessions to play some of my bigger games. That’s if I can find others prepared to game with me.

As I said not feeling very positive about last night. That all might change between now and the next one.

But still all I can say about last night is the title of this blog post.

Last night was an adhoc gaming session to play Fields of Green that I had organised earlier in the week.

I like our new hosts, especially on the Friday evenings. I have tea with Mum before hand then have dessert (usually sticky toffee pudding with custard) at our hosts before the others turn up. Although others do also turn up and have food before hand as well.

Over at Sutton Bridge they have started three months of works (what exactly they are doing I have no idea) on the bridge, reducing it to a single lane.

The reason I’m mentioning this is despite being miles from Wisbech and Wisbech St Mary it did have a big impact on our gaming session!

Basically it meant lots more traffic going through Wisbech, so long queues. Plus the obvious long queues at the bridge itself, and rat runs. This meant that one or two attending were delayed by being caught up in this traffic chaos.

Three months of this.

Whilst waiting for those fighting their way through the traffic chaos Jonathan and I set up our respective games ready to start upon arrival.

In the meantime with Julie there as well we played a couple of games of Batman Love Letter.

I don’t know what weird alternative universe we went to. But Jonathan won both games. The first without Julie and myself taking a point. Jonathan never does this well at Love Letter.

Once Jeff and Mandy arrived, and had eaten. Julie, Jeff, Mandy and myself played a four player game of Fields of Green. Whilst Jonathan and Colin played a two player game of Railways of the World using the Mexico map.

Playing Fields of Green at the full player count meant we were drafting cards the regular way of choosing a card, and passing the remaining cards to our left or right depending on the round direction. I like this mechanic. It’s used well here. It has that 7 Wonders feel, but with farming!

It was close whether the table we were using was going to be big enough. It barely was. This game takes up lots of space.

One change I made from the rules was instead of a pile of equipment tiles on the table to draw from I used a spare Spirits of the Forest tile bag I had instead. I think this works better. Especially with limited table space.

We also for this game used the rulebooks suggestions on which piles and number of cards to draw each round. A nice touch for players new to the game. Although I had played once before, the other three hadn’t. So it made sense to do this.

As you can see I narrowly didn’t come last. Jeff and Mandy drew on points. So it was to the tie breakers to see if we could determine a winner. The first tie breaker was most locations in their farm. Which Mandy had. So was declared the victor. That’s back to back victories in the two games I’ve played with Mandy now.

Finally, one of these posts wouldn’t be one of these posts without the photographic talents of Jonathan closing it off. Here’s Johnny…

About two weeks ago Jonathan sought players to play Search for Planet X.

I was one of those that were interested in trying the game.

With enough people interested in playing a four player game a date and time was set, tutorials and apps linked to.

Last night was the agreed day for playing the game.

Jonathan and I met up about an hour earlier than the planned time to play the two player game Mr Jack.

I’d never played Mr Jack before.

We played the game twice. In the first game I was the detectives trying to identify and capture Mr Jack played by Jonathan. Then in the second game the roles were reversed and Jonathan was trying to capture my Mr Jack.

I really liked this two player deduction game. And not just because I won both games.

Our first game was longer than the second. But I did manage to capture Mr Jack. Whilst I won the second game with a great bit of misdirection and had Jonathan arresting the wrong character.

I do like how which character is Mr Jack is selected randomly at the start of each game by drawing a character tile.

I like the way actions/characters are chosen each round, and how it flips each round. So the detectives may choose first at the start of a round, then Mr Jack chooses twice, leaving the detectives one tile to play. Then it gets reversed next round. This is so tactical, especially if you need a particular character and you don’t get a chance to chose it before the other player. This happened twice in our second game. Jonathan kept choosing the character I needed to get an even earlier win!

I like how the number of lamp posts gets reduced during the early rounds. It makes the deduction harder. As apart from the Sherlock character and Watson they are the only way to eliminate suspects.

Yeah a nice game. Could easily see it added to the collection. It’s gone on the wish list.

After a small delay to the agreed time for playing the Search for Planet X we started playing.

Another game I really liked.

Now we know where I stand on games that are only playable with an app. I’ve rant lots about it in the past. I’ll happily play them but I won’t own them! Unless there is a way to play without the app.

Search for Planet X currently doesn’t play without an app. It works really well with the app. The app is put to great use providing clues.

This is a logic game pure and simple. Using clues given to you in the app based on the type of action you performed you deduce which sector Planet X is. You can see the starting clues I had in the photo above.

During our game I knew the planet could be in one of two sectors. After Jonathan revealed where the dwarf planet was in a peer review I knew exactly where it was. I just wasn’t sure what was on one side of it.

For me this game was a game of misplays! Well two to be precise. The first was playing the correct tile in the wrong sector. I misread my sheet. That cost me 4 points.

The second was forgetting I had to say what was either side of the sector with Planet X in. Which meant I was guessing one sector. That got compounded by forgetting there were only two empty sectors, and I’d already identified them! So there couldn’t have been a third.

