Thursday saw the chance to do some gaming with Jonathan, and play my first game of 2019. Which happened to be one of Jonathan’s Christmas Haul, Lancaster.

As usual this was a learning game, so we were making it up as we went along. Correction, reading the rules as we played. Yeah I know gamers out there will be having sharp intakes of breathe, tutting away in disgust that we hadn’t read the rules, watched the YouTube tutorial, downloaded and printed off the rules errata/FAQ (and memorised that also) before playing. But that’s how we roll.

Lancaster is a worker placement game, and we were playing the two player variant.

So for those with short attention spans and have had enough of this post already, the headline is I liked the game.

For those interested here is what I liked about the game.

The production of the components for the game is pretty solid. The battle and scoring rules cards were not actually cards but thick cardboard, more a tile than a card.

I loved the fact you could upgrade your workers. Thus making them more powerful, and unlocking the possibility of more locations you could chose as an action using the more powerful worker. But you then had the difficult choice of did this new more powerful worker get used to select one of these newly available slots, or did you use them in combat with the French?

You were also limited in the maximum number of workers you could recruit, but also you could never exceed the maximum power level. You were limited to a single worker at the maximum level. Although in the two player variant with the friendly house you could have more than one potentially.

I liked that when selecting an action you had to have a worker with the minimum strength indicated to be able to use it. You could then use a squire token to bolster your strength in the space. Why would you want to do that? To lock out your opponent from taking that action instead. On your opponents turn if they want to use the action instead of you, they have to place a worker on that space with a strength one more than the combined strength of your worker and the number of squires on the space with them.

The reason this is a thing is that you don’t get the action straight away. You only get it at the end of the round if you are still on the space.

The battles is a nice addition. Going to battle gets you an instant bonus, plus if the French are defeated at the end of the turn you get points allocated on strength of your forces committed to the battle. This means my opponents can help win the battle, and get a share of the spoils (victory points). If the French aren’t defeated everything slides down. Some consolation points are awarded, and you have one more round to add to your forces and hopefully defeat the French. If after the second round the French remain undefeated, the workers in the battle are captured, and can be bought back or you lose them basically back to your supply.

The voting at the end of the round for which new rules get added to the end of round scoring was ok.

I also liked that when it came round to taking the action on the space you could take the noble (if you didn’t already have them) or the action. But if you paid three coins you could do both. The more nobles you collected the bigger points bonus you got at the end of the game. A nice additional decision to make.

It’s also not a long game, it was four rounds I want to say, based on my fading memory.

I know the whole theme is medieval times, castles, knights, battling the French. But the theme is paper thin really.

In the end it was the end of game bonuses that enabled me to steal the win from Jonathan by 2 points.

Lancaster really is a nice worker placement game. If you like the mechanic/genre then you will enjoy this for sure.

Afterwards as you can see The Luxe had just gotten in the promotional drink toppers for the Spider-man Spider-verse movie. They look pretty cool.

I have to thank Jonathan for a great afternoons gaming, and the chance to try this game. And as all good award ceremony speeches, a big thank you to The Luxe once more for hosting the impromptu session.

I have admit I was a bit nervous about Wildlands and Jonathan.

We had been invited round Diego’s to play some games. Not entirely true, it was specific games we had been invited to play. Specifically Wildlands and Reykholt.

The arrangements and invite had been done at the Fenland Gamers session before Christmas. Jonathan and I had car shared over to Diego’s, and talked gaming stuff on the way.

So here we were all setup and ready to play, factions selected (I was trying the Undead faction) and the Hagmole promo ready to use as well.

But would Jonathan enjoy the game? It was a fantasy mini skirmish game after all. Not one of his favourite genres or themes.

Jonathan was the first to be hit by the Hagmole, which seemed unfair to him, because his mini on the space would just keep taking damage until he drew cards that enabled him to move away or it died. So stopped using it. Undid the damage it had inflicted, and carried on without it. It had only been included because it could be, and I was interested in what it did. It was ruining the experience for Jonathan. So no big deal to not use it.

Playing the undead was interesting. You get six figures instead of five, only two symbols to worry about for selecting a figure. Sadly only two cards that enable you to draw cards, and all the figures aren’t going to be the toughest on the map.

But I enjoyed playing them. Potentially my favourite faction out of the five.

Diego and I both agreed the game played better as three players than the two player games we had played.

Our game ended pretty close, with Jonathan grabbing the win. If Diego hadn’t been able to thwart my attempts to kill one of his figures so successfully on a couple of turns I think I could have stopped Jonathan from winning and grab the win for myself. In the end I killed Diego’s figure on Jonathan’s turn in a pre-emptive strike to try and survive Diego killing my figure on his turn. I’d spent so many cards trying to kill it previously I needed to see a return on my investment. But what I hadn’t catered for was Jonathan having enough to move and claim a crystal as well, on what was left of his turn.

