Category Archives: game night

game night

Skirmish at The Luxe!

game night

Jonathan doesn’t do dudes on a map aka miniature heavy games. So when my Kickstarter copy of Final Fantasy oops meant Tiny Epic Tactics (TET) arrived Friday morning I was keen to get it to the table.

So like all good friends I sprung the game on him when we met up at The Luxe that evening. I tried to ease my feelings of guilt by convincing myself that technically it wasn’t a miniatures game, it was a meeples game. There’s a difference, technically!

I think that TET has that table presence. It looks cool on the table. Component quality as usual for the Tiny Epic range is good. Which isn’t surprising because some of the Kickstarter stretch goals are to improve the quality of the various components. I am of the opinion that those sort of stretch goals are cop outs, and that they should be at the higher quality from the start.

The one thing I’m not a fan of are the small sized tactic and solo play cards. I’d prefer they had used the regular 63.5mm by 88mm size. But then that most likely would have meant not fitting everything into the box.

I think I enjoyed the game!

Which is a strange thing to say granted.

Unlike other skirmish/tactical miniature games that I’ve played you can’t use all of your team on a turn. Instead you get three actions to use amongst them. A unit can not repeat the same action on a turn, and if you want the unit to do a second action it basically becomes exhausted while doing that second action. Which unless you spend two health to remove the exhausted token next turn means they are out of action for a turn recovering. At the end of the following turn if the unit has not been used the token gets removed.

The make up of a team is a classic combination of melee based units, ranged attack, and magic attacks. Each game will have some variety because teams are built randomly from each archetype. And each character has a unique ability. So you will need to learn quickly how to utilise each character.

I think the use of the dice to determine range combat success, push backs or extra magic damage seemed a bit fiddly. And probably a mechanism I would remove if possible.

With the dice and not using all the units on a turn I think are the bits that take the shine off the game for me.

I won’t say how many times Jonathan and I missed triggers on our tactic cards. I don’t think we ever played one. Does that make them superfluous? I don’t know. May be remembering the triggers and getting the benefit would increase the enjoyment.

It’s great that a skirmish game can be made this small. It certainly gives that experience. But is it a good skirmish experience? At the moment I think it’s average at best at the moment.

Games played: Tiny Epic Tactics, Jaipur, Hanamikoji

Fenland Gamers December 2020 Monthly Meet Up

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was once again the second Wednesday of the month, and therefore time once again for the monthly meet up of the Fenland Gamers.

Our game for the evening was a five player (The Usual Suspect, Diego, Gavin, Ollie and myself) game of Wingspan with the European Expansion. Plus the Swift starter pack cards were also shuffled in.

For those not aware a slight tweak was made to the Wingspan base game. For starters it’s price was increased a little to cover the addition of the Swift starter pack that was added. This consists of ten new bird cards and four guides for new players. The guides take new players through their first four turns of the game. They even specify which of the ten new birds that the player starts with. So a very new player friendly addition to the game. I can see why they did this. With the wide appeal the game has outside of the hobby, making it easier for those new to this type of game get playing it is a great idea. Naturally this is something owners of an original version of the game can pick up from the Stonemaier website for $5 plus postage. It’s probably one of the better “promo” things for a game value wise you can pick up. You can easily pay the same for a single promo card for other games elsewhere.

So with the new expansion plus the starter pack, that’s an additional 91 cards being added to the game. Which with the 170 cards of the original game makes a grand total of 161 bird cards.

After a brief recap of the rules we started to play.

I deviated from the usual setup by dealing three bonus cards to each player to choose from.

Our end of round goals were (Round 1 – 4 going left to right in the photo below):

The round 2 goal fitted nicely with my end game bonus card that was to do,with birds that could only be played in the grasslands.

It was nice to have pulled one of the new goal tiles for this game.

I’d like to point out Gavin did get one of the OP raven cards in his opening hand. But played it into his wetland instead of grassland. Which was a minor tactical error for that card.

I think by the end of the game everyone had one of the new birds in their reserve giving them an end of round bonus of some sort. Mine was one that allowed me to discard up to five food and then put that many cards from the deck tucked under it. That alone got me 13 points.

Diego had one that put a number of rodent food tokens on his bird based on which player had the most birds with the hunting symbol. Which Ollie kept adding to his reserve. I think last round that got him 6 points. It was a nice synergy for Diego, because Ollie’s bonus card needed him to have those cards out.

