Friday evening once again saw The Luxe hosting The Fenland Gamers. Once again the evening was well attended. In fact if there hadn’t been a couple of last minute dropouts due to life stuff, we would have been up to three tables and our best ever attended session.

Before hand I had put a call out for interest in playing Civilization A New Dawn (CAND) with the Terra Incognita (TI) expansion. It would be tight but it should be playable in the time we usually have for a game night.

As normal I got to The Luxe ahead of time to get the tables set up, and because it was a “big” game I was playing start setting up the board.

Luckily I have organised my copy of CAND so that everything each player needs (other than choosing a civilization) is in one bag. It speeds things up both setting up and tearing down.

As a group we decided to choose our civilisations randomly from new ones in the TI expansion.

Then it was time to go over the rules. It wasn’t the best explanation, I was rusty (nearly 3 years since I last played it) and combat was left until one of us needed to do it.

TI changes things up pretty drastically for CAND. From setting up the board, introduction of fortresses and the objective cards related to them, exploring, districts, armies and combat, unique civilisation focus cards, new event dial, extended focus bar and government tiles. Oh and nearly forgot a fifth player (which should only be used with the expansion).

I enjoyed CAND. It did give that civ like experience in a streamlined game. And I really loved the focus track. However! With the addition of TI CAND gets taken to a new level for me. Spoiler alert, I won’t be playing CAND without the expansion. Yes it’s that good.

The unique civilisation focus cards make each civilisation feel even more unique than they already are. I love the growing map from exploration (something I forgot in game I could do). Fortresses were interesting. I liked that controlling them were victory conditions that if you lost control meant you lost that victory point. Which is the opposite to the other victory conditions, which once gained you don’t lose. So the fortresses become ways to deny an opponent from winning.

I liked the addition of armies and the tweaks to combat. It just felt better. It’s certainly an improvement. A big improvement. The government tiles are a nice addition, allowing a focus card with one on to be activated earlier but act as if it was one or two spaces more advanced depending on the tile. Districts is another great addition and can be very powerful when activated.

Naturally the event dial has changed to cater for the additions to the game. I also like how now when the appropriate space is reached on the event dial wonders get a trade token placed on them. This acts as a reduction to the cost of buying the wonder. When a second trade token will be placed on a wonder all tokens are removed off the wonder and it is discarded, and the one underneath revealed. I love how this means the wonder trade row does not remain static and stale.

As you can see from the photo above (I played red) I was cut off from everyone else. My path blocked by a fortress and a city-state. I failed on two or three attempts to capture the fortress (bad die rolls). My wagons couldn’t get passed the city-state. You can see why I’m kicking myself after the fact about forgetting to explore.

However despite not achieving a single objective and coming last I still had an enjoyable game. Jeff won. His civilisation ability would have been perfect for where I was on the board.

As is now the new normal for these club posts I end with a couple of photos taken by Jonathan.

Looking forward to our monthly meet up this coming Wednesday.

Two weeks has just flown by. Last night saw another club night of gaming on a Friday evening at our fantastic hosts The Luxe Cinema.

Once again the evening was well attended. And that’s despite life forcing two attendees to stay away until they are clean again! So instead of 10 attending we had 8.

I’d spent the afternoon combining the Oceania expansion for Wingspan into my copy of the game, in the hope it might get to the table in the evening.

However I’d forgotten Gavin had wanted to try Dune Imperium which I also had with me. So that once more hit the table. I’m not complaining I love the game. I got to try another leader Helena Richese, which was forced on me because Julie took Duke Leto this time. I do think the next couple of club nights I’ll be leaving the game at home, unless someone asks me to bring it along.

You can see below who played what in this game.

I really liked Helena and her on going ability as it changed drastically how I played the game. Basically I didn’t have to worry about those spaces unless I wanted the mentat. It took the pressure off taking them before anyone else. The signet ring ability was also pretty cool. For me I was pretty restrained in using it to hate remove a card to deny the others. I only did that once to remove a card that when purchased pushed the player up one spot on all the influence tracks.

Like our game of Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, Gavin’s deck hated him! Which tainted his experience a little I think. It’s fair to say that Gavin didn’t enjoy Dune Imperium. Part of that was having to play cards with the relevant symbol on to go to a space. Often there would be a space he’d want to go to but not have the card to do it. I don’t see that as an issue. I’ve experienced it. I had it in the previous games, and I had it in this one. However I looked at what I could do, and tried to use those to set up a big future turn.

I was pretty chuffed that I got both Jessica cards and got to play them together. They combo nicely.

This game went to the last conflict round. Up for grabs were two influence track positions for the winner. This was crucial to my plan. Diego and I were neck and neck. I’d got two intrigue cards that would get me victory points. However I failed on one of them because I was short by 1 persuasion to buy one of the spice must flow cards. That would have nabbed me 2 victory points if I’d had enough!

