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.
My opening hand at the start of each voyage.
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.
Libertalia Scores
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.
Last night saw the return of my favourite boardgame of all time to the table.
As usual the bgstat app reminded me when I had last played Scythe. Which was just over two years ago, in December 2019. Obviously not much gaming took place in that intervening time.
But damn it was a bloody good idea of Diego’s to play Scythe over Tapestry (although I do love playing it).
To maximise play time I arrived early (which is an achievement in itself these days with the bridge works at Sutton Bridge) and set up everything before hand. The only thing I did as soon as some-one turned up was the shuffling of cards etc. Just so it was above board, and accusations of rigging decks etc could not be made.
This game of Scythe was basically all in on the expansion front (excluding Rise of Fenris). We did not use the Resolution tile module in this game. I thought that would be a step too far for our new players.
The two airship tiles for the game were:
Airship tiles for our game
Our structure bonus tile for the game was 3 – Number of encounters adjacent to your structures. Only count each encounter once. These count whether or not the encounter tokens are still there. Rivers do not break adjacency.
Using the selection method described in the modular board rules, I dealt out player mats randomly to each of us. The highest numbered player mat (me it turned out) then got to choose a faction. Obviously avoiding the “banned” board combos.
This is how the faction choices ended up.
Crimean Khanate/Engineering – Colin
Nordic Kingdoms/Industrial – Marcin
Clan Albion/Militant – Diego
Rusviet Union/Patriotic – Me
Given a choice I was only ever going to choose Rusviet Union (despite what is going on in the real world at the moment, is that wrong of me?). I really love this faction ability. In fact who wouldn’t love being able to repeat the same action again?
I stumbled upon this bit of analysis from 2017 of the synergy between player mats and faction boards. Obviously this doesn’t take into account anything in the Rise of Fenris expansion.
It turns out my board combo was pretty neutral, as was Diego’s combo. However there was a really poor synergy for Colin. Which I now feel bad about. After all this was a first game for him. It was also a first game for Marcin I believe, but he had a very good synergy between player mat and faction mat.
Diego didn’t like his starting map position much. He was the only one without easy access to a tunnel. Which didn’t work well with the mech river walk ability. Before play started we did offer him the chance to switch factions. But it was declined.
After a brief explanation of play to Colin, Marcin had watched the Watched It Played video before hand, and leaving combat out until later, play began.
Mind you considering the amount of time that had passed since our last game, Diego and myself were a little rusty on the rules also. So some rules clarifications were made through out the game.
My first turns I dashed to the nearest encounter tile to make use of the negotiate ability. I’m glad I did because I got to use another players faction ability for the rest of the game, all for the princely sum of $5. After some pondering I chose the Crimean COERCION: Once per turn, you may spend 1 combat card as if it were any 1 resource token. That would become a crucial piece to enabling me to trigger the end of the game and winning later on.
On my way to the Factory I grabbed a second encounter. It gave me a nice boost. But the factory card I grabbed allowed me to spend two different resources to get either a mech or building. I was soon building mechs and buildings. Although I only built two buildings to capitalise on the bonus tile.
Marcin was the first to complete an objective and thus was the first to put a star out on the objective track. Not many turns later joined by Diego.
I didn’t initiate my first two combats, that was Colin and Diego being aggressive towards me. I could have won them. But I deliberately lost them to burn up their combat cards and bolster points. Which meant when I hit back I could do so using the minimum of cards and bolster points, as I certainly didn’t have enough of either to win two combats otherwise. It wasn’t until the later stages of the game that Marcin decided to be aggressive.
One thing I didn’t expect to get away with near the end was planting a mech with three farmers on the Factory to take control of it. Naturally the farmers were there to act as a deterrent to being attacked, because any victor would get hit heavily on their popularity. But unchallenged I was.
Mid game I did get an encounter card that allowed me to use another players faction ability for a turn. I already had Colin’s for the game. But I did use Marcin’s faction SWIM:Your workers may move across rivers, to move a couple of workers into Colin’s quarter of the board. It was a territory grab basically.
A late surge of complete objectives by Marcin meant it would be close for who triggered the end of the game. However Colin’s faction ability meant I only needed one trade action to allow me get both my final two enlist recruits out. Plus a second trade action to give me the resources to get my final mech out using my factory card. Which triggered the end of the game.
Now I knew that triggering the end of the game did not mean I had won. However we were all in the same zone on the popularity track, so no points advantage there for anyone. It would all be down to who had the most of each scoring item. With no resources left I knew I’d have zero points on that one. But all six stars out, control of the factory (worth three tiles), plus the structures bonus. I might have edged a victory.