Unusually for me I had only 9 eggs out for scoring. I have lots more than that usually. The decision you have to make during the last round for each action you get to take is, will this get me more points than taking the egg action and any when activated stuff that gets points? For me taking the food action could match it, plus set me up for the end of round activation as well. This is why I rarely play a bird in the final round. It rarely is worth the points it gives you, both in terms of action economy and points generated.

In the end I managed to sneak a win by 4 points. Then Ollie and Diego drew for second place, and Gavin and The Usual Suspect drew for last place. The draws surprised me. I don’t think I’ve seen a double draw like that before.

It was a fun evening, great hosts as usual. Looking forward to our holiday sessions.

United Against Dementia Charity Game Night

charity, Fenland Gamers, game night

It’s on very very rare occasions that we at Fenland Gamers charge to attend a gaming session. It’s in the clubs dna, we don’t believe in charging people to play games. As gamers our games are expensive enough, and it’s hard enough getting them to the table without having to pay to do that.

But for the second time only we ran a session that required those taking part to hand over some dosh. Like the previous time we had a really good reason. We were gaming for charity. So the money paid was really a donation to the charity we were raising money for.

The charity chosen this time was the Alzheimer’s Society who are running an Autumn Gaming event to raise money and awareness for Dementia.

There are a lot of great charities out there. And to be fair I could have gone with several that had a personal link of some kind. But this one had that personal link also. So when club member and manager of our hosting establishment asked if we would run something for this particular one, we jumped at the opportunity.

So last night was the night we chose to hold our charity gaming evening.

Our hosts for the evening were our most excellent regular hosts The Luxe Cinema.

We started off the evening with a couple of rounds of the ‘filler’ game No Thanks! while we waited for Nathan to turn up. It’s a classic, and rightly so. And the evening started off as I hope the rest of the evening would be going with me winning.

As my victory celebrations were coming to an end there was still no sign of Nathan. So we went ahead with playing Wingspan with the first expansion for the game (that had only just arrived through Jonathan’s letter box that morning).

Surprisingly Jonathan had gone a different route to the one I would have gone for a first play with an expansion like this. I would have just used the new expansion so we got to see what it had to offer. Jonathan had mixed it in with the base game. Which is fine, no problem with that at all. After all that’s how it’s designed to be used.

We did get to see some of the new birds and mechanics introduced by the new expansion. Sadly luck of the draw meant we didn’t get to see any of the new end of round scoring conditions.

It’s great to see European birds now in the game. With the new mechanics, new bonus cards and end conditions, it’s more variety for an already great game. And to be honest if you have both, something you shouldn’t be playing without, even with new players. The new overhead to learn and teach is so negligible it’s not worth even considering.


I did use the WingMate scoring app for the first time ever. Which looks beautiful and totally in keeping with the look and feel of the game. However I’m not totally sure about the flow of the app when doing the scoring. But it was a single use, and I need to play with the app more first. But as you can see from the screen grab above Jeff won. With Nathanial and Jonathan drawing for last place.

Next up saw us diving for treasure in Deep Sea Adventure. What can I say about this? I managed to walk that fine line between pushing my luck and getting the treasure back to the surface and running out of oxygen and dropping my loot to the sea bed. In other words I won.

After the underwater adventures it was time to be artisans and create some stain glass windows in Sagrada. Although I did feel like I was being punished and handicapped by my secret objective card. After all how else would you interrupt having to score the sum of the yellow dice you have in your stain glass window? That’s the card Jonathan should of had with his unnatural love of playing that colour.

But after creating our beautiful stain glass windows the scoring judged Jeff’s window to be the most awesome to behold.

Our evening of gaming for charity ended with a couple of games of Rhino Hero. That saw Jeff win the first game, and then share the victory with Jonathan for the second and final game.

We had a great evening of gaming for charity.

Thanks to Jonathan you get to see some wonderful photos below of me on my journey to becoming full unkept hobo dwarf.

Games played: No Thanks!, Wingspan (with new European expansion), Deep Sea Adventure, Rhino Hero, Sagrada

If you feel that you would like to donate to our Just Giving page to help the Alzheimer’s Society fight Dementia you can click HERE.

I’d like to end this post with a big big thank you to those that donated and played, to those that only donated, and our hosts and their staff at The Luxe Cinema. Your generosity and support was most appreciated.

