Category Archives: game night

game night

FEG@WL 14Oct16

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

A bit like Crackerjack when I was growing up, it was Friday, it was 6pm, it was time for FEG@WG. Not quite as snappy or as popular as Crackerjack, and also not at five to five!

The first game of the evening for the four amigos that had assembled to play games was Splendor.

Deigo crushed this game. An easy win he put down to the many defeats he’d suffered at the hands of his partner. 

Earlier in the day the postman had delivered the playmat for Tiny Epic Western. So naturally I wanted to take the mat out for a spin.

So with our Mexican stand off set up on the playmat it was time to admire it.

This is a massive playmat. 


But a lovely one, that not only really captures the poker element of the game in its colouring trying to evoke the baize of a poker table. It actually captures the feel with a baize like feel! What a great use of texture.

Gamelyn games make some really nice playmats for their Tiny Epic games. However they do take the games away from the Tiny ethos. 

In our Mexican stand off Ben was quickest on the draw and won. 

A great evening gaming once again! Some nice banter, great company. All finished off with the now traditional dodgy meat fest.

Fenland Gamers Oct 16 Meetup

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

Last night saw the October meet up of the  Fenland Gamers at the White Lion Hotel. This was a first for the monthly Meetup.

Our first game of the evening was Keyflower. 

Part worker placement, part bidding. It’s a nice challenging game. 

You have to decide whether to use a tile for its ability or to try and bid on it to get ownership.

There is an advantage to owning the tiles. Points for starters, plus it may increase the number of workers the next round that you have to play with. Because if another player uses on of your tiles you get those meeples at the end of the round. 

You also get to bid for choosing bonuses at the end of the round. Get a chance using tile abilities to gather resources that you can use to upgrade a tile. 

It can be tough making that decision what to do. 

The art isn’t amazing, but has a nice cartoony feel to it. I do like the player screens that are used to hide your meeples from the other players. 

Despite loosing to Deigo it liked the game a lot.

We finished off the evening with Isle of Trains.

I’d nearly bought this game at the expo. Which is a shame as I liked playing this also. And it won’t be long before it ends up in the collection.

I love the multi use cards. Using them to pay for cards, to use them as carriages/trains or as a resource to activate an ability. 

That activating of an ability is genius. Because that only happens when you put a resource on an opponents carriage. But if you do that you are helping them get nearer to completing their contract. If you do it on your own train, nothing happens, but you do have the goods to use for completing a contract. That’s an interesting decision to have to make. How badly do you need the ability to meet your goals? 

The records will show that I won this game.

A great evening of gaming. Looking forward to Friday now for the next lot.

Wait this had no title!

Fenland Gamers, game night

I have to admire Jonathan it takes a lot of balls to build the Nantucket wing on his house.

Last night I’d hesitate to say we played the game Western Front. We tried it is the best I can describe it as.

I’m not going to waste more time on this game at the moment. When the best you can say about the game is you like the linen finish of the cards. It says it all really.

We followed up with Karmaka, a game I knew the theme would not appeal to Jonathan. However I thought he might like the mechanics and art.

I called it right, Jonathan beat me whilst not disliking the mechanics, but not enjoying the theme.

Our final game was a two player Tiny Epic Western. Which was an ok experience but much better with more players.

Luckily for me I won. Which ended our gaming evening and despite the false start a pleasant evening of gaming.

The Iron Throne Round Two

Fenland Gamers, game night, game of thrones

Our skirmish over the Iron Throne seemed so long ago. But the memory of the other houses betrayal still stung with how they gave the Iron Throne to Jeff the Baratheon. 

Mid week once I knew how many could still make our planned fight club for the Iron Throne, I ordered the A Feast of Crows expansion for the game. 

This was my clever plan to gain the Throne. A Feast of Crows is a four player only expansion that replaces the win condition for the game, introduces a new house, House Arryn, objectives, a new setup. 