Jonathan even enjoyed the experience after he had got the hang of things. The hand management mechanic was one I knew Jonathan would like. And it was in the end light and quick enough that he could enjoy it as well.

Our next game was Pickomino with the expansion. I don’t think this will be played without it again. Even with new players. But this was the first time that Diego had played the game with the expansion.

Jonathan surprisingly with his reputation of poor dice rolls in other games, won this game comfortably.

Our final game of the afternoon was No Thanks! During which some serious egg on faces occurred.

After our second game which I’d won, it dawned on me why don’t I just take every card, I’d win? The other players would have no cards and wouldn’t be able to win, so I’d win with a maximum score. This started some discussion and a turning to the rules to look for the bit that said players with no cards couldn’t win. We couldn’t find it. We did find the rule that said we deducted a point from our final score for each token we had in front of us at the end of the game. That was new, and something we weren’t aware of. But the puzzle remained where had we got this rule from?

We continued playing another couple of games but with the correct rules. The token deduction at the end made a big difference.

But how many games had we played incorrectly? Lots for sure. There was going to have to be some investigation into the source of how we ended up playing the game the way we had been.

I had an amazing afternoon of gaming with two great friends. I don’t think the year could have been ended on a better gaming high.

A big thank you to Diego and his family for sharing their home with us for the afternoon. A big thank also to Jonathan for driving.

Jonathan and I met up for a quiet Sunday afternoon of gaming at the super duper The Luxe Cinema.

Our first game was an opportunity for me to try Jonathan’s latest addition to his collection, the recently delivered Kickstarter copy of Dice Hospital.

I have to be honest the prototype that was shown at the UKGE 2017 didn’t grab me. Then as you read on last weeks write up for the December monthly meet up I got to look at the components (more on that later in the post.)

I’ll make this brief (phew after yesterday’s post I bet you need a break), I really liked this game.

I know I like quite a broad range of game types. But I do really enjoy worker placement games. Dice Hospital is a nice worker placement game.

First up hats off for including a player aid. Sometimes, more often than you’d like, games don’t include them, or more rare they do but are practically useless. These are fine and do the job.

I like the method for selecting first player each round. The lowest numbered ambulance chosen by a player is first player. Simple. But is it? There is a decision to make. Choosing the lowest numbered ambulance means your dice (they represent patients that need healing) are also low numbers. Which means it takes longer to heal them. Where the opposite is true for the higher numbered ambulances. Plus when you become the first player you get a blood bag token that is a point at the end of the game (if you haven’t used it). Or they can be used to heal a patient one step or change the colour of a die temporarily. So very useful to have. On top of all this, that low numbered ambulance may not have the coloured dice that you need.

Although the first player rolls the dice, and starts allocating them to ambulances based on the simple rule of placing lowest value dice first (starting at ambulance number one). And here is the bit I like “Where there are multiple dice of the same value but different colours to place, the player to the right of the First Player decides in which ambulance they are placed and in what order.” (Taken from rulebook) This involves the other players, and means that the other player gets to throw a spanner in the works potentially by putting inconvenient coloured dice together.

Each round you get to choose a specialist card or department tile from the face up display. I like this you get to chose between upgrading the actions you can choose each turn with the department tile, or recruit an extra worker in the form of a specialist that will also have an ability. So you have that tough choice to you get that department tile that has an action you really want? Or do you get that specialist and their really powerful ability that combos with one of your department tiles, and allows you to do more on a turn?

And that last bit touches on another nice mechanic of the game, combos between the specialists and the department tiles.

Let’s revisit the whole production component thing. Oh before I do, a little troll of my friend Gavin from Jonathan. Gavin did you like Jonathan’s exclusive art from the artist of the game that he has?

In my previous post where I commented on the card thickness, and the nice linen finish. I checked the Kickstarter stretch goals (relevant ones below).

They had goals to improve the quality of the cards in the game. I don’t think they upgraded the card stock enough. They are too thin for my liking. And that has been the opinion of the two people that handed hard cash over for the game also. Jonathan has sleeved his cards.

Which brings me to my next point of the custom insert in the main box. It’s not up to the job. It doesn’t cater for the cards being sleeved, nor does it provide enough space (only just) to store all the department tiles properly. Jonathan is using both boxes to store the game, but Gavin was unable to store everything in the box when using the ambulance miniatures. With a bit of thought the insert could accommodate sleeved cards, and not just the department tiles of the base game but the Kickstarter exclusive ones also. The space is there. In the deluxe add-ons there is also a dice tray that can’t be stored if built. This is just bad planning.

Jonathan has replaced his player score tokens with wooden cubes. They look and work better than the near useless cardboard ones included. Which maybe thematic but very impractical.