November 2019 Monthly Meet-up

Fenland Gamers, game night

Life likes to throw little obstacles in our way from time to time. Although at the moment I think I could make a good argument it has decided to bunch them all together.

The one we had last night was that the delivery van screwed up delivering the new chairs and tables to our hosts The Luxe Cinema earlier in the day. Which meant that as shown in the photo below there was a single table and two chairs for customers to use. Table wise not a problem. After all we use my fold up table for our gaming sessions at The Luxe. But lack of chairs, despite there being only five of us due to play, was.

Luckily I was able to get hold of Jonathan to bring along a couple of camping chairs, and the very helpful staff were able to rustle up a third chair.

While we waited for Jonathan to arrive with the extra seating. Gavin set up for a game of Flamme Rouge.

I hadn’t played the game before, and it was one I was interested in trying. After all it got a bit of buzz when it first came out a couple of years ago.

I liked it. It’s a solid game.

The deck management side of the game is nice. I like how you need to really think about which card you are going to play. After you play the card it gets removed from the game. So you really do need to think about when you play your big movement cards and when to dump out that low movement card. Add into the mix that certain sections of the track limit the distance you can travel. And the leaders of each pack of cyclists also get to water down their decks with a low value card from the supply.

Timing that push to the finish line becomes a fine art of reading the pack, route and controlling your deck.

Our last game of the evening due to time constraints (our hosts were closing up just after 9pm) we had a game of Citadels. I think this is the first time I’ve played the game with five players. Still great fun. Jonathan managed to grab the win with a single point. Which is despite Katie doing a fantastic move to trigger the end of the game, and blocking anyone stopping her by getting the bishop. No Warlord destroying one of her districts.

It was a fun, although shorter than normal monthly meet up. A big thanks to our hosts and the amazing staff for hosting us once again.

Games Played: Flamme Rouge, Citadels

Darren and the Chocolate Factory

game night

Last night Jonathan and I met up for a game of his recently arrived Kickstarter edition of Chocolate Factory.

I’d last played the game back in February at the Alley Cat game day. Back then it was still a prototype waiting for the Kickstarter to be done.

Naturally the final components are a lot better than the prototype (which btw was pretty good quality for a prototype).

What I hadn’t appreciated back then, but was blatantly obvious to Jonathan and myself what a lot of set up is required for this game, and how much space it takes up on the table.

It’s a relatively quick game to play, basically seven rounds. It took roughly just over an hour to play.

As engine builders go, Chocolate Factory is an above average game. It’s fine.

There are pockets of down time during the game. These tend to happen during the running the factory phase. All the players do this simultaneously. So if one player gets stuck in mentat mode (sorry for the Dune reference), the other players are left hanging around waiting for that player to complete their turn.

The components are really high quality. The factory and the sliding crates is a neat novelty mechanic. The theme is fun, and unique. Not many games out there about running a chocolate factory.

But at the end of the day I don’t think there is enough here to warrant going through all the flaff of setting up (and tearing down) to get this game out on a regular basis.

Afterwards Jonathan and I started talking games, and particularly Wingspan and the “broken” Raven cards (image below nicked off bgg).

I personally thought it was a none issue. And people should stopped whining about it. It is such a situational thing, you need them very early on in the game, ideally starting hand. I don’t think I’ve seen the cards come out in the games I’ve played (granted not many, especially compared to some).

There are 170 birds if I remember correctly in the base game. And two of them are particularly good if you get them at the start, and really good if you get both. Oh come on. Plus with the new expansion adding more cards plus a take that mechanic where you can take food from another player (oh wait until some-one gets these Ravens and a take that card at the start, watch the uproar).

Is it really a problem that needs dealing with? I don’t think Stonemaier Games need to ban them. If it upsets some players remove them from the game. Simple. Maybe errata the card to as Jonathan suggested take the food token from the feeder instead of the general supply.

But as I pointed out to Jonathan there seems to be a trend these days on line with people playing a new game and declaring it broken or needing more play testing before it was published.

I tend to put this argument in the camp of “I don’t like X therefore it has to be broken, I demand you fix it”.

There have been similar grumbles about another Stonemaier game Tapestry. Particularly with certain civilizations, or they don’t like the random nature of certain aspects of the game.

