Category Archives: Fenland Gamers

Fenland Gamers

Got a virtual ticket to ride

apps, Fenland Gamers, game night, iOS, online play, virtual game night

Last night our game club Fenland Gamers held another virtual game night.

We had a new (not new to the club) member join us for the virtual game night, so I added their Asmodee username to my Asmodee friends list. I do this through the Asmodee web page. It’s easier and quicker that way. It does make sending game invites a lot simpler if folks are in your friends list. Once that was done, it was deciding what to play based on the overlap between the apps everyone owned. Which was either Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride (TTR). There were other overlaps but not for everyone.

Our game for the evening was Asmodee digitals TTR. I’ve not played the TTR app in years, and even then it was just me against the AI. So it was a first for me to be playing it online. I definitely needed to remind myself of the interface. The last time I had played any version of the physical TTR was the New York version in 2018. The original TTR I last played in 2017, and the TTR UK was 2016 on 18th March. Literally a day short of being a full on 5 years to the day!

We started off playing the original base game of TTR because I didn’t know what expansions everyone had. Which I needn’t have taken into account. It was pointed out over discord during play that only one person (the one starting the game) needed to have the expansion.

I wasn’t doing amazing in the first game, I put that down to getting back into the swing of things. Even though I didn’t win, I wasn’t last, and scored more points than Jonathan.

The second game was using the TTR UK map. I think out of the versions of TTR that I have played so far over the years, this is one of my favourite maps to play. I like the having to purchase technology to open up various parts of the map, get extra points for competing routes etc.

One annoying thing did happen right at the end when I was going to share the detailed results for the TTR UK map. It crashed! And every attempt since to go back into the game (not the app) to get those results sees the app crash. So Jonathan kindly sent me the images you see above. Sadly the UK map does not show the completed routes at the end of the game. It’s the board state just as before I trigger the end of the game and the final round. But it does show that I got the New York route that was worth a massive 40 points plus the bonus points I had from the technology cards.

Despite that app crash at the end I think that the combination of using official app versions of a game along with discord for voice/text chat works really well, especially if using a tablet device. My experience with the virtual tabletop apps hasn’t been great. Especially their iOS versions. Nope for me official app version on the iPad, and use my iPhone with headset plugged running the discord app for the chat. Works a treat.

Anyway we all had a good time. That’s the important part.

Wingspan – 100 point barrier broken!

Fenland Gamers, game night, online play

A bit of a sensational post title, many many other players have achieved this. But this is a first for our group.

But before I go into how that was achieved I just want to sing the praises of one of the Wingspan apps features that I really like. That feature is the Preserve Archive.

When you finish playing a game before returning to the main menu you are given the option of saving that game to the reserve. I’ve been doing that for all the games I have played so far (I only play Wingspan against my friends online). So it’s like keeping a running record of those games, which I really must turn into data that can be analysed and graphs drawn (wish there was an easy way to get to this data). But it really is cool being able to go back and look at the detail of everyone’s final board state.

Yesterday I got to play three games of Wingspan.

The first game of the day was a three player game with Jonathan plus an AI opponent during the afternoon.

For some reason the Switch version of the app decided to play up by crashing. And then once back up and online, deciding to play the background music so it sounded corrupted! Even quitting and go back in didn’t seem to fix it. But I soldiered on through this adversity to tie the game with the AI. Which was given the win on some bs tie breaker.

The second game of the day was later in the evening and saw Jeff joining in to make it a four player game. Having done absolutely nothing between games to rectify the earlier sound issue, it was now fine!

It wasn’t until the later stages of the game that I decided to look at the board states of the others. I was horrified to see Jonathan had both Ravens out. But he was struggling for some reason (He’ll hopefully put his experience and reasons in the comments about this). I still thought the game would go to Jonathan.

So I was pleasantly surprised that I scored more points than him. And I’ve only just noticed I scored the exact same score as I had in the earlier game. Alas thus was not good enough to beat Jeff, who romped home to his first win. I suspect he’s been practicing.