During setup I drew the Starks, Jeff got House Arryn, Jonathan House Lannister, and Diego House Baratheon.

Looking back on our game my tactical error on turn one that I missed until too late, of attacking House Arryn instead of the Lannisters, helped towards giving Jonathan his well deserved victory. If I had gone after the Lannisters I would have completed my special objective for my house and started racking up victory points, while denying Jonathan and his Lannisters 

The others helped towards his victory also by not taking him on, on their side of Westeros.

I liked this expansion a lot. The house specific objectives, the objective deck. Such a great idea. Completing them is the only way to earn victory points. It forces you to be aggressive. You can’t afford to turtle. 

It was a quick game, four turns! Not including setup time, our playtime was about an hour and a half. 

Setup especially contributes to the forced aggression, effectively shutting down the southern part of Westeros. You are also starting off with more developed forces if my poor memory of our first game isn’t playing tricks on me.

This is definitely my preferred way to play with four players now. I’ll happily play the original way. But this expansion for me is a far better playing experience. 

There is a six player only expansion also, which if we get a six player game together I will definitely get. I do wonder why there isn’t a five player expansion. 

The postman bought my Kickstarter copy of Tiny Epic Western Deluxe Edition yesterday morning. So after sleeving the player boards the game along with Bang the Dice Game and it’s first expansion Old Saloon were put in my game bag along with A Game of Thrones the boardgame.

Having seen Jeff usurped from the Iron Throne, only to see Jonathan placed on the throne instead. It was time to hit the old west and play Tiny Epic Western.

Naturally with the game being so new, none of us knew the rules. So this was a learning game, reading the rules as we played! 

Within a turn of playing I think we had the majority of the rules down. 

So we have an area control, worker placement, set collection, variable player powers game with a poker element too!

Yep there’s a lot of boxes being ticked here. But it works.

I like the duelling, although I think I only duelled once! It’s a cool way to resolve control of a space on the board.

Having player aids on the back of the character boards is a good use of real estate. Which means unused boards instantly become player aids. 

I loved the poker element of the game. It was rare I wasn’t with a five value card. So rare if I was wearing a long sleeved top the others would be rolling up my sleeves checking for cards.

The unique player boards with their player abilities is a nice touch. The four we were playing with didn’t seem over powered. 

Being the Kickstarter deluxe edition we had extra bullet dice, one in each players colour. But the whole overall component quality was good. We also got a plastic wanted card with a see through window. Which looked better to me than the standard included card.

I liked the wanted card as it encouraged duels. Ownership went to the winner of the last duel. It gives a bonus if you have it on phase three of the game, and if you have it at the end of the game two victory points. 

We did find the rule book a bit confusing in places. It was handy having a mini FAQ inside the box.

The only thing I regret is not buying the optional playing mat. But I’ll correct that soon.

Tiny Epic Westerns is a nice game. I like it, and definitely can see it coming to the table again. And I’m not saying that because I won!

So is this the best Tiny Epic game? Does it beat Tiny Epic Galaxies? 

For me I think TEG is still the best Tiny Epic game. But this easily takes second spot.

A great day gaming. Plus we pigged out on Krispy Creme donuts!

FEG@WL last day of September 2016

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

It’s Friday, it’s been a long, hard week. Only way to start the weekend, and blow away that built up stress from the week then has to be play some games with great company and an ice cold beverage.

Diego, Jonathan and I were gathered at the White Lion to do just that. 

Our first game of the evening was The Great Heartland Hauling Co.

We played with one of the alternate three player layouts and the truck stops expansion.

I made an instant dash to the GPS truck stop to buy that and gain the ability to move diagonally once per turn. However that left me with no ability to move and buy goods to trade. Which meant I was stuck at the starting point for three turns until I was able to draw fuel cards!

It was that bit of rashness I think that gave the advantage to Diego. Who went on to get the win. Although I came second, I was happy because I’d managed to sell everything I was transporting. So I didn’t get any negative points.