I don’t mind comments of “I don’t like this much randomness in a game”, that’s fair enough. Not every game is for everyone. But to declare a game is broken, and then go on to say they “fixed it”. Just gets my heckles up.

I think from time immemorial players have house ruled games. Nothing stopping players doing that if they don’t like an aspect of a game. Heck does anyone play Monopoly properly using the actual rules?

Heck with Tapestry we hand out three civilization cards to each player to chose from. Do I shout out about it online that I “fixed” the game? No.

Some players in Wingspan draft their cards at the start. Which is fine. It adds to the play time, and is great for players that have played the game a lot, but new players are at a disadvantage. Maybe something that could be added to the rules as a variant for more experienced players. But it fixes nothing. It wasn’t broken.

Don’t get me wrong. There are games out there that are broken. Or have elements that are. It’s pretty obvious which games these are, everyone is talking about them (when they occur). But in the cases above and the trend I’m seeing it’s a handful of people. Some passionate fans of the game, that are doing it from a position of love for the game. Although some have other motives, and use it as an excuse to knock the game or publisher. But what they are really doing is expressing an opinion about an aspect of the game. Some may agree, others will not. I just think they need to rephrase their words, from “this is broken” to “I didn’t enjoy this aspect” or “I didn’t like”.

This weeks gaming

Fenland Gamers, game night

Wednesday saw the Fenland Gamers monthly meet up for October.

It was a small affair, with just 4 (including me) attending.

I don’t get our club sometimes. I may have mentioned this previously. But I’m not sure how we increase attendance to events. I’ve put surveys up asking what days would be best for for members to attend. You guessed it, even those are poorly responded to.

We try and vary when sessions are held. We aim sessions at specific games and different types of games. But we get the same disinterest each time. I flabbergasted and at a loss on how to improve participation at game sessions.

Wingspan as always was a joy to play. Really looking forward to the first expansion coming out next month. European birds, a couple of new mechanics, new bonus cards and end of round scoring tiles. So expect to see it being played lots once I get my grubby mitts on it.

We rounded off the evening with a change from the usual Love Letter: Batman. We played the Hobbit version instead. A couple of slight rule changes. But still a great fun game to end on.

Games played: Wingspan, Love Letter: The Hobbit – The Battle of the Five Armies
Wednesday Fenland Gamers we’re approached by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire if we would be available Thursday to do an interview to use in a piece about boardgaming for the mature gamer that they were doing on Friday morning.

A bit short notice, especially considering people have jobs. But I have some flexibility in my schedule. So I arranged for the interview to happen at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole.

Thursday morning saw John (FLGS owner) and Kath (who helps out at the store) and myself being interviewed about boardgames by a local BBC radio journalist on his iPhone!

So that there were some “gaming” noises going on in the background during the interview, the reporter had John rolling lots of d6 dice and Kath and I playing Connect 4 (the journalist bought a copy with him).

I hadn’t played Connect 4 since about 1988. I was back then pretty good at the game, and unbeaten. And that streak remains. I still got the skills. I won all of the games Kath and I played.

The interview took about 20 minutes. More material than they could use for the 5 minute slot they had planned.

In the end the interview went out about 9:10 on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (you should be able to listen to it on the BBC Sounds app). It was about 3 minutes long. And concentrated on why we played games. Despite having notes written down, the reporter got who I was wrong, and said Fenland Games, but got it right in the interview itself!

It was an experience, and a little promotion for the club and my FLGS.

“You free to play some light games this evening?”

Not surprisingly I was.

So last night Jonathan and I ended up at The Luxe playing some light games.

We started off with a game of Penny Lane. Which saw my worst score for the game. I just didn’t get the engine side going. My butt was truly kicked.

Next up was the classic abstract game Santorini. We played using just the god cards from the base game, leaving the Golden Fleece expansion in the box. Each player was dealt two god cards, and selected one to use. We got some cool combos, where the god cards were opposites to each other. This is really one of those “just one more game” games. So quick and fun. After an initial run of victories, I hit a losing streak.

Our final game of the was the classic two player game Lost Cities. Jonathan hadn’t played this before. He wasn’t entirely sure about the game after the first play, but I think he had warmed to it after our second game. The actual game itself is simple, and has some interesting decisions to make. It’s the end of game scoring that seems over complicated, and takes a little getting your head around. I’ve been playing this game for years. But the app version, which does all the scoring for me! So you get lazy on that front. I also missed the little card count of the deck as we played. It helps having that info at a glance, knowing roughly how many turns you have left, and can plan cards to play based on that. But it was nice to actually play the physical version against a friend, and not just people online I’ve not met.