We started our third and final game, after all our first game had taken about an hour. There was time for another. Or so we thought. Jonathan noticed it first. But this third game was taking an age. Despite taking our turns almost instantly (there was no AP going on), the little egg timer would appear and be there for minutes (never timed sadly). Something was up. But we were committed now. It was well over two hours for the game to finish.

The game did finish though, and when the dust settled, scores tallied. Not only had Jeff hit the 100 point barrier, I had smashed through it and got the win with 102 points. Just like buses if I was to use an old tired cliche.

As you can see below I needed to set up a card draw engine to get cards into hand to fully utilise my bonus. So I took the early decision to forget the end of round objectives and try and get as many birds in hand as possible. I certainly got a lot of value out of tucking cards, such as draw another card, gain an egg, discard a wheat to tuck two, gain a wheat. Because I was drawing so many cards I was able to cherry pick cards that fitted in with my plan and deny the others.

This morning I realised I should have scored 103 points, but failed to tuck and draw one more time on my last turn! I was too set on making sure that I had 8 cards in hand to max out my bonus, forgetting the last tuck replaced itself. That slip could have cost me the game. Many a game has been won by a single point.

I did miss out on 2 points from the final turn. Basically if I had the nest space I could have gained a further 2 eggs. But I was 100% full, no room at the inn. So not an option.

Below are the final board states for both Jeff and Jonathan.

As you can see Jonathan was one bird from completing a self set achievement of completely filling his reserve. The next achievement for us all to try and beat.

I’ll leave you with a parting gift of Wingspan tallying up the final scores. While watching this 30 second clip (the Switch is great at creating these) trying and imagine being Jeff and thinking you’d got this. Then it dawning on you that I had a lot of tucked birds as they got added to my score, and you had just been beaten. I can still here the echoes of Jeff screaming “noooooooooooooo!”

Back to other stuff in the next post.

Aggressive City Building!

Fenland Gamers, game night, online play

Last night saw 5 members of Fenland Gamers meet up virtually to play games.

The clubs discord server was used to host the evening, and made use of its text chat channel and an audio chat channel.

This side of the evening seemed to work really well, especially the audio chat side. Despite a dip in audio quality from time to time, I enjoyed our banter during the game.

Our first game of Carcassonne was just the base game, no expansions. Both games that we played used the following options:

I do like the dead and remaining tiles features. It’s so handy seeing what tiles are left. It offers hope that you might draw the tile you want, or snuff out that hope knowing you will never complete that town. Dead tiles I like as they act as a constant reminder you or your opponent will never complete that town or abbey.

I got screwed by Oli early on with him tying up two of my meeples for the whole of the game. I was playing at a big disadvantage then. So I was chuffed I drew last place. It was the best I could hope for.

Gavin on the other hand I think was a bit shell shocked with the aggressive play and the whole stealing towns off of players. And I can see how it may be seen a bit cutthroat. But that’s how I’ve always played the game, whether against others or an AI.

Jonathan was able to claw out a victory for the first game.

Our second and final game of the evening used the following expansions:

Naturally with the expansions being used the game took longer to play. But I do enjoy playing Carcassonne with them. It’s why I have them for the physical game as well. I didn’t include the Princess and Dragon expansion because I knew Jonathan wasn’t a fan of it. Although with this many players it would become so tactical, and yes add even more playing time.

There were some great battles going on in this game for control of towns and fields. One of those battles involved Jonathan, Oli, and Gavin for control of a field. It looked right up to the last two or three tiles that Jonathan had it. But Oli managed to steal it from him and the win.

We had a great time playing a classic board game using a really great digital version.

Now to organise the next virtual game night.

A virtual game night

apps, Fenland Gamers, game night, love letter, online play

Last night we had a virtual game night!

I know shocked me as well. It shouldn’t have but it did. Especially considering I’m the one that suggested it in the first place!

Last week I posted on our clubs discord server asking if anyone was up for a virtual gaming session, giving a day and time for when it would happen. But there was no response. So I assumed there was no interest.