Jonathan had a complete disaster of a game. His truck must have been robbed of its tires at a truck stop and left on cinder blocks.

Our next game was Grifters. Oh this was a game of frustration for both Jonathan and me.

Jonathan just wasn’t getting the specialist cards to do much. While Diego was buying job cards just before I was about to, or blocked a plan I was going execute with a specialist action. Like grab the Blackmailer card off the top of discard pile but putting utter junk on top of it on his go.

As you can guess Diego romped home to the win.

Our final game of the evening was a new one to Diego and me. It was Skyline, a light dice game where you are building skyscrapers.

This has a push your luck element on the dice roles similar to Age of War and Elder Sign. Where if you want to reroll the dice you lose one if you are unable to use at least one.

Diego triggered the end game by claiming the 36 point building tile. I got lucky and was able to score a final 16 point building, while Jonathan was not able to score any big points to boost his score.

I have to admit that in this final go I was only looking at getting a higher score than Jonathan. I had assumed Diego had the win sewn up. So imagine my surprise when we totalled the points I had won by a single point.

Somehow I’d broken Diego’s amazing winning streak!

Skyline is a pleasant quick filler game. I enjoyed it.

Well you know how the evening ended after the games. We celebrated our wins and losses by consuming dodgy meat wrapped in naan, with salad (the token attempt to make it healthy, and ease the feelings of guilt) and some chilli sauce.

Tomorrow we attempt to usurp Jeff from his Iron Throne when we play A Game of Thrones the Board Game.

You are all colours

Fenland Gamers, game night

So Airlines Europe is a game I’ve never played before. It is however a game in Jonathan’s game collection. And also the game he chose for us to play at last nights mid week gaming session at the White Lion.

Airlines Europe is a game by some guy named Alan R Moon. He apparently created a game called Ticket To Ride that seems to be popular with a certain devil may care attitude to life and a hippy haircut.

Our game was a four player one with three of us having not played it before. So it was upto Jonathan to explain the rules and stress several times you are all colours and not just one colour when building routes.

I liked the share element of the game, and pushing the value of your stock up by building routes. 

You have to be aware of what your opponents are investing in, not just for scoring but also for which airlines you are going to advance in value. 

I benefitted a lot from Debbie pushing up the value of stock I had the majority in or was second highest in. 

I love the randomised mid game scoring. It means you have to try and second guess when it’s going to occur, do you invest those shares in your hand now, or do you still have time to push their value up? Jonathan and I got caught out by this during the game. Having shares in our hands that we failed to get out in time to allow us to score points. 

The red and orange planes are so close in colour it’s easy to confuse one for the other. I also thought the colour of the cards could have been a bit easier to tell, especially from the opposite side of the table. The iconography of the player aids could also be improved. 

This a solid game. I’d definitely play again. But I’m not sure I’d be able to repeat my stunning victory of this playthrough. 

Oh yes I WON!

A great evening once more of gaming.

To the max

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

Istanbul is a bloody good game. That’s a fact. 

Adding in the “mini expansion” the kebab shop makes it a little better. It replaces the Fountain tile and I wouldn’t play the game without this now. 

Playing with the first full expansion Mocha and Baksheesh adds new and interesting elements to the game. Such as coffee and it’s alternate path to victory, and the ability to block routes.

But how would the latest expansion Brief and Siegel that came out this week effect the game?

Well Jonathan broke his self imposed game buying ban for the month to buy it, and he had it delivered Thursday. 

So with an exit pass granted Jonathan and I met up to throw everything Istanbul and the kitchen sink on the table for a mega epic version of the game.

With all the expansions in play set up takes a little time. And moving from four by four tiles to the four by five grid of tiles with the first expansion to five by five makes the game massive. 

Placing the rubies on the board on the relevant tiles, they now look lost! Dwarfed by this increase in size of the board. 

The new expansion introduces letters and seals, that are not only another way to get rubies but also away to get extra turns. 