We shared the honours one game a piece.

Jonathan and I did have a gaming related discussion about an opinion from a friend on Stonemaier games. Which lead to a brief chat about luck of the draw within Viticulture, and how it can have a big impact on a game. So many games rely on or have as part of the game a luck element. But even if we just consider luck of the draw, lots of games rely on this to varying degrees, such as every Deckbuilder, Magic the Gathering, Tapestry, Scythe, Wingspan, London, Memoir ’44, etc, etc. The list goes on.

You either are going to love that element of luck, and the having to work around the challenge it throws up. Or you hate it, and need to find games that don’t have that element.

I don’t mind it. I like how it adds variety to games, varies the challenge from game to game. And if I get totally screwed by the cards, I accept that from time to time that will happen. I certainly don’t take it to heart and start sulking. Which some do.

Anyway that’s my not some well thought out thoughts on the subject

Jonathan and I had a great evening of gaming to end the week at The Luxe.

Games played: Penny Lane, Santorini, Lost Cities

Tapestry and Fairy Tales

Game day, game night, magic, MtG

I’ve not posted for a day or two. Which some will agree is a blessing. Whilst others will be pining for my poorly written words. I won’t claim they are words of wisdom or deep insight.

Anyway Friday evening saw me meeting up with Gavin to take delivery of my copy of the latest game from Stonemaier Games, Tapestry. The game isn’t officially out until the start of November. But thanks to the pre-order window at the start of September keen fans of Stonemaier Games could get their mitts on the game early direct from the company. Sadly a slow boat (or something that delayed the arrival of the shipment) meant that the UK/EU pre-orders were being sent out a couple of weeks after the US.

Each copy of Tapestry in the first printing is uniquely numbered. There is no control over which number you get, it’s completely random. But it’s a nice touch to make the first print a little special. Otherwise there will be no difference between the first printing and subsequent ones.

Well that’s a lie. One of the space exploration tiles in this first printing has a missing icon on it. Which will be corrected in later printings. Stonemaier Games aren’t fixing this. I don’t blame them, a single tile, that rarely will come out. Not worth the expense. Plus if it bothers me that much (which it doesn’t) I can buy a third party sticker off itsy for about £2.30 plus postage to fix it.

We played a 2 player game, that took about an hour of actual game play. Which wasn’t bad considering it was a first play. Sadly Gavin won our game. There are angels weeping over that victory.

I’m going to give my thoughts about the game after I’ve played it with a higher player count. But suffice to say I’m looking forward to a 3 (possibly 4) player game later today.

It’s also the Throne of Eldraine pre-release weekend.

And yesterday I attended the 11am pre-release at my FLGS.

I went 3 colours (green, black and blue) for my 40 card deck. I didn’t have any problem getting my lands to play stuff. It helped I could fix any shortfall with Rosethorn Acolyte (a green 3CMC 2/3 elf druid) that can tap for any colour mana, Spinning Wheel (a 3CMC artifact) that also tapped for any colour mana, and the adventure on Beanstalk Giant (a green 6CMC Giant, or 3CMC adventure sorcery) allowed me to search for a basic land and put it on the battle field.

I started off in the first round really well, winning the first game. But despite my best efforts I lost the next 2 games.

Round 2 saw me lose both games. Although they were not walk overs, both games were a back and forward. With the edge going to my opponent.

But that was the story of the first two rounds really. Close games. Just not able to get to my solutions in time. And I did have the solutions.

Round 3 was a lot easier. I was against a young lad who wasn’t vastly experienced. Was there a little bit of guilt crushing his dreams? Nah. A win is a win. Got to take them when you can.

The final round was a a real back and forward. I lost the first game, narrowly. If I had been able to do one more point of damage I would have stolen the win. Having been on the back foot for the majority of the game. The second game I won. But both games were not short games. We started our third and final game with 5 minutes left on the clock for the round. Naturally it went to time, and at the end of the 5 turns, no winner. So I think rightly ended as a draw.

