Category Archives: game night

game night

First Rat in Space

Our first post UKGE Friday night gaming session was well attended once again.

It really is nice seeing the club nights being so well attended, and also other gaming sessions taking place on other nights between members.

Obviously I was there early to get the tables set up, and welcome any new members who turned up.

We split into two initial groups last night of a four and five. Which saw the other group grow into eight at one point!

Our table started off with a game of the roll and write Dungeons, Dice & Danger.

Once again we played the novice Annoyed Animals map. It was the natural choice really with three new players.

This really is a nice roll and write. I’ve really enjoyed both my plays of this, and I’ve not even touched the other three maps yet.

I did get hit for a whopping minus sixteen points, and was one life away from the minus twenty and being out of the game. That cost me the win, and gave it to Ben.

Final scores for Dungeons, Dice & Danger

Our second game of the evening was the drafting and set collection game Sushi Go Party.

Which is basically Sushi Go with some extras to add variety. So all that drafting and set collecting action we all love about the game is still there but more so!

Sushi Go Party comes with a nice menu board that has a score tract and a meal reminder area. It’s obvious how the score tract is used. However using tiles provided you fill up the menu spaces so you have a reminder of the cards that make up the deck you are playing with. Which is really nice to have for all players to see.

And this is the main difference between the original and Party. Party has a lot more meal items to select from. You can use one of the suggested menus in the rulebook, or just choose at random.

I do like the suggested menus. They are pitched/themed at different players or type of game. So like last night I chose the menu aimed at those new to the game. However if I had wanted a more cut throat competitive game there was a menu for that. Plus there are menu suggestions for everything in between.

The only drawback of all this flexibility is the setup and putting away takes a bit longer than the original. It’s also a less portable game obviously using a much larger storage container.

Having said that still a great, fun game. Just now even more replayable.

Final scores for Sushi Go

The final game on our table was one of the latest hotness games First Rat.

Ok I won this game.

There’s a lot to like about this game. Some great decisions to make as your rats ascend towards boarding the rocket.

I like how there are a variety of tactics you can employ/focus on to score points.

The game looks stunning, and I love the cute first player marker.

At the end of the game it was revealed that the other side of the board you get to randomly setup the spaces and scoring. A more “gamer” oriented side. I like the sound of that and would love to try it.

Haven’t got much time to go any deeper into this game and what I liked. But it’s going on my wish list.

Final scores for First Rat

Another great evening of gaming. Looking forward to the next one.

It’s bloody cold outside

After the failed attempt to play The Thing the boardgame with Nathan during my recent visit. I was wondering when or even if I’d get it to the table.

But after creating an event on the Fenland Gamers discord server, and limiting the player count (because it would be a learning game) I had a date and time set to get it to the table.

Last night saw that plan to get The Thing the boardgame to the table come to fruition.

Luckily our player count for the game (four) was enough to learn the main game rules. For player counts less than four The Thing becomes a co-op boardgame.

Like Scythe and any other game I’ve organised a session for I’m there early to get things set up. We were using the neoprene playmat for the game, plus the plastic character and alien minis. No cardboard standees in this game.

Setup seems fiddly. But it’s not really. It’s just parts of it are dependent on knowing the player count. I initially setup for a four player count. Although it was potentially possible that we’d have six! It stayed at four.

Once everyone had arrived and selected the character they wanted we started playing.

Characters played

I was the starting leader.

After drawing an infection token to see what our secret role was. We got down to the task of surviving long enough to escape the alien. Or in my case remain undetected long enough to infect the others. Oh yes I was the alien.

There was a definite Battlestar Galactica/Dead of Winter vibe to The Thing! Which isn’t a surprise considering they are all hidden traitor games. The Thing is closer to BSG than DoW. DoW has a story element that the other two don’t.

Once you have had a couple of rounds the turn sequence becomes familiar. They aren’t actually overly complicated turns. We actually skipped the third turn the whole game because no alien was revealed until the very end.

Although we did have fun. I think the game like the other two needs the higher player counts.