Once the dust settled, and coins counted. I had indeed won. My third victory in thirteen plays!
Final Scores
A big thank you to Diego for suggesting getting this back to the table. Plus to Colin and Marcin. I had a blast playing this with you all.
I have to say I love the Scythe Complete Rulebook. So glad I finally got the ring bound version.
Scythe the Complete Rulebook
It just makes life at the table so much easier not having to search through several rulebooks to find that one rule. I also appreciate through out the spoiler warnings for the Rise of Fenris expansion. I haven’t played it yet (my copy is still in shrink!). I want my experience of the campaign to be as fresh, exciting, surprising, and amazed as it is for whoever else is playing it with me.
Oh the post title? A line from The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan. I thought considering one of the first things on the normal board you are trying to do is get across that river penning you in, it seemed appropriate.
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!
Libertalia Scores
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.
Survive Escape from Atlantis Scores
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.
Fields of Green final scores
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.
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.
Search for Planet X
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.
Final scores for Search for Planet X
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!
Current progress on the new to me challenge
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.
Previous years new to me games played
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.
Raw numbers
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.
Playing Mr JackPlaying Search for Planet XPhotos 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).
Our characters for the game
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.
Final scores
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!
Last night was a Fenland Gamers Friday club night.
I know what you are thinking. “Gaming twice in one week, what’s going on Darren?”
Hey what can I say? It’s been a good week.
A really good week.
Early evening Jeff messaged he would be arriving early, ordering some food, playing a game and possibly leaving early depending how he felt.
This was amazing news.
So I made a point of getting to our new host early so someone was there.
It was so good seeing Jeff again after the massive curve ball life threw at him. Although it’s only in reality been a couple of months, it has felt so much longer.
After food we split into two groups. John’s group played Sagrada and we played Kingsburg.
This was a first for me playing the game.
Kingsburg
I think it was inevitable that I’d like this dice placement game. After all the other one that I really like with a similar mechanic is Marco Polo.
I like the catch up mechanics the game has. The extra die, or the ability to build two buildings or use an occupied space are great to get when behind but not over powered.
For much of the game I was last on the victory point track, but a late surge meant I came in third, not too far from the front two.
But the main take home of playing this game was how much fun it was to be playing a boardgame again with Jeff. And amazingly it was the first time I’d played a game with his wife playing too!
Jeff’s “gamesmanship” has been sorely missed. I don’t think Colin was ready for the Jedi mindtricks, and being talked into blocking the only space Jeff’s wife could go to with her final die. But despite that sort of shenanigans Jeff’s wife won.
The scores for Kingsburg
After Kingsburg had finished Jeff said good bye and retired for the evening.
Which left Colin, Julie and me to play a game of the latest addition to the Love Letter family, Star Wars: Jabba’s Palace – A Love Letter game! What a mouthful. I’ll just call it Jabba’s Palace.
As a first play we stuck to the traditional end of game objective of having the highest valued card in hand wins.
Although that’s one of the first notable changes in this version. There are four end of game objectives. One of them allows for two winners!
Another change is each card has one of two faction symbols on them. They are either belonging to the rebels (good guys) or Jabba’s crew (bad guys).
The faction a card belongs to does make a difference. Not only for three of the end game objectives, such as most rebel cards in front of a player winning. But also for card abilities like the Jabba’s the Hutt card (see below) that defeats a player if the card they are holding is a rebel card.
Star Wars Jabba’s Palace – A Love Letter Game
You’ll also notice that Jabba the highest valued card is not like the Princess card in regular Love Letter. You can actually play the card.
In the GameBoy Geek’s review of Jabba’s Palace he would have liked the game to have used one of the more recent Disney Star Wars movies for its basis. What utter tripe no one buys stuff for that, the only Star Wars stuff Disney sells is original trilogy or Mandalorian. Plus we all know what a train wreck the Disney trilogy is.
Anyway. I really like how this version played. And not just because I won!
Jabba’s Palace scores
It was a great evening gaming. Even more so with Jeff being able to get along.
Last night although technically the second Wednesday of the month was not the monthly meet up.
That was last week. Or would have been if enough people had said they were coming along to it. Sadly due to working that night (I was working 10pm to 10am doing stock take) I wasn’t able to attend. So it was cancelled.
However I was back to having Thursday as my day off this week. So at the weekend I created an event to see who was up for playing some games last night.
The numbers were looking pretty good. But life likes to through challenges in our way, and one or two had to drop out on the day. Still we had six people turn up. Which is pretty decent.