Fortunately I happened to be on the clubs discord server at the right time last night as two others turned up to play!

After some brief chatting, exchanging lists of board game apps that each of us owned, and finding some games that we all had, we settled on our first game to play.

That first game was Tokaido. I like the game a lot. It’s a beautiful, peaceful, game. Somehow Jonathan won the first game, whilst Oli won the second game.

Our second game of the evening was Love Letter.

I wasn’t sure about this app. I love the game. But could this app capture the whole play experience?

I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t a bad attempt at capturing the game.

Mechanically the app is spot on. It’s Love Letter. The interface took a little getting used to. But that was a quick learning curve. I liked that when setting up an online game you can adjust the number of points needed to win. And you can switch on or off the stars that appear on a card telling you how many of that card you have seen.

I liked the banter it has where you can cause a speech bubble to appear that hurls an insult or praise. And we did that from time to time through out our game. But we were also exchanging banter via our discord chat channel. That helped a lot in the attempt to capture the tabletop experience. Maybe if we used voice it might have helped to get even closer to the tabletop experience.

For the record I had a comfortable victory.

After that win, we called it a day for the virtual games evening. It was a fun time. I’ll have to suggest doing another soon.

A couple of days ago playing Wingspan with Jonathan we hit a first for me in the game. We achieved something that I had not done in the few games I’ve played of Wingspan both physical or digital.

Firstly we drew for first place on all of the end of round objectives.

Secondly, same game, Jonathan and I drew on points after the end of game scoring had been completed.

The app gave Jonathan the win on a tie breaker which was who had the most resources left. He had 1, I had none. Robbed. It should have been left at a draw.

That contested win means Jonathan has the advantage with our current game score line being 3-4 to Jonathan.

A brief update

apps, Fenland Gamers, game of thrones

I think the Diptic collage below sums up the last couple of days fairly well.

I managed to get into the beta for the A Game of Thrones (AGoT) board game app. So I need to work through the tutorial now, and then get some games in.

I like the physical game a lot. So I’m pretty keen to try this digital version. The hope is once it’s out of beta that I can convince some of my friends to get it and we get a game or two in.

But like my physical collection, my digital board game collection has the same problem. Too many games too little time!

I could play against random strangers online. But I don’t get much enjoyment out of that. For me if I play online I like playing with friends.

Sadly even with app gaming being the only real way to game with friends during this pandemic. After a brief flurry of interest, it died off pretty quickly.

It’s a pity.

But engagement within our gaming group online seems to match that of attendance of gaming sessions. Pretty low.

I started a Discord server for the group so that members wouldn’t get spammed on Facebook from the club page, and/or miss posts. Facebook does seem to have a knack of being inconsistent in what it shows on peoples timelines.

The other positive for Discord for me is that with separate chat areas set up for different gaming interests, members can filter out the stuff they are not interested in. Not to mention the voice functionality it offers whilst gaming.

However the engagement on Discord is just as low.

My latest attempt to help improve things is to try running games of Mastermind (which died off pretty quickly), and the latest attempt a game of Chess.

I’ve not played Chess in decades. And even then I wasn’t very good at it. But we’ll see how it goes.

Scary Interesting Times

Fenland Gamers

There is an old Chinese proverb that I am partial to quote from time to time, “may you live in interesting times”.

We are certainly living in interesting times. But they are also for many very worrying and scary times.

After a phone call last night with founding member of Fenland Gamers Jonathan we decided to cancel this weeks Friday gaming session.

It wasn’t an easy decision.

We based it on the latest Government information. Which over the weekend is changing almost by the hour. I’d love to rant about the handling of this but this post is not the place to do that.

Even if we personally are not at risk, we have to think of those we come into contact with. They may be.

For me that means my 93 year old Nan and my over 70 mum. Luckily I’m in a position at the moment where I can easily avoid contact with others, and keep it to a minimum.

Jonathan and I were both on the same wavelength during our conversation. Although as I said we have cancelled this weeks session. Which if you are involved with a gaming group of some sort will be happening all around the country. All our ‘local’ groups are doing the same.