In our game no testing of players took place because we didn’t get to the laboratory more than once, nor did we have both parts required to perform a flame test.

We spent our time trying to keep the boiler and generator repaired, finding keys and getting the odd weapon. Initially I did try repairing the radio, and take food from the pantry. But between the four of us we really didn’t have enough actions to do everything except try and keep on top of things and maybe escape via one of the bases broken vehicles.

With the higher player count more actions could be done around the base.

In the end it turned out everyone had been infected as an alien. Which under the rules meant the last human infected lost the game, and the aliens win! Although the aliens won twice as they were on the escape vehicle too! Which is when we discovered everyone was infected. Then it became a question of who was the last person to be infected.

We did enjoy The Thing enough that we want to play it again. Especially with a higher player count. A Saturday session for sure.

Visiting Nathan

At the start of the week I got a chance to spend a couple of days with my son Nathan.

Naturally we got some gaming in while I was visiting.

Our first game was an introduction to roll/flip and writes for Nathan with Cartographers.

I set up the game using the play mat for it, the two skills mini expansions, and the ambush mini expansion.

The benefit of the mini expansions is more variety when playing, particularly with the ambush cards.

The skills mini expansions was the first time playing with them. They add an extra thing you can do each season, such as draw a 1×1 square and fill it with a particular terrain type. The skills have a cost, and you can only use one of them per season. I like what this brings to the game. It’s an extra decision to make during a season, it’s not a big overhead at all.

Cartographers

Our second game was Libertalia Winds of Galecrest.

I know Nath really liked the game as he asked to play it again straight away after finishing our first game. The second game we used the stormy tiles.

Libertalia Winds of Galecrest

Another roll and write hit the table next, Dungeons, Dice & Danger.

This was new to both of us. We used the novice Annoyed Animals map.

Dungeons, Dice & Danger and The Cousin’s War 2nd Edition

I really liked this. I think Nath did as well, and might be keen to try one of the other maps.

Our final game of the day was The Cousin’s War (Second Edition). This was the first time playing the game since I bought it three (?) years ago at the UK Games Expo.

We experienced both types of plays you can have with this game. Our first game was over in 5 minutes (maximum) after one round. With the second game going to 30 mins and all 5 rounds.

Who Won What

Our last game of my visit was to introduce Nathan to one of the more complicated roll and writes out there, the combotastic (can you guess what it is yet?)… Three Sisters. Just for the lols I added in the mini weather expansion as well.

Nathan agreed this had a lot more going on than the other roll/flip and writes we had played.

I really do like when an expansions adds very little complication to a game mechanic wise. I like how it makes use of the last die left on the rondel to select an additional minor rule for the next round.

Three Sisters Result

Movies watched with Nathan:

  • Dune (2021)
  • Jurassic World
  • Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

I still had to slum it on the coffee front. But at least I got to cook for Nath. I tried to impart recipes to him. But he had no interest. However he did like my chicken noodle soup, and my sweet and sour chicken.

I can’t wait to visit again. Soon hopefully.

How many?

Yesterday started off in a more somber, reflective mood as I said good bye to a friend of the family. Jean was more than that. Growing up she was a second mum really. Certainly her youngest daughter and my oldest friend Ginette was like a sister. With my brother we were always getting into trouble together. Mainly (and Ginette remembers it this way too) caused by my brother. It’s a miracle we never ended up with any broken bones. I certainly learnt a lot more about Jean and what an amazing and interesting life she had before we were born. Plus I finally found out how old Ginette’s older sister Kay was. I knew she was older. Heck she used to babysit us. But not that much older. It’s older than I thought.

OMG!

Wow!

Last nights Friday evening gaming blew away our previous record attendance of 12 with the amazing number of 16 people turning up to play games.

It’s just simply astonishing.

It’s amazing to see so many people turn up to play board games.

There is one drawback of this new found success. I hardly get to game with Jonathan.

Whilst Jonathan was doing a teaching game of Railways of the World (Mexico map I believe). I was introducing three newish members to the world of Roll and Writes. and Flip and Writes.