We split into two groups of three. The group I was in played Lost Ruins of Arnak with the “new” Expedition Leaders expansion. Whilst the other group played Stone Age.
Lost Ruins of Arnak with Expedition Leaders
We played with the three leaders that the rules said were the easiest to play. Who had which of those leaders was decided randomly.
I have to say I like Arnak much more now with the leaders. I love the unique ability/power each person has. Each player has a unique starting deck. You are trying to play to your leaders strengths. Which for mine was buying the item cards and playing them.
For me this should have been in the base game. Not sure I’d play the game without the leaders now.
Naturally the expansion adds more cards, ruins, guardians, etc. which is always welcome. Plus there is a new double sided research (I think that’s what’s it called) board that overlays the one on the main board. More variety. Never a bad thing.
Has this expansion given Lost Ruins of Arnak the edge over Dune Imperium? No. It’s closed the gap (until the Dune Imperium expansion comes out). There were five ruins explored this game (a first for one I’ve played). But it still felt like it was a race up the research track. Plus although I do really love how the game handles buying cards and having them go to the bottom of your deck. Deckbuilding still feels very tacked on.
Anyway Marcin kicked ass and romped away with the victory. As you can see I didn’t even get close.
Final scores showing my humiliation
Meanwhile the other table were playing the classic worker placement game Stone Age.
What would one of these posts be with out Jonathan’s photos?
It’s been a really long time since I’ve been able to see Nathan in real life. Between caring for Nan and that world event (still ongoing) it just wasn’t possible to visit him.
We’d speak several times a week thanks to the magic that is modern communication devices. Or less so if Arsenal (the team Nathan supports, I know I call it bad parenting) loose (which they do quite regularly). Nathan does take bad results rather too personally.
Nathan is currently house and dog sitting for his mum. We won’t even go into the weirdness factor about me staying at my ex’s house whilst she is not there. Don’t worry she knows I’m here. It was her idea for me to visit whilst he was here.
After having tea (pork with cauliflower cheese, and garlic bread) , we watched Nobody. Which is an amazing movie and probably my film of 2021. Nathan really enjoyed the movie.
I then taught Nathan how to play Wingspan (with all the expansions) and royally got my butt kicked.
But Nathan playing a turn three Common Raven did make any chance I had of winning much harder.
Wingspan with all expansions
I think this was a first for me having end of round goals that came purely from the expansions. The end of round 4 goal was very “interesting”, most cubes on the play a bird action!. It meant doing something I rarely do that round to even qualify for points from it. Round 4 is all about eggs on birds, and hopefully tucking some cards and caching food. Basically getting points on the birds. To play a bird in round 4 it basically has to be worth more points than you’d get from doing the lay eggs action. It’s not a simple decision, you need to take into account any egg cost (losing points) plus any point gain from the bonus cards you have. Often it just isn’t worth playing a bird in the round.
I followed Wingspan by introducing Nathan to Splendor Marvel. A game that I was humiliated in. Yep Nathan destroyed me 16 points to 6!
Splendor Marvel
We finished the night watching the first episode of Reacher on Amazon Prime. The trailer had made it look like Reacher was constantly making wise cracks. Which isn’t the Reacher of the books. Luckily the fears were unfounded. The first episode and I’m guessing the rest of the series are an adaptation of the first Jack Reacher novel Killing Floor. I enjoyed the first episode so will watch the rest.
The post title? Naturally it’s the KISS song (from their self titled debut album) that sums up how long it’s felt not seeing Nathan.
The Fenland Gamers Friday night gaming comes around quickly.
Unlike the test session I was there first, and tried the burger and chips this time. That was much better value for money, and hit the spot. It was also followed by sticky toffee pudding with custard (the only way to have it).
Whilst eating the planned player count fell from twelve down to nine. Life happens and throws curveballs to disrupt even the best made plans.
With nine gamers eager to game we split into three tables of three.
My table was definitely playing what can only be described as games being on the lighter side. Quick to teach and quick to play. But definitely fun to play.
There were no new games played by me. I’ll just put the bgstats summary below to list what they were.
I think it’s suffice to say we all had fun, some giggles and a big laugh at Colin scoring over 140 points in the second round of No Thanks! It was pointed out the idea was to get the lowest score.
Whilst our table where playing “light” games. Jonathan and Gavin where on a table playing Cape May (photos below). The third table led by Diego was playing Snow Tails (sorry didn’t get a chance to get any photos).
As I left a game of Splendor was being started by those that had more stamina than me. Ok I was knackered. It’d been a long day.
It’s that part of the post where I finish with the photographic efforts of Jonathan.
