Category Archives: game night

game night

Winter Is Coming

Fenland Gamers, game night, game of thrones, Uncategorized

Here is a short time lapse of my first time playing A Game of Thrones the boardgame with Jeff, Ben and Jonathan.


In all I think we played our four player game in little over two hours. Surprisingly quicker than I thought it would be. 

In the end Jeff won taking the required seven castles, whilst I had been knocked back into last place. Yes I was in the lead early on before the others ganged up on me. 

I was surprised how little conflict went on in our game. I seemed to be the main aggressor. Something I paid for in the long run. 

I enjoyed this first play a lot, this will definitely be coming back to the table.

My only complaint about this game and the up and coming Iron Throne game (based on Cosmic Encounter) is the minimum number of players is three. So unless I can find a third volunteer when I visit Nath, neither would see the table. And I know that Nath would enjoy this game.

If you are able to get the players together this is a nice game to bring to the table.

There once was a man from Nantucket…

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night


Last night saw the weekly FEG@TA back on track after last weeks was cancelled.

The FEG@TA last night was only attended by Jonathan and myself. So what resulted was a pleasant evening of two player gaming, whilst the loud music and alcholic fuelled buffoonery raged around us.

Our first game of the evening was the two player worker placement game with a whaling theme Nantucket. Jonathan had got this for $3 as an add on to the game New Bedford (also about whaling) on Kickstarter.

For those that are already thinking tl;dr here’s the spoiler on what I thought of this game, it’s a pile of shit. It’s a stinker. It really is. 

The rules could be written better. Some bits were unclear. A player aid with the scoring for the whaling coin toss phase of the game would have been a great and much needed addition.

And now I mention it the coin toss mechanic used for the whaling phase, I hated. With cardboard chits for the coins this just doesn’t work. It feels so unsatisfying. 

Oh those cardboard coins! Whose bright idea was it to give the head side of the coin the image of a whales tale? Then two silver coins add up to one copper coin! Since when has copper been worth more than silver.

This is barely a game. I can’t think of one thing about the game I like. Maybe Jonathan and I are missing something. But this was not a pleasant experience for either of us. At $3 I think Jonathan was over charged. Oh Jonathan won this game.

Our second game had to be good to pick us up after such a start to the evening. So out came our current darling game The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction. I romped home with an easy win against Jonathan. It nearly was a whitewash and would have been if he hadn’t managed to finally score a bomb card just as I loaded up a bomb to take me to the game ending ten points. The cards just hadn’t been with Jonathan in this game. In one go I played 13 cards! Now that’s combotastic.

We followed this up with another crowd pleaser The Great Heartland Hauling Co. which we played using the expansion that comes with the game. The expansion basically gave you the chance to get upgrades/abilities. I grabbed two of the three that were on offer. One allowed me to move diagonally, the other allowed me to stay put by paying a dollar. Jonathan managed to nab the one that added an extra move space to a fuel card if you wanted to. But only after I had taken the other two.

I went on to use the staying put ability to great use irking Jonathan by tieing up one or two high value tiles. If I’d started doing that earlier and haf a bit of luck on the card draw to get the necessary cards I think that tactic of frustration could have won me the game.

In the end I was left with a lorry load of goods that flattered the victory Jonathan had.

I liked the addition of this expansion. It added a new element to the game that changed things up a little, while not taking away from the main game play.

Our last game of the evening was Valley of the Kings. Jonathan doesn’t do deck builders normally. But there was enough in this game that he enjoyed the experience. And that was despite me romping home to a comfortable win.

So despite Nantucket we had a fun evening playing games, with the spoils of victory split evenly between us.

Mutant boss rant

father son gaming, game night, news, rant


So as I continue to explore these fancy picture layouts in LiveCollage that barely show anything unless you zoom in. I might talk about last nights gaming with Nath.

So Nath and I played one game last night and that was Run Fight or Die. 

Despite looking like at several points in our game that he’d be over run with zombies. Each time Nath managed to pull the cat out of the bag and survive. More than once being able to wipe out a completely over crowded zone of zombies. 

While I seemed to be in more control of the waves of zombies moving through the zones in front of me. So much so that I was able to get attacks in on the mutant boss once he had appeared.

In fact the mutant boss appeared very early on in the game. He was our very first location that got drawn in the game!