Naturally you get letters by visiting one of new tiles (there are two of the new tiles that give letters out), or from the courier (which acts like the coffee trader,smuggler, and governor). Each letter has an “address” or tile number on it. When you get the letter it’s worth one seal, deliver it to the “address” it’s worth two seals. Visit the Secret Society tile, and you can trade six seals for a ruby and possibly between three and one coins depending when you get there. Or you can use three seals per round to take an extra turn.

Jonathan used his seals well to get that extra turn at key moments. I’d been using this new scoring opportunity early on to take an early lead.

I scored all my rubies between letters, coffee and the odd guild card that gave me cheap ways to buy a ruby pushing the value up for Jonathan. 

During the game I made no effort collecting lots of goods and trading. The only goods I collected were enough to purchase/fuel certain powers. 

My first tactical mistake was with my companion (a new addition to the game) where I moved him too far away from the Caravansary and the Guild Hall (which were next to each other). If he was in position whilst I was exploiting the tile combo Jonathan had stumbled across on the opposite side of the board (see below), I could have still been drawing the guild cards and bonus cards, and get extra coffee counters.

And that brings me to the companion another new feature of this expansion. Because of the size of the board now, this is a much needed addition. It does give you a choice each turn, do you move your merchant or your companion once you have them. The companion acts like the merchant except it can only move one tile at a time, he works alone (can’t pick up assistants) and any tiles/bonuses that show the merchant don’t apply to the companion. With the companion you are able to leave him on the other side of the board to your merchant. 

The Kiosk tile is awesome. It gives you a letter, plus it has kiosk mini tiles that have bonuses on them. You draw one more than the number of players, you pick the one you want, carry out that action. Then the other players do the same in turn order. Then the last tile left you get and action. I was using this a lot. 

With the increased board size the tavern bonus tile that allows you to move any number of places in a straight line is a must.

Once Jonathan hit the tile combo shown below he soon caught me up on the ruby front. I joined him in exploiting it too late. Although throwing the barrier in his way to slow him down and make his life a little difficult did work. If I’d have remembered I could jump the barrier (the draw back of not having played the game for a while) along with my other “mistake” I could have won.


In the base game the “Black Market and Tea House should have a distance from each other of at least 3 places.”  We felt that there should be a similar ruling for the above combo. Otherwise it’s too powerful a combo. We may house rule this. I think Jonathan is going to bring this up on bgg also. (He did here)

In the end this was a very close game with Jonathan pipping me to the post and the win. But I may have got the win if not for my two “tactical” errors.

Unless I’m playing this game with a new player I will not play this game any other way than with everything in play. The base game is a bloody good game. But with everything it gets taken to a new much, much higher level. The multiple avenues to victory, the random layout of the board each game, there is just so much variety and replayability. 

It should be noted that apparently according to bgg there is a camel driver mini expansion that for completeness I will get but wasn’t used in this game because we don’t have it technically! 

Totally schooled

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

We are totally loving our new location for our Friday night gaming sessions. The White Lion are fantastic hosts, provide fantastic facilities, great beverages, what more could you want?

Last night Debbie, Jonathan, and Diego provided that last element needed for our great new location to play games, great company.

During the week we had become aware of an injury to Debbie. Apparently due to a hair brain stunt she did (going for the world record for possum juggling). Debbie had fractured a finger. A cunning plan was hatched to take advantage of this by playing manual dexterity games such as Flick ‘Em Up, Pitch Car or Ice Cool (or whatever that new game is called). Sadly there was a flaw in this cunning plan. Jonathan and I didn’t own any of these games.

I don’t know what Diego made of this banter at Debbie’s expense. This was the first time I’d met him. Although Debbie and Jonathan had met Diego before at a previous Fenland Gamers monthly meetup. Maybe he thought I was a bit of a dick. Not an inaccurate conclusion to arrive at.