I did have enough spice to buy the other victory point though.

The crucial part of my plan? Oh that was to win the combat, jump up two spaces on the Fremen influence track and take the Fremen alliance from Diego. Basically forcing a 2 point swing. Diego would lose a point and I’d gain one. That’s how things unfolded. My forces stormed to victory on the combat phase. And the victory was even more sweet having pulled off this point steal.

Whilst basking in the glow of victory we decided to play For Sale.

I hadn’t played For Sale before. So after a quick run through of the rules from Gavin, bidding commenced.

There really isn’t much to the game.

However I enjoyed the bidding round. I like the choices you have to make. Like when to drop out, or do you try and force the price up to drain your opponents of money? I did deliberately start the bidding high on one occasion to drain the others of money. I think that worked this game as I was able to pick up the two highest value cards.

The purchase round was also fun. I liked the playing of cards blind then all revealing at the same time. I think it was easy for me to get the two highest value cards. All I had to do was save the two highest cards for those rounds. I also through away my lowest cards when there was no 0 cost card to get.

Obviously this time these tactics worked for me as I won.

I liked the game. It’s relatively quick to play and teach. Has some decision making to make. It’s fun. A nice filler game.

I finish this post about a great evening gaming (any evening when I win the games I play is great) with a picture of the other table and some photos taken by Jonathan. I’m sure Jonathan will be kind to us and leave a comment sharing which games they played.

Last night saw the first monthly meet up since global stuff kicked off.

It was looking like the trend set by the fortnightly Friday sessions of being well attended was going to continue. However we ended up with half the numbers expected turning up. Life changes plans, and the assumption was it had indeed changed the plans of those unable to attend.

However it can not be said we did not give a socially suitable amount of time for them to arrive before starting to play Dune Imperium.

I know it’s hitting the table a lot at the moment. However Marcin (a new member) had wanted to try the game as it was on his list of games to get. And who am I to disappoint?

So after a run through of the rules, the battle for Arrakis commenced.

Once again I played Duke Leto. I like the powers of the character, that discount makes a big difference. It allowed me on round three to get the extra agent and the seat on the high council. Jonathan likes playing Paul.

In this game despite having the solari to get the extra agent and on the high council in the first round I didn’t get the cards to do either in the second round. So that round ended up being a setup round.

I was also pretty slow in getting started on the score track. However I made up for that and soon caught up.

I did manage to get some good extra card draw going during the game. So I was pleased with that.

In one of the stage 3 conflict rounds near the end I did play an intrigue card to help Jonathan win the conflict against Marcin, and get me third place. It didn’t matter at that point if Jonathan got two victory points. But it did if Marcin got them as he would have been a point away from victory.

Our game nearly had me winning in round 9 but I couldn’t scrape out that extra victory point to do so. Which meant for the majority of the last round there was a three way tie for first place until Marcin bought a Spice Must Flow Card in his reveal stage to get the winning point.

In that final round I managed to avoid Jonathan stealing a victory point from me, and failed to return the favour. Which felt good to deny him that. Would have been better to have flipped his plan on him and to have won. That would have been a sweet sweet victory. But sadly in this reality it never happened.

It was another fun evening of gaming. Looking forward to the next club night. And a big big thank you to our hosts for the evening The Luxe cinema.

Last night saw the (for now) fortnightly Friday Evening gaming for Fenland Gamers at our regular hosts The Luxe cinema.

As usually I got there early to set up the tables. Some-one has to do it. It saves time and means some-one is there to welcome folks as they arrive.

Last nights session was one of our best attended, if not the best, with eight members turning up for gaming plus one member of the general public who joined us.

We split into two groups for gaming, of four and five. Although thinking about it we could have gone to three groups of three.

However we did what we did, which saw Jeff, Jonas, Rachel and myself battle over the planet Arakas in Dune Imperium. Whilst the other group played Istanbul, followed by Saboteur.

This was the first time I’d played Imperium with the full player count. Whilst the others were new to the game and chose from the one pip player boards, I went with Duke Leto Atreides a two pip player board.

I got the extra agent/worker pretty early on. What I found interesting was in the previous two plays with the lower player counts I didn’t think the extra worker made much of a difference, gave very little advantage. However in this full player count game I think it made a big difference.

Intrigue cards also proved to be very impactful in this game too. Plus we were seeing more cards in the trade row, and got to see some cards that required you to move down a space on an influence track as a payment. I hadn’t seen them come out before.

In this game apart from the opening water you get at setup, I never had water after that all game. I did get much spice either. I was all about the solari (money).

I think Jeff is correct and we played the Alliance rule incorrectly. Which needs double checking before the next game. So that kind of puts a big asterisk next to this win.

However even with the cloud over the victory I won. And I’ll take that. Imperium still pips Lost Ruins for me.

What a Friday.