By the time the mutant boss was sent packing to lick his wounds until his next appearance, Nath had gained a follower. 

As we pushed our luck, found loot, went to new locations and handled new events. Somehow I ended up with a zombie swarm in my zone one I couldn’t take out and deal with three runners sitting in my zone 2. Which ever way I crunched the numbers I was taking damage. In fact enough damage to kill me. Nath had won by surviving longer than me.

The mutant boss figure does look amazing on the table. And adds that something extra to the game that the large cardboard disk doesn’t. It’s a lot more ominous having that large plastic mutant boss figure starring at you from behind the waves of zombies working their way through your three zones. Constantly reminding you during your turn that if you don’t deal with him, some extra bad stuff is going to happen to you. I like my mutant boss!

News and rants

Finally Duncan of trapped North of the border pointed me in the direction of a bgg video from GenCon where CMoN talk briefly about a Zombicide app coming out next year. Basically other than saying they are working on an app there are no other details. I’m hoping its Zombicide and not Zombicide: Black Plague. I like my zombies modern, in modern settings, as they should be. None of this fantasy zombie stuff. That’s just plain and simple wrong. Sadly I fear it will be the later, because original Zombicide has been pushed to the back and being ignored by CMoN. Z:BP is Zombicide 2.0 and by golly you are going to play a fantasy theme if you like it or not! Personally I’d love to see an upgrade kit for original Zombicide accepting the range attack rule update (house rule post), and the improved player boards. That’s all it needs. Doesn’t need a completely new version releasing. Just give us that CMoN.

You can view the bgg video here.

While I’m talking CMoN apparently CMoN are really nice people, salt of the earth, all that shit, according to Rob Oren of Dice Tower fame. They might be “nice” to him, but CMoN leave a lot to desire as a company and the way they treat the customers, especially Kickstarter backers. 

Rob has a point about the free stuff culture he witnessed. Some are just in this for the swag.

In some ways I have some common ground with Rob. I don’t go round asking for stuff, I buy my stuff. When I went to the UK Games Expo, I never mentioned once I wrote a blog to anyone. Not even to Tom and Sam when I bumped into them. 

I don’t write reviews, my readership isn’t nearly large enough to interest a publisher. While it would be nice to get a game I wanted free from time to time, I’m very very happy not to have that pressure of having to review the game, and have the review up in a certain time period, etc. Oh plus I don’t write reviews! If you are reading this blog regularly you know that already.

I like the freedom I have here to rant and rage, but also praise. But also to write bits about gaming I enjoy reading, that it seems very few out there do. Most are into reviewing. That’s not me I like personality, and my little niche.

There are other areas of common ground also but I’m not going to go over them. I’m bored of this now! Plus I suspect you are also. 

Hopefully this little rant won’t irk Rob too much I don’t want him to “bury me” also!

You can watch Rob’s rant here.

PS sorry for this long out of control post!

Father son gaming – making memories

father son gaming, game night, Uncategorized


I look forward to my visits with Nath. They are not nearly as often or as long as I’d like. Oh they are way too brief.

Despite being a young man now, and taller than me by a good four or five inches. Nath will always be my little boy.

I have plenty of memories of him as a little one. From the time he threw up on me and laughed afterwards when he was but a baby, or when he read to his mum and me for the first time, or our walks up Welsh and English mountains, or swimming in swimming holes in the Brecon Beacons, to us watching the whole of Prison Break together one Summer.

But how much does Nath remember of those times? Does he see them as good times? 

I love video games, I grew up playing them. As I aged and grew, so did video games, we grew up together. Not surprisingly Nath too is into video games. And for a while on our visits we’d play a couple of Nath’s favourite games, FIFA and Call of Duty. Two games I hardly play. So I was nothing more than a more random opponent for Nath to beat up on.

But I wanted our time together to be a higher quality. And that’s how I got back into playing board games after an obligatory long gap. I started getting games that played well for two players that would both interest Nath and myself.

Last night after making that first Vlog (I’m sorry if you watched it for stealing three minutes of your life you won’t ever get back), doing that washing up and cooking tea, we sat down and played some games.

We started off with 7 Wonders Duels. The first game went to me when I grabbed a military win. After recording the victory in the app I use to track my plays, I decided to try out the apps social media sharing abilities. So the world at large got to hear of my win.

