I know a day or late on this one. But better late than never. Besides I do have this whole #RPGaDAY2022 thing going on at the moment if you hadn’t noticed.

Plus I had my last shift at my current store yesterday before moving to a new one and a new role.

I’ve been really taken aback about how supportive and kind everyone at work has been. There’s a bit of me that thinks it doesn’t deserve all these kind words.

Yesterday my boss came in to say good bye, thank me, and give me a card and a bottle of Monkey Shoulder whisky. Charla a friend gave me a couple of chocolate cup cakes (I do have a whole cake thing going on). Then at the end of the shift I was given a card signed by lots of friends and colleagues, lots of chocolate and a chocolate birthday cake.

That last bit nearly made my eyes leak.

I’m kinda sad I won’t be working with them all. However it’s not a good bye. More I’ll see you around. As I’ll still be shopping there, and possibly picking up the odd overtime shift.

Anyway I digress and you want to know more about the blog post title.

Friday was once again that time for another Fenland Gamers club night at our hosts Wisbech St Mary Sports and Community Centre.

As per usual I was there early to get set up. With the help of Charlene, Colin and Ben we put up three tables, and some chairs. Got our refreshments in, and waited for others to turn up. My waiting included ordering and enjoying a banana split.

When Jonathan arrived he pointed out we didn’t have enough tables out! He was expecting seventeen people to turn up! Seventeen!

That is the club record that was broken. We’ve never had that many attend before. That’s massive for us.

Despite having so many attending I did get to game with Jonathan on a club night. Which as I’ve said before is a rarity these days.

But then I did have a couple of games Jonathan was interested in trying with me.

Our first game was The Bloody Inn. A game I came last in. I had an engine built that was good for bribing guests. But that took far too long to set up, and I let it too long before bumping off and burying guests.

Marcin on the other hand took quick and easy points and ran away with the victory.

Our second game of the evening was a new arrival that day Santorini New York.

I quiet enjoyed play this. It’s definitely a much better multi player experience than Santorini. Which is a two player game only. Never play it with more.

There are some nice twists to the core Santorini game play in this new version.

I like the different ways to win. There are now three ways. Two require that you meet the win condition and be the current player with the Statue of Liberty. The third just be the last person standing.

That requiring to be the player with the Statue of Liberty in order to win is nice. It creates some interesting decisions when it comes to selecting a card to play. Possession of the statue goes to the person who played the highest valued card each round. However that also means that person is going last that round.

There is the whole hand management side to the game deciding which and when to play a card. Even which card to keep for the next or future round.

I like the fact everyone has access to the same “god” powers. Although it’s possible to get a hand of cards that are mostly the same ability. In our second game on our final round I had three engineer cards out of the five cards in my hand.

Placing skyscrapers is a nice new addition, and adds in a whole new decision of how best to place to screw over an opponent. Ideally blocking them in so they have to lose a worker.

Visually like it’s predecessor New York looks stunning on the table. A real wow factor.

But there is a but! A big but!! The quality of the game board and cards is atrocious. It really lets the game down. I know it’s not an expensive game. But a better quality game board would be worth an extra couple of pounds to the price of the game.

There is room for both versions of the game in my collection. Especially considering that merits of both games. If I was just playing with another player it’d be Santorini every time. It’s an amazing game, and a better game. But want to play at a higher player count it has to be Santorini New York. That’s where it’s strength is compared to Santorini. It’s a much better multi player experience.

When I left what seemed like the longest game of Ticket to Ride Europe was going on. I think they are still playing!

This was an amazing evening of gaming. So great to see so many people playing games.

Friday was indeed another Fenland Gamers club night.

I’d been looking forward to it after a nine day tour of duty at work.

Earlier in the day I’d had an interview for a shift leader position. Which I think went well. But I’ve never really been that good judging how well an interview really went. I’m meant to find out on Saturday (today as I write this post).