Our first game was new to me and a learning game of Cartographers. Which falls into the flip and write genre.

I really liked playing this game (and yes Gavin these are games, unlike that jigsaw puzzle Barenpark).

The ambush card is genius. Each season (rounds really) you shuffle one ambush card into the explore deck. So if you don’t draw an ambush card in a season it’s possible to have multiple ambush cards in the explore deck and naturally at that point draw multiple ambush cards in a season.

When you draw an ambush card you pass your sheet to the player next to you (direction indicated on the card). This is where you get to throw a spanner in the works for the other player. But they also get to do the same to you. If the drawn ambush creature is not surrounded then each empty space is a negative point at the end of the round. So obviously you are going to try and draw the ambush creature shape in the most inconvenient place on their map.

Relic cards forcing you to draw the next shape drawn over a relic space on your map can be annoying.

I do like the changing end of season scoring, and that it’s a combo of two of the four cards, not all of them. The fact these are drawn randomly at the start adds a nice bit of variability and replay ability.

Ok I like this so much I will be getting the expansions for it. Which are map packs, more ambush cards, skills card and whatever the Heroes expansion adds.

Cartographers Final Scores

My second and final game of the evening was teaching the amazing combotastic roll and write Three Sisters.

Compared to Cartographers and many others Three Sisters can be considered on the heavier side of things. Especially when things start comboing off. But it’s still such a fun game.

Three Sisters Final Scores

The preference from the new to this genre was they preferred Cartographers. But they really enjoyed them both. But plans were loosely put in place to play/try the even heavier Rome and Roll.

I think everyone had a fun evening game. I left with a game of Lords of Waterdeep on the go, and Liars Dice/Perudo starting up.

A knackered hunt for new life

Wednesday night saw a small band of intrepid researchers gather to look for new life forms!

It’d been a very long day, because I had been up since 3:45am (yes that is normally the case on a game night). Work has been extremely busy recently. So I was more than a little tired. Unusual for me I had had a little nap before going out. I never do that.

Plus I’d rearranged my days off this week. A fact I’d forgotten when I arranged this game night. So no next day off as I usually have to catch up on sleep after a long day of work and gaming in the evening. I’d be getting up at bloody early again the next morning. A little tmi on this. I normally have gone to sleep by 6:30pm – 7pm when working the next morning. My whole day routine has shifted to adjust for that early start. I was going to be so fucked Thursday!

I have to say I really like Cryptid.

It’s quick to setup both for a first play, and for subsequent plays. I’m not sure how using the “app” (well website they call an app) could make it any easier or faster. But the one advantage the “app“ does have is that there are many more setups that can be played. However having the companion “app” as an additional thing you can use if you want is a big plus for me. We all know how I feel about games that can only be played using an app. This is the correct way to go about it.

I found it handy just to have another player (Jeff) to double check the placement of the structures before starting play. It’s not necessary but cuts out any setup mistakes.

I like how there are two play modes for the game. The more advanced mode introduces not clues, ie “it’s not on mountains or forest” and a fourth coloured structures.

I was tired and just not switched on because our first game with the advanced mode saw me use the incorrect token for my initial clues. Something I had to apologise for and correct very early on.

The not clues do add to the complication of trying to work out what clue the others had. But it’s a nice complication despite my initial tiredness induced confusion.

I love the trying to guess what the other clues are while trying to not give away your own clue. And that starts from the initial setup when placing your first two cubes (a cube indicates the Cryptid isn’t in that hex). It’s great when you think you know what another’s clue is, only for them to place a cube or a cylinder that ruins your theory about their clue. You get a whole new level of doubt. Especially about if the player has given the correct answer. But you can’t openly ask them as you don’t want to give any information away! And then it’s back to the drawing board trying to work out what the clue could be.

A less tired me would have concentrated/focused more on what the others were doing with their cubes. My cognitive processing was most definitely impaired. I’m playing this game on a weekend next time. Most likely will still get my butt kicked but I’ll have no excuse then!