We played a second game. This time I was trying for a science win, but also doing well on the military front. Nath had been building up a mass of blue victory point cards. If it got to victory points I’d have no chance. It was all down to the third age. Nath managed to block my science path to victory. It was down to the military route for me. But that too proved to be another dead end when Nath got rid of what was to be the last military card. It was down to counting victory points. Nath had a massive 41 points on blue alone. I had nothing to answer back with. In the end my final score was less than this opening score for Nath. I was well and truly schooled.

Our next game was The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction. Time to teach Nath how to build an atomic bomb! This is such a quick and easy game to teach, and quick to pick up. Nath played this game abit more aggressively than my previous opponents. Instead of drawing cards when he had the cards that allowed you to draw more cards, he mostly used their other ability to force me to discard cards instead. An interesting tactical decision that paid off. Nath won both games we played. The second game he destroyed me. I had scored a three point bomb, and I only made it to 4.5 points thanks to my uranium! 

Our third and final game that we played was Odin’s Ravens. Once again a fairly simple game to teach, and easy to learn. Our first game I won. But it was like my game with Jonathan at the weekend, if I hadn’t won that turn, Nath would have on his next turn. Our second game Nath romped home with some great plays of his Loki cards. I was at best 3/4 of the way home, at least two turns card wise from finishing.

Our limited time together on visits is I feel of a higher quality now, more social. I’m hoping these visits and our time together playing games are giving new memories. So that in years to come Nath will look back on our time together as adults with fondness, and remembering the time he played 15 cards in one go to wipe out my health and get the win with a smile as he does the same to his own kid.

She stole my precious 

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

With the arrival of my Kickstarter exclusive deluxe copy of The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction (it came while I was away visiting Nath), naturally I wanted to get it to the table.

So a quick post yesterday on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page enquiring about availability of others during the day to meet up and play was made. I do feel like I’ve jumped back to eight year old Darren when I make this kind of post. The eight year old me standing in front of a big red door, knocking several times to get some-ones attention. Who is then confronted by an irritated and stressed mother who I have just dragged away from some important task to answer the door. “Can Johnny come out to play please?” I ask hopefully. As eight year old me awaits an answer so does old man Darren sit there checking Facebook for any replies, constantly hitting refresh. 

Debbie replied she was free after 5pm when worked finished. Or in eight year Darren’s world of the seventies when she had done all the chores her mum had given her. 

We arranged to meet up at the grown up play ground Spoons just after five. 

Later in the day I also got messaged by Jonathan that he too might be allowed out to play. But if he wasn’t there by five thirty to start without him. 

So to cater for Jonathan not having completed whatever chores he had been allocated I packed two two player only games. New arrival and über bargain from The Works Sun Tzu and 7 Wonders Duel. 

I had chosen a nice table to sit at that sadly was inappropriate because although the gush of cool air as the main door opened was refreshingly nice, it also blew away cards on the table. So Debbie and I relocated to another less breezy location within the establishment.

Just as I was setting up The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction Jonathan arrived.

This was a learning game, and although I’d read the rules a couple of times, watched a couple of YouTube videos, I still needed to use the rules to setup and explain the game. But that is an accepted part of this sort of gaming session. None of us have played the game, we are all learning, and at times none of us have had time to read the rules either. 

The rules are simple enough and fairly quick to teach. In fact the most complicated part I’d say is the set up! And that isn’t overly complicated.

Naturally The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction is a card game that captures the essence of the worker placement big brother The Manhattan Project. 

Like its big brother it’s a race to build bombs and reach a points total, in this case ten points to trigger the end game. Person with highest score wins.

This is a game of combos, and using your cards either as a worker resource or as a production unit of some kind. With the odd card that gives you extra card draw or ability to force an opponent to discard, or even steal a card from an opponent.

Turns are usually pretty quick. So little analyse paralysis, if any. Some player interaction. 

I love the fact it used art from its big brother. So it’s instantly familiar if you’ve played the big brother, even when it comes down to decoding the cards. But even then this wasn’t an issue because Debbie hadn’t played the big brother before and quickly picked things up.

In my deluxe version I have wooden tokens to use instead of the cards to represent yellow cake and uriduim. These are really nice and a nice addition. 