It started out taking yet more clothes to the Salvation Army drop off spot in the Tesco car park. And ended with Jonathan somehow winning our second game of Dune Imperium!

I hadn’t planned on gaming. But after the roads in the area decided to throw spanners in the works for the majority of those planning to go to the Friday gaming session. Tied in with the petrol panic buying taking out others (what is this 2002 again?) I didn’t want Jonathan and Julie to be left high and dry at the last minute.

So I quickly got ready, grabbed a bag that already had games in it, and left for The Luxe.

I set up the new round table, and awaited the arrival of the others. Because I hadn’t made it to the previous Friday gaming session I hadn’t met Julie before. So introductions were made. Then Jonathan arrived and a game was chosen for the evening.

Our game for the evening was Dune Imperium.

I thought Dune Imperium played ok with two players. But with three it was great. Taking into account setup, teaching the game to Julie, the whole thing took about two and a half hours to play. Which is pretty good.

If I was asked to choose between Dune Imperium and Lost Ruins of Arnak, which I both really like. Imperium edges it for me.

The unique player abilities (which I believe the Arnak expansion adds), the combat, twice as many rounds, the influence tracks, the worker placement plus the reveal stage, dual use cards, the take that element. Oh and that the scoring is much closer. Just tip it in favour of Imperium.

Next time I play Imperium I’m going to use one of the more difficult leaders to play. The fact they rank the leaders in order of difficulty to play is a great little touch.

Whilst playing we were asked a couple of times about the game we were playing. Now get this one of them had met/knew Frank Herbert! How frickin cool is that? Plus what are the odds that whilst we are playing a game based on the Dune books in a small single screen cinema, in a Fenland market town (some would argue with delusions of grandeur, after all it is the Capital of the Fens) we would bump into such a person?

I had a fun time despite everything going on. It was great meeting a new club member.

“It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled
It’s been a long time since I did the stroll
Ooh let me get it back, let me get it back
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from” Led Zepplin, Rock and Roll

It’s been a long time since we gamed at The Luxe.

But last night we finally returned to our gracious hosts for a test gaming session with limited attendance.

The plan was hold a game night at The Luxe. See how it went. Review the evening and make a decision about restarting regular club nights.

Our game for the evening saw Lost Ruins of Arnak hit the table. A game that joined my collection over a year ago and remained unplayed until last night. I hadn’t even punched the cardboard until Tuesday when I discovered I hadn’t even done that.

Naturally I arrived a few minutes before the designated start time for the evening to get set up. It’s a little thing but it does ensure that the majority of our game time is spent playing and not setting up and packing away.

And that brings me to my main comment about the Lost Ruins of Arnak. It’s a lot of setting up. Lots of fiddling about with mixing up tokens and placing them on the board, shuffling decks, shuffling of piles of tiles.

Once you start playing it’s a lovely game, a great mash up of deck building and worker placement. I can see why this was getting a lot of buzz when it came out.

I love how it’s 5 rounds and that’s it. It forces you to focus. And seems a popular mechanic in some great games (Imperial Settlers and Wingspan come to mind). Like those other games you are left wanting at least one more turn. Which I like.

Also like those other games you start off not being able to do much and as the game progresses you are able to do more and more on your turn as you buy items or artifacts to make your deck more powerful.

Naturally there were misplays and a need to refer to the rule book on a regular basis through out the evening. Our impression of the rule book was it wasn’t great. We found trying to find information not easy due to it being spread over multiple pages, if it had what you were looking for. Plus on more than one occasion we found that it was also unclear in the information it was giving. I think our best example of this was artifact cards, buying them and using the ability straight away.

I loved that new cards (unless an artifact) went on the bottom of the deck. Getting to use the new cards quicker is cool.

The research board is a great addition as you race the other players up it to claim bonuses before the others.

I was surprised how few sites we explored to. In the end there were 4. I think it’s more that we all got distracted by the research board at the cost of exploring.

Jeff took the honours and romped home to the victory. Sadly I came last by a point to Jonathan. So now I got to live with that until I can return the favour and crush him.

The general consensus around the table was we liked Lost Ruins of Arnak. Definitely a game we want to get back to the table (aren’t they all?)

It was felt the evening went well. We all felt safe enough. The precautions our host have in place to mitigate risk were excellent. Although the cinema wasn’t busy, no crowds in the foyer. So we decided to go ahead with holding regular gaming sessions again. But at a slow, cautious pace. What that means is instead of weekly gaming sessions on a Friday they will be fortnightly. As for the monthly meet up. Before starting that up we decided to get some feedback from the club members about the best night to hold that.

For those interested we are asking that those attending are either vaccinated against covid and/or have taken a LFT (which is negative) in addition to any requirements that our hosts The Luxe require.

I’m hoping to get Dune Imperium, Star Wars Outer Rim, Rolling Rome and Vampire the Masquerade Vendetta to the table over the coming weeks.