Throne of Eldraine Pre-Release Stats

Participants: 22

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Nathanael Loss 1-2

Round 2: Simon Loss 0-2

Round 3: Unknown Win 2-0

Round 4: Jonathan Draw 1-1

Record: 1-2-1 (WLD)

Final Position: 15th

Prizes: 2 participation packs

Throne of Eldraine is a beautiful set. The art of gorgeous, nay stunning. The theme just oozes from every card. You can’t help but be delighted when you hold the cards in your hand. Really like the adventure mechanic.

From my experience of the pre-release as a sealed format from the decks I played against, it’s not a fast format. Our decks were slowish, getting pieces into position, waiting for that chunk in the other players defences. It will be interesting to see if this is true for draft or other sealed events.

But as always, had a great time.

Undaunted unimpressed

game night

Last night Jonathan and I met up at the nearly newly refitted The Luxe to play his latest addition to his collection Undaunted: Normandy.

This game caused a bit of shock, and banter when Jonathan said he was getting it. Mainly because it is a deckbuilder. Jonathan doesn’t do deckbuilders. More accurately it’s a mechanic that would fail to make his top 100 mechanics. But would easily make his top 5 mechanics he does not like.

But the theme and the board/missions tempted him to part with his money.


We played the introductory mission, I was the allies, while Jonathan played the axis forces.

For the history books I won. And afterwards we discussed how we felt about the game.

I felt the game was ok. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience.

The deckbuilding side was ok. But not great. I really enjoy deckbuilders, like Star Realms/Hero Realms, Valley of the Kings, Legendary Marvel. Undaunted doesn’t come close to them. It’s not as bad as the World of Tanks deckbuilder (which was dire) and I’d put it above Thunderstone. What I missed was being able to combo cards. The nearest you get really is being able to bounce a played card back to your hand to be replayed. One tactic I did like was being able to force fog of war cards into your opponents deck. They are basically dead cards. So watering down your opponent’s deck is a great way to throw a spanner in the works.

The combat element really did feel tacked on. I didn’t use it once, but Jonathan did, and the dice just made it too random. I think out of 6 or so attacks he succeeded twice.

The missions, that are area control is an interesting idea. But for me makes the game more like Memoir 44. It’s cool that there are a load of different missions for players to play, great variety.

The theme of the game could be anything really. It is literally non-existent.

I almost feel that Undaunted couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a deckbuilder or a Memoir clone. And that indecision has hurt it overall. It doesn’t achieve either.

Having played the game I don’t get all the buzz it has been getting on the Facebook groups.

Have you played it? And if so what did you think?

Game played: Undaunted: Normandy

September 2019 Monthly Meet Up

Fenland Gamers, game night

Our hosts The Luxe are not quite there yet with the refit. But they sure are a lot closer than they were back in May. But more importantly now in a position to start hosting us again for game sessions.

It felt good to be back.

We advertise our meet ups on the clubs Facebook page as events. Members then say Going/Maybe/Not Going in response. Well some do. However the responses to events, or even questions such as “what days would you like sessions to be run?” is very low (about a 7% of members responded when I asked that question recently).

Before Jonathan and I leave the house we usually have checked the event to see how many are attending. It helps us decide which games to take along for the evening.

Last night we were expecting 5 in total. It’s that awkward number. Not large enough to split into two groups, and not small enough for the majority of games that are usually 4 players maximum.

With that player count in mind, I decided to take Lords of Waterdeep, and some smaller “filler” games that supported that number of players.

So after arriving early and getting the table and seating set up with the help of the lovely on duty staff. Imagine my surprise when The Usual Suspect turned up, after the day before specifically changing his Maybe attending status for the event to Not Attending. He’d changed his mind!

WTF?!

Gavin arrived with news that Jonathan was going to be late.

So instead of starting a game of Lords of Waterdeep, we cracked open Coup.

I blame Game the Game on YouTube for me throwing Coup into the bag. They had recently put up two episodes of it being played (base game and with the Reformation expansion).

I could have thrown in the Reformation expansion. But considering that the majority hadn’t played before I stuck with the core game.

After losing the first game, Jonathan arrived just in time to join in for the second. Which I also lost.

Our main game of the evening was Lords of Waterdeep. Which hadn’t seen table time for two years. It was long over due.

It was lucky for The Usual Suspect that I also had the expansion with me so it could support 6 players. But to do that I’d have to use one or both of the expansions. I went with just mixing in the Undermountain expansion.