Chain Reaction for me really does capture the essence of its big brother, it’s light, quick to play and learn. It really is a nice game, I’d definitely recommend getting a copy.

We followed up trying to blow up the world with a game of Harbour.

I like Harbour. It can be frustrating because it is very reliant on what the starting buildings are in the middle. In this game I was locked out of one building because I didn’t have an anchor, and could only use half of another’s ability for the same reason. 

Jonathan this time found the ever changing market a source of frustration. Which it can be, but still I do like that mechanic. 

The lead moved around the players as we bought buildings, screwed each other over manipulating the market, but despite that Debbie edged in front and skilfully completed the four buildings required to trigger the end game. 

Points totalled Jonathan and I drew for last place or if you want to be positive about it second place. But romping home with a massive lead was Debbie. So Debbie robbed me of my title of Harbour Master. 


I will get a rematch to try and claim my rightful title back. 

Oh the above card came out near the end of the game. We thought it was an insanely powerful card. I hadn’t seen it before. But wow!

Anyway with my precious stolen it was time to go home our mums were calling our eight year old selfs back in for tea. 

Victory at last

father son gaming, game night, Uncategorized

Last night Nath and I got to play a single game of 7 Wonders Duel after he got home from work, ate and showered. 


I’d started gathering science cards in the first age, and Nath managed to get a couple of military cards, while I’d grabbed one to counter that threat.

It was the second age that our individual plans started to take shape. 

Nath was definitely going for the military win, while grabbing blue victory point cards. I was grabbing science cards, and more or less pinning my hopes on that. 

I got two of the same science symbols so had my choice of the progress tokens. I took the one that added take another go to all my wonders. My next turn much to Nath’s amazement and I think disgust I completed all my wonders! Nath hadn’t done one yet and was now limited to just completing three.

I was pretty happy with my position. I had five science symbols, and I was building up a nice cash reserve. Nath had been chipping away on the military front, and despite a little push back on that front by me, was now sitting within four points of winning that way.

The third and final age, the science card I needed was out, plus a duplicate that could give me the win (allowing me to grab the progress token that acts as a science symbol). But there was also the military cards that Nath needed to get the win.

Nath managed to stop me getting the science cards I needed. My win condition was blocked. I started grabbing blue victory point cards in a desperate attempt to catch Nath up on that front.

Then Nath built the only card he needed, the one that gave him the pick of the progress tokens not used in this game. He chose the one that gave military cards one extra attack. Then he got to take the last military card a three pointer, which was now worth four to get the win.

We had two cards left before we went to points. Which I think Nath would have won also. 

A great first victory for Nath.

FEG@TA 29Jul16

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

It was a mini meet up this evening, a kind of pre-con aperitif so to speak. What con? The yearly Madhouse Minicon held by Madhouse UK that run a turn-based fantasy game. 

Ok due to the continuing knock on effect on my social plans from two/three weeks ago, I wasn’t going to be spending the weekend at the minicon. This weekend if the plans work out will be spent gaming with Nath.

Debbie, myself and Lucus started our evening of gaming off with Dalek Dice. I won. But still think I prefer Zombie Dice to this.

Afterwards some con attendees arrived. So while Jamie introduced them to Dalek Dice, Lucus and I played Magic the Gathering using a couple of dueling decks. In our first game Lucus was just unable to get any creatures out to defend himself or to attack. He had land,in fact enough to summon creatures. Sadly it was all swamp, and he needed water! So I was able to happily field creatures and swing away at will. 

We swapped decks. And things went much better for Lucus. He was able to get some creatures out to attack with, and even inflict damage. However by that time in the game I had enough out on the battlefield to get me another win.

I like dueling decks. Magic without the collectable element. You can just play a game with two “evenly” pre-built decks and have fun. I do enjoy the deck building side, it’s just my pocket can’t handle the full on booster collectable experience, or justify the expense because I don’t play it enough.

What was to be my final game of the evening was 7 Wonders Duel with Debbie. 

I like this game a lot. It really is a great two player game. Which is why I think this has been the third week in a row this has managed to hit the table.

This game was particularly close and came down to the last card of the third age. If Debbie had gotten to the card first we would have had to start counting victory points. Which was going to be a hard one to call. I had nearly thirty coins, would have had ten victory points from the war track. But Debbie had a lot of cards giving victory points in front of her. 