Earlier in the week Jonathan and I, who were the only ones at the time going, decided to choose which games we were going to play. So between us we had decided on Saloon Tycoon, Guilds of London, and Five Tribes.

So our first game of the evening was Saloon Tycoon. 

Considering Diego hadn’t played the game before and had only read the rule book that morning, his victory was just totally awesome. Now if I said Diego crushed us, I’d be doing him a disservice. He destroyed us. We weren’t even close.

I took second place, while Jonathan managed to steal last place after a late surge in points from Debbie. Who had been hanging way way back on the score track for all of the game. That late surge almost got her second place. But I managed to hold on by four points.

This was the first time we played the game with the max player count. And it still played well. 

Debbie made some excuse about having to go see her boyfriend, and made a fast exit.

Still there were three of us. And Jonathan and I both had our copies of Thiefs Market with us. So we decided to play a game of it, and then go get the end of evening celebratory kebab.

Wow did I totally suck playing this time. I failed to buy intelligently. Too many turns where I wasn’t buying anything or getting gold/noteriety instead.

Like Love Letter Batman I think we need to start rationing our play of Thiefs Market. The danger I want to avoid is burning out on the game.

The new King of Thieves was Diego. 

Wow a clean sweep of victories for Diego. Whilst Jonathan and I both walked away with a bottom of the pile.

A great evening of gaming again. So same time and place next week? 

Building a better tomorrow

Fenland Gamers, game night

So there I am driving home from a hard day at work. The Secret Cabal Podcast blasting out of my cars radio. I’m thinking I thought these guys were more cool than they were letting a video game company dictate to them when their reviews can go out. I’m not a fan of these NDA timed release of reviews. But hey if they want to encourage this bad practice in the board game industry who am I to complain? I mean they weren’t the only ones that shamefully participated in this cheap marketing trick, where reviewers get early access and told when they can release the “review”. Oh yeah say something bad about the game, suddenly you are out in the cold, no early access next time, strangely calls don’t get returned etc. Yeah let’s encourage this in the hobby. 

Anyway my train of thought was broken by Jonathan calling to invite me to meet him at The White Lion to play games. Naturally having no life, my hectic social calander had a gap, I was able to be there.

Our game of the evening was one Jonathan had just got second hand off the UK trading and selling page I also buy from. That game was The Builders Middle Ages.

I do like the tin the game comes in. It’s colourful, looks great and that nice portable size that means you can chuck it in your page on the spur of the moment. I’d say it’s the same size as the tins used by the Timelines games.

Playing this game was similar to playing Splendor. It had that feel to it. And after my defeat, it was more or less the first thing I said. To which Jonathan replied that was the first thought that struck him too. 

This is an average game, not as good as Splendor. But it’s portability is it’s strength. You want that Splendor like experience on the go, this gives you that.

Our next game was Kodama. This was also a first play. Sadly since getting it from backing it on Kickstarter it’s sat on my pile of shame. 

One of the things that attracted me to the game initially was the the Ghibli-ish Princess Mononoke tree spirits look. And the whole look, graphic design is beautiful. 

We did find initially the rules a little confusing especially on the scoring. But once we got it sorted it made sense and Jonathan sailed ahead to a victory.

There are some nice elements to the game like each of the three seasons have a unique rule chosen at random at the start of the game and revealed at the start of that season. I like how the first player changes at the start of a season, with it going to the lowest score. The Kodama cards are cool, you have a hand of four of these at the start of the game. During the scoring phase at the end of a season you get to play one to hopefully give you a nice points boost.

What you can’t escape is your finished tree does look awesome.

This is a nice game. It worked well with two players (it plays more). I’d play it again. Mainly as a change/break from some of the other two player games I have that I adore. 

The final game of the evening was an old friend Tiny Epic Galaxies (TEG). Since the current Kickstarter for its expansion Beyond the Black (yes I’ve backed it) started up I’ve been craving to get this game back to the table.