It’s the logical expansion to go with when two thirds of those playing hadn’t played the game before. It doesn’t introduce anything new to the game mechanic wise. You basically get three new actions spaces, and some more intrigue, quests, buildings and lords to shuffle in. Unlike the skullport expansion that introduces corruption, and just over complicates things for the first time player.

So after setting up and explaining the basics of the game, we set off recruiting adventurers, completing quests and hopefully expanding the influence of our secret lord of Waterdeep.

I managed to get the win. Not my best score. But I broke the 100 barrier, so that was something.

Everyone but The Usual Suspect enjoyed the game. But I’m beginning to think he’s not a worker placement type of person. His plays are sub optimal. Like giving me a mandatory quest on the final round, when I had no open quests left. And no intention of getting another one. His optimal play would have been anyone else but me. Because they all had quests they could complete. It’s something I’ve noticed with Viticulture as well. And we won’t mention the Stone-age debacle. There is something about worker placement not clicking there.

Anyway another great evening of gaming.

Games Played: Coup, Lords Of Waterdeep

I can’t stand it, I know you planned it

first look, game night

Mid week I got a pleasant, but big surprise, when my Kickstarter copy of Sabotage arrived.

I really was taken aback when the delivery driver handed over the package. It was massive. I had not been expecting a game this big.

When I opened the box and looked inside you can’t help but be bowled over by the high production values of this game. The 20 cardboard tokens are really thick, chunky things. Probably twice as thick as ones I’ve seen in other games. Which translates to a satisfying feel when holding them. The inclusion of two game trays, the really cool minis. I think the only company that equals this sort of quality is Stonemaier Games. These two companies are setting such a high bar for others to match.

Although there is a minor blemish on the Sabotage production, there is a misprint on a character card, and text missed off the spies player boards. Plus some boxes don’t fold out fully when used. But stickers are being sent out to correct this. Along with a video showing how to correct the box issue.

It took me a couple of days to get my head round the rules. Which involved a few readings of the thin rule book, looking at the official FAQ, watching YouTube videos, and reading the odd bgg forum post. So I think it would be fair to say that the rule book isn’t the best. Although the little first turn booklet is a nice touch.

Once I was happy with how the rules worked in my own head I felt confident enough to ask Jonathan if he fancied a learning game of Sabotage.

Friday evening then was spent at The Luxe with a bunch of heroic spies attempting to foil the evil plans of a gang of ruthless villains by trying to infiltrate the villains lair and destroy their doomsday devices.

Jonathan played the villains, whilst I played the spies.

The game trays make set up so quick and easy. You just hand the players the relevant tray and they have everything they need.

Boy does this game have table presence. With the box between the players acting as a screen this takes up a lot of space.

This game is either a 1v1 game where both players play 2 characters each. Or it’s a 2 player co-op once the app is out, or finally it’s a 2v2 game. Although the 1v1 option isn’t explicitly mentioned in the rules, and is an assumption I made that made sense.

The main mechanics of this game are a battleships/hide and seek/hidden movement type thing, and programmed actions. Which combine really nicely.

The round structure is simple, roll dice, plan actions, take actions, clean up. Which is nice. And it flows really quickly.

Both sides are asynchronous. The villains earn extra dice to use for actions in a different manor to the heroes, and they gain more powerful action tiles differently too. What I like is that both sides have a way to mess with the other player and get rid of those extra dice the other side are using.

Each character feels unique, having a core set of action tiles, but then unique more powerful ones to obtain.

I like that when you take actions you are giving out partial information. Some actions don’t get announced, just performed. Whilst others you announce the action name and that’s it. The other player then has to guess what you did for that action. Take for instance the spies move and scan action. The spies don’t declare the move part, but they do the scan. The area you scan, either a quad, row or column gives the villains a clue to where the spy is. But the problem is a scan action may not be just with the move. There is an action that just scans, and can be any where on the board. So it could be misdirection also.

So you are getting this incomplete information all the time. That you are trying to base decisions on. I like that.

In away Sabotage reminds me a bit of Spectre Ops, but with both sides hidden!

I liked the game, it’s fun. Would like to try it with the app, and 2v2. But it worked as a 1v1.

Luckily for the world the spies narrowly managed to disable to doomsday devices and save the day. Which means I won.

Oh the title of this post, it’s the first line of the song Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. Predictable I know but it had to be done.