After setting up the tables I treated myself to a banana split before anyone else arrived as a reward for surviving my tour of duty.

Our tables first game of the evening was a learning game of The Bloody Inn.

It was truly a learning game as we learnt from the rulebook at the table. The cards were unsleeved! We went with a short game (removing 22 cards for a four player game) because it was a learning game.

I love the theme of the game. It’s very Devil in the White City. Killing off your guests, robbing their corpses. It’s what attracted me to the game.

We all loved the game.

It’s kinda an engine builder with a little take that thrown in.

I love the multi use cards where you can use them to bribe other guests, build annexes to your inn, kill guests, and bury guests. And depending on the card played you might be able to return the card to your hand instead of the discard pile based on if its symbol matches the activity you are doing.

So you have a decision to make about the guests to how you are going to use them, assuming you are able to afford them. Added on top of you may want a particular guest, but if you take one of the others from a room controlled by another player you deny them money at the end of the round.

Which reminds me you also have to pay close attention to the cash you have. You need to choose the right moment to launder money, either turning it into cheques so you don’t loose money, or cashing a cheque so you have funds to pay accomplices at the end of the round.

Near the end of the game we were regretting not going with the longer game. But I have been sworn to bring it to the next meet up.

oh I won btw.

Our next game of the evening was 6 Nimmit.

What a fun card game. Quick to teach. Quick games. But also very tactical. A perfect little filler game.

This will be added to the collection.

This was a great evenings gaming. Just what the doctor ordered.

Last night was the latest Fenland Gamers club night.

I got to try the heavy (in every sense of the word) flip and write Hadrian’s Wall.

Which was my thirty first new game to me that I’ve played this year. I find this incredible. At this rate I’m going to complete the challenge easily before the end of the year.

I love Hadrian’s Wall.

There I’ve said it.

We played on the standard (green) difficulty. For those into video games and have played the classic video game Doom, is the equivalent of “Hey, not too rough” in difficulty.

Like Three Sisters when you first see the two sheets you will be playing with it’s all a bit overwhelming. But after a brief overview it starts to make sense. Then after using your first couple of resources everything becomes clear.

Generating the resources needed reminded me a bit of Imperium Settlers/51st State. It also gives the game a little euro boardgame vibe. It’s kinda cool how at the start of each round/year players get the same resources based on the flipping of a card, and then addition resources are gathered depending on unlocked sections of your player sheets. Then as you spend those resources you get further ones to spend during the round. Any not spent get lost. Very Imperial Settlers like.

Hadrian’s Wall isn’t as combotastic as Three Sisters. But it has combos. It’s definitely a deep thinker.

If we were putting Hadrian’s Wall on a difficulty scale for Roll/flip and writes, it’s firmly in the heavier, more complicated camp. Not one you’d play with noobs.

I really really did like the game. It’s gone on my wish list.

Our second game was Dungeons, Dice and Danger using the Clumsy Cultists map. Which in Doom difficulty level terms is “

Charlene and myself both took a few hits from not being able to use a dice combo. Mine cost me the game by a point.

Our second play of Hadrian’s Wall saw the difficulty level dialled up to eleven as we played it in hard (Red) mode. Aka it’s version of the Doom “Hurt me plenty” difficulty level.

What this means in reality is that during the year end of each round we are drawing more cards from the Fate Card Draw Pile. Which means we have to defend more attacks from those pesky Picts and potentially taking more damage in the form of Disdain.

Disdain is not good. It’s negative points at the end of the game.

Playing at this harder difficulty level with the greatly increased number of attacks to defend against certainly changed the focus of the game. You are spending more resources trying to build up the cohorts to defend with. Whilst still trying to do the other stuff like meet the criteria for the path cards you decided to score.

I did find the drawing of more cards exciting! Yes I’m that sad.

The games that made it to the other tables Transmissions (looks stunning) and Dice Theme Park (sequel to Dice Hospital).

A fun evening of a genre I really like. Off to Westeros later today.

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.