Our monthly meet-up for April at the moment is still going ahead. But we have warned members that this may change and be cancelled on short notice.

Jonathan also put up a post (copied below) for the group first thing yesterday that speaks for everyone I think. I definitely agree with it.

“Coronavirus update

While I personally believe that we shouldn’t live in fear, as a gaming group Fenland Gamers have a responsibility towards our members. At this time we are following Government advice. We will also be working closely with our hosts, The Luxe Cinema. This might mean that planned events may have to be cancelled at short notice. At this time we ask you to double check events before travelling to make sure of no last-minute cancellations. If you are showing any of the symptoms of cold/flu (defined as a fever of above 37.8C or a persistent cough) we ask you not to attend sessions. We apologise for any disappointment this might cause.”

The Luxe Cinema is being brilliant, and really supportive. As much as we can during this difficult and worrying time we want to support them also.

My message to everyone is be safe, think of others. It’s a time to show our best side and not the worst.

Monthly Meet up March 2020

Fenland Gamers, game night

With current events as they are we would have been forgiven for cancelling this months meet up.

However it still went ahead. Although our hosts were not exactly rushed off their feet and feeling the impact of said events.

Our little get together was in fact for us rather well intended with seven brave souls turning up.

Jonathan, Nathan, Gavin and I decide to dabble in the stock market while waiting for others to turn up, by playing Oink Games Startups.

Startups has been sitting in my collection for nearly a couple of years now. I bought it at UKGE 2018 if my failing memory recalls correctly. It’s been one I’ve been meaning to play during that time. Often making it into the game bag for a session but never selected. Always the bridesmaid never the bride. Until last night.

Earlier in the day I had attempted to read the rule sheet that’s included in the box. However I found the print too small for my aging eyes. So I turned to the saviour of many the Internet and Google. Which took me to the official Oink Games website and their official how to play video.

The video I thought was rather well produced. Explained the game well. And somehow puzzling lasted just short of twelve minutes. I say puzzling because the rules are not that complicated.

Startups became the second Oink game I’ve played (I have two more in the collection to get to the table).

At it’s heart Startups is a set collection and majority control game.

Each player starts with a starting hand of three cards, and ten coins (worth one point). On a players turn they either draw a card from the deck and putting a coin on each of the cards in the market. Or take a card from the market. The player then has to either place a card in front of them as part of their portfolio or put one in the market.

If a player after playing a card in front of them becomes the player with the majority of that card type they get a matching anti-monopoly token. This token stops the player from taking any cards in the market that match with it. However it also means when taking a card from the deck that the player doesn’t have to put a coin on any cards that match it either.

There is a nice bluffing element to the game with the three cards that a player has in their hand. This is hidden information and the cards count towards final totals at the end of the game. Add in the fact that five cards are removed from the deck at the start of the game. You have this unknown element of not truly knowing how many of each card type there truly is out there on the table, and if you have a majority or not.

With the anti-monopoly tokens and the market place you have a nice tactical bit going on. Knowing that certain cards can’t be taken by certain players. There is a skill of staying on the right side of staying level with whoever has the token so they keep it, and allowing yourself free range of the market place.

I won. However the scores were surprisingly close. This is a nice little filler game. I’ll definitely try and get this back to the table.

By the time we had finished playing Startups, except for one player who messaged saying they would be late, everyone had turned up.

So unsure how long we would have to wait for the final player to arrive, we played New York Slice.

This game has been on my wish list for a while. Luckily Jonathan picked up a second hand copy recently. I’d say he pipped me to it. But in reality my economic circumstances would have hindered my chances of getting it. So I was pretty happy that Jonathan got it.

The packaging (a pizza box!) fits the theme perfectly.

This is a I split you choose game, with a majority control mechanic. A simple game that works so. The splitting of the pizza is such a tough decision to make. Being the splitter you will get the last piece. So it’s trying to split the pizza so that you have something left you can use.