Cryptid along with Search for Planet X both take interesting but different routes to do the same thing, find an item. Whether that’s the space where a Cryptid is or where Planet X is. I like both approaches. I know Jonathan prefers Search out of the two (although he does like Cryptid), whilst my preference is Cryptid. What swings it for me is the lack of dependence on an app. Game mechanics wise I really do like both approaches the same. I know Search can be played without an app by hunting down online the free print and play pack from the designers. Which does give it about the same number of scenarios as Cryptid has. But the draw back is it needs printing out, and it takes out a player from the game. As one person basically has to act as a game master running the game handing out clues. I’m not sure how much fun that’d be for that person.

I’d love to see an expansion for this that is just a deck of new setup and clue cards. The game doesn’t need anything more than that. It’d be a cheap expansion too.

List of winners!

For the record I wasn’t as tired at work as I was expecting to be yesterday. Still knackered tho’.

A 4 Player Vampire Wednesday!

Last night saw Diego and myself play our first four player game of Vampire the Masquerade Rivals.

Before then we had only played head to head (in other words two player) and three player games.

But this game was a first for Shane and Marcin also. It was the first time they were playing the game. Noobs in other words. Or to remain on theme, fresh blood!

Whilst waiting for Marcin to arrive we went over the rules for playing the game with Shane. Or the most relevant ones to get started. Some you can avoid until they crop up, like schemes. Otherwise it’s rules overload. And it probably felt like that anyway.

The three of us then “played” a couple of rounds with Diego and myself explaining what we were doing as we played. It was during this learning play Marcin arrived.

We had already given Shane Brujah to play for the evening. It’s probably the easiest of the four core set clans to play. We had also planned for Diego’s copy of Brujah to be played by Marcin, with the added house rule suspending the unique vampire rule for the evening. However Marcin felt the call of Toreador.

We drew for our rivals which saw Shane and myself drawing each other’s token. Which basically left Diego and Marcin each other’s rivals.

Our Vampire Clans and Rivalries

I needed to be drawing rituals and finding Sonja Valentine. But my deck seemed to be working against me on that front. I only started drawing rituals late in the game. Too late to be any use to me. My leader was in torpor mending. So I had no blood to use that would hurt my rival. My three vampires I did have out were dangerously low on blood. I had three prestige left. They were dead cards at the point they showed up.

For a couple of rounds it wasn’t in anyones interest to attack my three weak vampires. If Diego or Marcin did they left it open for Shane to grab the win. If Shane did he left it open for Marcin to grab the points win (at that point in time Marcin was in the lead with five agenda points). To make the situation worse we had three S.A.D. Agents in the Street.

Before Diego grabbed the points victory by leap frogging Marcin with six agenda points, and knocking out Shane. It was getting to the point of I could have won on my turn. Shane was on a single prestige. He only needed one of his vampires to die (it’s how Diego triggered the end of the game). S.A.D. would have weakened his remaining vampires more than enough to make sure which ever one I attacked they would have gone down.

I liked that last bit of the game. Anyone of us could have potentially grabbed a win. Sadly Diego did!

My only agenda point for the evening was from putting Shane’s leader into torpor.

Although Shane is shown as zero points below. Which is correct. He was knocked out by Diego, so any agenda points he had don’t count. However if in a tournament I believe we would still record Shane’s three agenda points as they are used in rankings or something like that.

Final scores

Still a fun evening playing a great card game with some great people.

I was wrong! How’d that happen?

Last night was another really well attended club night. Despite that thing that shall not be named hitting a couple of members and thus couldn’t attend. We even saw a couple of new members attend for the first time.

This will be a brief post as not much to say about the evening game wise. I played three games I’d played before. Enjoy the brevity. But don’t get used to it.

After splitting into three gaming tables, my first game of the evening was the amazing Libertalia Winds of Galecrest.

In our game of Libertalia there was a differing interruption of the hook ability on the calm side of the board. I’m surprised it hadn’t come up before in previous plays, and for the life of me couldn’t remember how we played it.

I wasn’t able to Google an answer at the table. However this morning I did find one on the Libertalia Facebook page. Shane you were right and I was wrong. It doesn’t return to hand. There that wasn’t easy to admit, but I can admit when I am wrong.