That gave Jonathan a window to guess himself. Well he was kinda forced to. He knew I’d guess it my next turn. Luck was on his side. He guessed right.

Despite having worked out where Planet X was FIRST I came last. My mistakes were my undoing.

With the games played last night another two new to me games were added to the challenge.

I’m beginning to think I might have set the target for this challenge too low!

It’s insane or so I thought to have already played 13 new to me games in two months. I might have to revisit this and set a new larger target number.

If my fading memory hasn’t let me down I think I might have just looked at the last two years numbers before deciding on the target for this challenge.

Maybe I should have looked further back. But I think my thought process at the time was “who knows what this year will be like? The pandemic is still on-going.” So I decided to look at just the numbers for during the previous two year of the pandemic as my guideline.

I certainly think at the current rate of play the numbers I achieved in 2018/2019 are certainly achievable.

And here we are at the end of the post and the photos taken by Jonathan.

Earlier in the week I had an epiphany whilst walking upstairs!

“Why if I’d rather play Dune Imperium every time when given a choice over Lost Ruins of Arnak should I keep Lost Ruins in my collection?”

I even shared this insight on Instagram (which then pumped it out to the other “big” two social media platforms).

Now don’t get me wrong, I really like Lost Ruins. It’s just I like Imperium more. I’ll still happily play Lost Ruins.

This is Inis all over again for me. I enjoyed Inis. But there were three games in my collection that I’d rather play over it if given a choice. So I sold it on.

Was this the time to do the same with Lost Ruins?

Naturally I got some blow back from those that preferred Lost Ruins over Imperium. But their opinion on the matter was undermined considerably by the fact they liked “not a game” Barenpark.

But it was Diego’s reply that sealed Lost Ruins fate in my collection. All he said was if I did decide to sell it he was interested.

So we chatted at work about the game. I came up with an asking price I thought was fair for the base game and expansion that I was selling to a friend. I don’t like ripping friends off. Diego agreed with the price, and a deal was struck.

That little bit of business was concluded at last nights fortnightly meet up. Where goods were exchanged for cash.

We split into three tables. Jonathan leading one of them with Pandemic. And Diego had the other with Potion Explosion (a game I’d like to try).

The game I was playing and with who was decided earlier in the week on our discord server.

Dune Imperium with the newly released first expansion The Rise of Ix was our main game of the evening.

We played with three of the new leaders (you can see who played which below).

Wow! I loved Dune Imperium before. But this expansion. Wow!

First off more intrigue cards, more leaders, more conflict cards, more Imperium cards, and for solo/2 players more House Hagal cards. More variety on that side is so so welcome with any expansion. Plus we definitely got to see some of the new cards during the game.

I liked my leader Tessia Vernius. To make use of her ability I really did have to progress on all the influence tracks.

An early tech tile had an end game scoring where I could get a victory point if I had at least 3 influence on all four influence tracks. So I leant heavily into progressing up the influence tracks. That victory point might be the difference between winning and losing. Scores are so tight in this game.

By leaning so heavily into the influence tracks I managed to get 3 out of the 4 faction alliances. Taking into account the earlier victory points for getting 2 influence on a track, 7 points of my final score came from the influence tracks.

Below you can see the 9th rounds conflict card that gave me the final 2 victory points needed to trigger the end of the game. If Julie hadn’t accidentally blocked me with her final action I would have had enough spice to get another victory point. But that’s being greedy.

I do feel that these new leaders you have to lean heavily into their abilities. For example I don’t think Julie was aggressive enough and winning enough combats. She was the first to get a dreadnought but didn’t get the second. I think only one of her victory points was from combat!

I love the new interstellar shipping spot. What a great addition. Plus it makes getting Solari much much harder by removing the sell spice action. So getting the third agent/swordsman is much more of an effort to do. Still necessary but harder. Plus to get the more powerful action spot you need 2 influence with the spacing guild. Making the influence track more important.

I like the tech tiles. I ended up with 3 in the end. One early one as I said above synergised really well with my leader.

Dreadnoughts very cool. I like what they bring to the table for combat. Probably the lesser of the three new changes to the game. But still pretty good.

Our game made it 9 rounds before I grabbed victory and control of Arrakis.

I really like what Rise of Ix brings to Dune Imperium. Can’t wait to play it again. I’d love to try the new Epic game variant in the rulebook. Plus using the official Direwolf app there are two further variants! to try.

After my glorious victory Diego’s table and ours joined together to play Perudo.

It was fun to get this to the table again. It was “too noisy” for our previous hosts. No such restriction here.

In the end it came down to a head to head showdown between Diego and myself. My two dice to his one. Then it was one a piece. But for once I was able to pull off a win. Historically if memory doesn’t fail me, more often than not I’ve lost more than I’ve won in these stand offs.

Back to back wins! It truly was a good evenings gaming for me. So I called it a day while I was ahead! Plus I’d told mum I’d be back by about 9:30pm.

No photos from Jonathan, however we do have a new photographic correspondent from last night and now proud owner of Lost Ruins of Arnak, Diego!