It’s a nice game. I knew I’d like it because I enjoyed playing Piece ‘o Cake that this is a remake of with a pizza theme.

With everyone present we split into two groups.

The group I was in we played a four player game of Spirits of the Forest. My previous play of this was as a two player game with Jonathan. As a two player game it worked really well. But wow it was fun as four players two.

I think next time this hits the table I’ll add in one or two of the mini expansions that came with it.

Our groups final game of the evening was Azul. I still really enjoy this game. I still warn new players I will end the game as quick as possible. It’d be unfair if I didn’t. The two follow up games in the series haven’t tempted me. I don’t get Azul to the table often enough as it is. Maybe if I didn’t have Azul then choosing one of the other two might be an option.

As I write this post it’s hit me that all four of these games are pretty quick to teach. Five minutes at most I’d guess. Games that are easy to pick up, but hide a some hard decision making. Not that difficult to give analysis paralysis or put new players off. But enough to keep more experienced gamers interested.

As usual this was another great evening of gaming and great hosts.

Games Played: Startups, New York Slice, Spirits of the Forest, Azul

Game Day Friday

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night

Wow was Friday an epic day of gaming.

It started off with me paying a visit to Diego to play the latest instalment in the Portal Games Imperial Settlers universe, Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North(EotN).

It just so happens that EotN is also the third game from Portal to the engine building mechanic.

51st State was their first entry in this series. Having learnt from that they then bought out Imperial Settlers, which then fed back into 51st State to become 51st State: Complete Master Set. Each instalment is different than the previous with various mechanical tweaks.

51st State uses a common deck for all players, faction boards, and an end of game triggered by a player reaching 25 victory points. Whilst Imperial Settlers has a common deck and individual faction decks, faction boards and takes place over 5 rounds. EotN uses faction decks only, does away with the faction board, adds an action selection mechanic, back to the 25 point end of game trigger and removes the production phase. There are other differences but this covers the main ones.

On paper I should love EotN. However after playing this engine builder, although enjoyable, I was also left a little disappointed.

Now I’m not going to be one of those posters on social media that claims the game is broken. I don’t think it is. I just think that one major design decision left me feeling a bit unsatisfied after playing the game, and potentially frustrated during the game. I’d love to have a discussion with Ignacy about his thinking behind it.

The bit that left me feeling that way was the removal of the production phase, and replacing it with a harvest action. For me it felt like a part of this engine I had built was virtually worthless. I get that you don’t lose your resources between rounds. But the harvest action only produces from one card. Hardly a replacement.

I also got the feeling from the two player game that there might be poor match ups between the clans. It certainly felt that way.

I think my order of preference of play is Imperial Settlers, 51st State followed by EotN.

Friday evening saw the return of the Friday Night Gaming for Fenland Gamers after a brief hiatus.

I’m only going to talk about our learning game of Mangrovia, and that will be briefly. I don’t really feel I can say how much I enjoyed the game until we play it properly!

There was one rule that we got wrong that would have made a major impact on the game. Sadly Jonathan didn’t remember it until what was going to be the final round.

Basically what happened was I was the first player and it stayed that way the whole game, as I just hogged the first player spot. Which allowed me first choice of the cards from the trade row, and to control which land types could be built on each round.

There are elements that I like. But I really shouldn’t make a decision based on a misplay.

But it was a great evening gaming at The Luxe. Who as always are fantastic hosts.

Games Played: Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North, D-Day Dice Pocket, Patchwork Doodle, Mangrovia

Monthly Meet Up February 2020

Fenland Gamers, game night

I originally hadn’t planned to attend this months meet up. Currently being economically challenged meant the resources weren’t available. Jonathan was tied up with a work commitment. So it had looked like there wouldn’t be a meet up organised this month.

Luckily Nathan took up the mantle of running and hosting this months meet up. Which I appreciated a lot.

Yesterday morning it looked like only Nathan and Gavin would be attending. So I took Nathan up on his very kind and generous offer to spot me a beverage.