However we didn’t get to that scenerio of points counting. The last card was mine. A war card doing three attack. Which gave me the instant war victory. It doesn’t get closer than that. Well maybe winning by one victory point. 

I think out of four games now, none have come down to points. They have all been instant wins split evenly somehow between war and science. 

Still love this game. 

But that was it. I was flagging. Strider had been sick in the night, and had been in and out for over an hour before hand. I think he was feeling sick but just couldn’t be during that time. So I was really knackered. I had started to drift off earlier in the afternoon! Debbie had also decided she was going to head off. The place was starting to build up with con attendees. Not much gaming at that point, more social, renewing friendships stuff.

This last photo shows how I finished off the evening. Yep stuffing lots of questionable meat into my face!

The case of the tin soldier 

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized


Last night four of the most promising detective minds in the kingdom gathered to solve the second case in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, the case of The Tin Soldier.

With the combined intellect of an amoeba it would seem we totally failed to solve this case. We had picked up the importance of one or two clues. However our theory was so wrong, just like the Parliamentary Labour Party and its contempt for democracy and its party members.

I’m very undecided about this game. It does seem to rely on the fact you pick up on the slightest of clues to be able to successfully solve the cases. With much reliance on you chasing red herrings, and running down many rabbit holes.

I don’t know even in the cold light of day, having slept on it, and attempted two cases now, and writing the above short paragraph. I think I’m falling down on the side of not being a big fan of the game.

It will be interesting to compare this to say Time Stories once I get that to the table. 

FEG@TA 22Jul16

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized


Last night it was once more the time to celebrate the start of the weekend by playing games whilst enjoying adult beverages at the weekly FEG@TA. 

My gaming started off playing 7 Wonders Dual with Debbie while we waited for others to turn up. I won this game with a military victory. I just need a points win over Debbie and I’ve beat her using all three win conditions. But that may sound arrogant. Oh wait it is, but I will laugh the loudest if next time we play I lose big time.

As we were finishing Jamie and his son arrived. So a current favourite Qwixx hit the table. Debbie knocked it out of the park in this game, winning with an epic 98 points. That’s an amazing score. A well deserved win.

We finished Qwixx just before Jonathan and his daughter arrived. And she had only one thing on her mind, to destroy me at Bohemian Villages. Something she had been plotting all week since I beat her (and everyone else) last Friday.

So while the “grudge match” which Jamie’s son wanted in on took place, the others split off to play Pandemic the Cure.

Our game of Bohemian Villages saw mind games, plots and alliances. Mainly against me. But once more I was victorious. Do I feel big and clever beating two kids? Oh yes too right I do. What we can be sure of is Jonathan’s daughter will be plotting my downfall. 

During these two simultaneous games being played Jeff arrived. 

Niagara looks a nice game, visually attractive, especially with the moving discs simulating the flow of water and having the board on top of the game box then acting like the waterfall. I didn’t get to play, that will have to wait for another day. I instead I played another game of 7 Wonders Dual with Jamie. This time I lost to a science victory. But it was close, we were five cards from going to points, which I would have won. In our game we had some nice chaining of multiple actions to be able to build two or three wonders between us.

Our evening of gaming ended with a game of Dalek Dice. Dalek Dice was ok. It’s a more complicated push your luck style dice game along the lines of Zombie Dice. I don’t think the additional complication improves things. I prefer the simplicity of Zombie Dice, it flows better, and is more fun.

So that was another great evening of gaming, which can only be finished off one way. Yep dodgey meat in naan, salad and chilli sauce. So one or two of us headed off to the Charcoal Grill to pickup some totally unhealthy meat to take home and eat.

Same again next week…

FEG@TA Tonite

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized


Just a reminder that this evening is the regular weekly Fenland Gamers meet up that we have at The Angel Inn in Wisbech.

Start time is approximately 5pm, finishing roughly around 9pm-9:30pm. Followed usually by a run to a near by perveyor of dodgey meat with chilli sauce establishment to top the evening off.


So if you fancy getting out of the house for a reason other than the enjoyable pastime of collecting pokemon in Pokemon Go, playing some great games whilst enjoying a grown up beverage, followed by the optional questionable meat in a wrap. Then we’d love to see you at The Angel this evening.