I still haven’t played this game at the higher player counts. Which is something I do want to do. I feel that reputation track position becomes even more important for making sure you get loot.

Libertalia Final Score

Our second game was the ever classic, and still my favourite version of Love Letter, Love Letter Batman.

Love Letter Batman Final Scores

My final game of the evening was the totally mean, but such such fun Survive Escape from Atlantis.

We even remembered the giant squids this time too! They were fun having out on the board, and look totally awesome.

Somehow I managed to get my three highest valued meeples to safety. I had no idea what meeple I had where during setup as I didn’t look at their values! The six I did get to safety could just as easily have been all the low values. This was a pure luck victory.

Survive Escape from Atlantis Final Scores

Let’s see what that “young” Jonathan took photos off last night.

Bonds, Railway Bonds

Last night didn’t quite end up as planned.

Yesterday morning I tweeted how I was looking forward to playing my favourite game of all time (do I really have to say it? You all know what it is by now. Oh ok) Scythe, that evening. That’d I’d also be teaching it to two new players.

Indeed that was the plan made on Saturday at the end of D&D so that Mark and Lizzy could learn the game before joining the Rise of Fenris campaign this coming Saturday.

Reality, life, call it what you want had other ideas.

I arrived early to get Scythe setup. As usual I wanted to maximise play time for everyone by having it so that once everyone had arrived we could dive straight in.

There were no tables so I set up the ones I needed, plus the one I thought Jonathan and his Railways of the World players would need.

Brief aside before carrying on with the retelling of the events of last night.

As the photo below shows I now have the realistic tokens for Scythe. I know that’s a major shock. After all I have been vocal in my preference for the wooden tokens that come with the game. However these were the final upgrade I needed to make my copy of Scythe the equivalent of the Kickstarter Art Connoisseur Collector’s Edition.

What surprised me last night was how they grew on me last night as I was setting up, and taking the photos (below). I actually quite like them!

I just need to save up and get the metal mechs (I need four sets, which ain’t cheap) to have everything you can officially buy for it.

Right back to my ramblings.

Scythe Realistic Tokens

As I was setting up Scythe Jonathan arrived and not long after so did Shane.

With Scythe setup we just needed Mark and Lizzy to arrive.

However Shane asked if I had heard from them. Which I hadn’t. Apparently Lizzy was ill and wouldn’t be coming.

Bugger.

I asked Jonathan if he wanted another two players for Railways of the World.

After Jonathan started setting up for a five player game, and I had packed away Scythe, it transpired Mark was on his way.

“John got room for one more?”

While we waited for Mark to arrive there was banter and a brief discussion between Jeff and Jonathan about how best to setup the game so it didn’t go on all night.

Some cubes were removed from the board.

Once Mark arrived Jonathan explained the rules. For three of us this was our first time playing the game. Luckily there was no “it’s just like Agricola” moment.

I have to say despite nearly coming last, I really liked Railways of the World.

With three copies in the club now (Gav just bought a copy) I don’t feel a need to get my own. But if I want to play a railway themed game this is the one I’d play. It’s so much more fun than Ticket to Ride.

Railways of the World

I like the bidding for first player at the start of each turn.

Another thing I like a lot is the almost sandbox like approach it has to building tracks. You can literally build a track anywhere on the board. Ok it might cost you a fortune to do so depending on the terrain crossing.

The having to upgrade your trains to be able to move goods further along the built tracks is cool.

But there is the whole making connections and delivery engine you are building to push you up the income track, whilst trying to get as few bonds as possible. Obviously the two most experienced players had this off to a tee. Eventually I managed to break even and then make a small profit. But this whole core to the game is so much fun and can be very cut throat.

As the results show the three more experienced players finished top three, with Shane almost breaking into third place.

Final Scores

Still a great evening of gaming with great gamers!

Here they are Jonathan’s photos of the evening to end the post with.

Record Attendance Set

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.

Scout final scores

You know how this post ends.

And you better start swimmin’

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.