I don’t find it easy accepting help, let alone letting people in close enough to know it may be needed. So when I had thanked Nathan last week for organising the meet up, and letting him know why I wasn’t doing it (something that I usually do) he kindly made the drink offer. But that was a big thing for me to have admitted the true reason and not use Nan or Mums health as an excuse. I thought Nathan deserved the truth. It hasn’t been easy writing this part of the post I’ve said more about me personally than I normally like to.

We started our evening of gaming off with a couple of games of Doodle Patchwork.

This roll and write version of Patchwork is light, quick, and surprisingly enjoyable.

Don’t get me wrong I enjoy the roll and write genre. There are three or four in my collection. But this is different. It’s more spacial than logic. You are fitting tetronome shapes into a grid trying to fill it up, and make a scoring rectangle.

It actually makes a refreshing change from the other roll and write games out there.

Second game of the evening was new group darling Las Vegas. We played a couple of games of this. Our second game roped in one of the Luxe staff who was off duty. Boy did I suck in that game. I kept getting screwed over. However the new person really got into the game, and her banter towards Nathan was very colourful and humorous when she thought she had denied Nathan a $90,000 note, only for him to get the majority back on his turn.

During our playing of Las Vegas a person came in and started talking to Nathan. Which isn’t out of the ordinary. It is his place of work. It’s his job. But there was some confusion on my part. They were actually there to find out about the club! Which to me wasn’t that obvious to start with. I gave details about when we run sessions, how many normally attend. But it hadn’t really clicked even then that this is what they were there for, and not to see Nathan. I definitely wasn’t as welcoming as I should have been. It’s not an excuse but I was a little caught off guard. My introverted self came through.

Our third and final game of the evening was Skull that pulled in two more people. So became a six player game. This was a blast to play.

Through out the evening there was plenty of banter and laughs. A very relaxed atmosphere. Probably one of, if not the most relaxed one of our sessions has been. It was very evident during the games of Skull.

This was a really fun evening. A big big thank you to Nathan for running and hosting at the Luxe.

Games played: Patchwork Doodle, Las Vegas, Skull

Deckbuilding Taverns

Fenland Gamers, game night

Banter between players is a part of game night. That friendly ribbing between players.

Part of our banter at Fenland Gamers is over the colour yellow (which we will refer to as filthy yellow) and Jonathan’s irrational liking of the colour. It’s his favourite colour to be fair. So often the banter is that when people are selecting who plays what colour normally Jonathan hides yellow up, and says there is no yellow, and then surprisingly when it comes to him selecting a colour he discovers there is yellow after all. Whilst I try and remove yellow without him seeing.

Ok you have to be there. It doesn’t read as funny.

Another source of banter when Jonathan pops out a new game that has deckbuilding as a major mechanic. It’s funny because Jonathan is not a fan of that mechanic.

That’s why playing The Taverns of Tiefenthal (TOT) with him as a learning game last Friday evening was funny.

I think games like TOT are probably the just acceptable form of a deckbuilder that Jonathan will play. And dare I say it possibly enjoy!

I have to say TOT uses deckbuilding nicely as the main mechanic. Add in the dice placement and drafting, with a fixed number of rounds and you have a nice game that gives you some interesting decisions to make each round.

I’d go as far to say you almost don’t feel that you are deckbuilding. There are opportunities to thin the deck of cards, but it’s not an aggressive strategy you could follow. There is not enough time over the limited number of rounds to do that.

Your main decisions on a round are based on the cards you draw for the tavern and the dice you are able to draft. Basically you are either generating money or mugs of beer. You then have to decide how you are going to spend what you have generated. Are you buying tavern cards with the money or upgrading your tavern. Upgrading your tavern gets you a high scoring noble card on top of a more powerful action space. Or are you buying guests with the beer generated?

It is a nice blend of mechanics and decisions. If you asked me I think I prefer this over Clank! And it is miles better than the recent Undaunted: Normandy, where I didn’t think the deckbuilding worked at all.

Our gaming finished with a couple of games of Las Vegas. Still loving this classic.

Games Played: Taverns of Tiefenthal, Las Vegas