Our game of TEG was my only victory of the evening. We played with the mini expansion Satellites and Super Weapons that came with my Kickstarter copy.

It was interesting playing the game with the expansion because at first we ignored it. We didn’t make use of the super weapons cababilities or try destroying it for points. 

The super weapon we had out allowed you to force opponents ships back two spaces on any planets they were trying to colonise. I like that extra opportunity to mess with others, screwing with their plans, hopefully swinging the momentum your way. 

Plus destroying the super weapon gets you two victory points. That’s nice. Like the load bomb card in The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction that two points could be enough to push you over the finishing line, as it was in our game. 

I liked this mini expansion. It’s a nice little addition to the game. Well worth the trouble getting from the bgg store if you didn’t get the Kickstarter edition.

To top off our mid week gaming session apparently it was also Debbie’s birthday. So we were celebrating her birthday also by playing games without her! 

I needed this nice mid week distraction from the pressures of the working week. Thanks Jonathan for inviting me along.

About last night…

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

It’s been a busy week, with only one post! Yeah that’s like me having the blogging equivalent of losing my voice or a sore throat.

Last night there was no FEG@TA arranged. Instead a plan was hatched to have a look at The White Lion. 


Jonathan and I were both running a tad late. But Debbie wasn’t there waiting for us, so we were able to be a little guilt free.

But Debbie wasn’t there! She was going to be there. She’d thumbed up on the mornings invite about meeting up. She never responded to a “where are you?” message on Facebook. How odd? Had she been kidnapped by space pirates? Or was she so guilt ridden she felt ashamed to respond? Who knows or cares? Jonathan and I had a large table that was well lit, two bags brimming with games, and our pints of cider. Debbie who?

So while we waited for Debbie to arrive in case she too was running late, Jonathan and I played Qwixx. Even if I hadn’t taken three negative marks during the game Jonathan would have beaten me, he had built up a comfortable lead to absorb any attempt at a come back.

Jonathan and I next played a game that he got in a trade and had been sitting in his pile of shame for a long long time, called Wurfel Express.

This was a German edition of Wurfel Express, with a poor translation of the rules. I do admire and appreciate that a bgg member has taken the time to translate the rules and make them available. However, (there is always a however) I wish they would take longer to not just do a straight translation but also make the rules readable!

This wasn’t the worst game I’ve ever played. That title is still held by Nantucket. But it this is a game that would never set the world on fire.

It’s got that push your luck Yahtzee  rolling of dice mechanic. And that’s about as exciting as the game gets. 

I know this is meant to be a family game. So it should be appealing to young and old. Which is totally possible to do. Apparently a good example would be the Stronghold Games Spiel des Jahres recommended game Animals on Board. I say apparently because I’ve not played it. But by all accounts it appeals to both young and seasoned gamers alike. Hey even Pixar produce films that appeal to all. Sadly this game doesn’t hold much to appeal to the more mature player.

So Jonathan can tick this game off his pile of shame and add it to his new gaming wing of crapness that takes it name from its founding entry The Nantucket Wing.

Our final game of the evening was the excellent small box pick up and deliver game The Great Heartland Hauling Co.

This game has a lot of replayability. In our game we used one of the alternate board layouts for two players called ‘Black Dog’. But there are two other two player alternate layouts, along with three and four player alternate layouts. You can play with the Badlands expansion (which adds a fifth player and two new location cards), and/or the truck stop cards (which offer upgrades you can purchase). We played with the truck stop cards last night.

During our game I got the truck stop that allowed me to move diagonally. Whilst Jonathan got one that when he stopped on the starting location he could draw five additional cards and then discard five cards. Jonathan’s was handy for that trying to draw to find the cards you need. But it doesn’t help if you are unlucky in your deck diving!

I triggered the end game, and when all the points were tallied I had won by a single mighty point. 

So after an evening of great company, drink, a fantastic gaming location, we took off to grab a wrap of dodgy meat for our supper.