Why Alley Cat Games didn’t allow the round tracker to be attached to the score board I don’t know. It makes more sense. And another upgrade Jonathan has also now done himself. Otherwise this can easily be knocked.

There are also stickers included, that I don’t even know why they are there.

Jonathan’s ambulances seemed to have come out better than Gavin’s. But they are still just eye candy, and table theatrics. I heard rumours an expansion might make more use of them mechanically. It’s a shame that wasn’t included in the game already.

On the production side it’s the minor details that got forgotten, or not executed to the same standard as the rest of the components. But despite these little niggles, Dice Hospital is a fun worker placement game.

Oh Jonathan won the game by 4 points.

Our second game for this little gaming session was Reykholt. We played with a promo that gave each player a random one off bonus. They were a nice addition that speeded up the start of the game. It’s a shame these weren’t included in the base game as an additional thing to add to each game. I think they are that good, that maybe once the base game has been learnt players should include these all the time.

Completing the double for the afternoon, Jonathan stomped to victory with this game also.

Afterwards we briefly talked politics, and the current chaos in the country.

I had a great afternoon despite losing. The Luxe were great hosts.

Yesterday I was once more welcomed into the home of Diego and his family to play some games.

The game we ended up playing for the afternoon was the latest Martin Wallace game published by Osprey Games, called Wildlands.

Diego and I first saw the game on the Osprey stand at Tabletop Games Live at the end of September. The slots to try the game didn’t work for us, and Osprey forgot to mention there was a copy in the rather small games library (something we found out after the show) for people to use. But the explanation we had of the game by the Osprey staff, and examining the game components convinced both of us that this was a game we’d like, and should be on our wish list.

About a month later, just after Essen, Wildlands dropped onto the shelves of stores. Somehow a copy found it’s way to mine.

Yesterday was the first time Diego and myself got to play the game.

Wildlands is a light miniatures skirmish game with a hand management element.

The game comes with a double sided board, that has a different map on each side. There are 4 unique factions included, that have very different play styles, and rather nice insert trays to organise everything. Which even just about takes sleeved cards. The miniatures in the game come with a wash applied, and look awesome. So you really don’t have to paint them. The overall component quality, and the touches mentioned is outstanding.

In about two and a half hours we played 4 games. Which is very quick really. Set up is also very quick, 5 minutes max. The longest hardest part of the setup is deciding on a faction to play. Diego and I only played 2 factions each. But each faction we chose, we played twice.

The rules are very streamlined, and quick to learn. Which means such things as combat, line of sight are very uncomplicated, and aided greatly by some nice graphic design touches. No looking up stuff on tables in rule books, and measuring stuff out.

Like Memoir 44 you have a hand of cards that determine what you can do on a turn. The hand management is crucial to being successful. Diego was far better at this than me. I think I remember one turn when he did nothing and just drew cards. I did this a few turns through out the 4 games. It’s nice that you can only have a max hand size of 7 cards, and only draw up to 3 cards at the end of your turn.

Each faction feels unique, and plays differently. But they seem fairly balanced. Or in the pairings we had they did. Which is why it was cool we played our factions twice. The first time was almost a getting to know my faction game. Ok I lost all 4 games. But none of the games were wipe outs. They were ending with scores of 5-3, or 5-4. So pretty close really.

I like the setup and the use of location cards. Each player gets 10 location cards at the start. They assign a card/location face down to each character in their team, and the remaining 5 cards get passed to your opponent on your left. You receive 5 cards back from your right. Those 5 cards are used to determine where you place your shards that you need to collect. This is a great mechanic, because you are able to control (depending on the cards) where you opponents place shards and set potential traps.

Not having to reveal the positions of your whole team at the start of the game is also pretty cool. You do have to reveal at least one of your team at the start of each turn, until they are all revealed. And you can reveal more during your turn if you so wish. This enables you to set traps, hold back until it’s the most advantageous to reveal them.

Another nice mechanic is that if one of your team is killed, then those cards aren’t dead. You can use them to claim shards.

The simplicity of combat, line of sight, and cover helps keep the game flowing. Being able to interrupt a players turn is a nice mechanic, which we did use. But not to any great extent in a 2 player game. Diego and I were both keen to try the game with more players.

One of the things that I asked Osprey about was future plans for the game. Already a new expansion is out The Undead (my copy should arrive this week due to UPS losing a delivery to the store I pre-ordered from) that adds a new team plus play mechanic. Next year we see another team plus a new map board coming to the game. Because the secret to the longevity of this game is the support of it with expansions. Where Osprey and Wallace take the game after that who knows? But Osprey did give the impression they had a bit of stuff lined up.

It was a blast playing the game with Diego. As always he was a fantastic host.