Category Archives: game night

game night

Fenland Gamers Last Hooraa of 2015

Fenland Gamers, game night, love letter, new arrivals
Last night saw the last of the Fenland Gamers Christmas program of meet ups, and the last one for 2015.
For this end of year game fest, Jo, Debbie, their Dad and brother to Jonathan, Katie, Jonathan and myself met up at the usual location.
After a couple of false starts on games, we played Bang the Dice Game. This warm up game with the whole group playing saw the outlaws sneak the win. Sadly I wasn't on the winning side, I had been cast as the deputy.
For our next games we split up into two groups of three. Jo, her Dad and myself made one group and played one of Jo's favourite games Machi Koro.
Once again I rocked this game, and romped home with the win. My tactic of buying the expensive land marks early once more paid off. Next time I think we will play with the Harbour expansion, that should shake up the game a little.
While waiting for the other group to finish their game we played Love Letter The Hobbit. I like this version for the couple of new bits it introduces. I like the zero value One Ring card, that if you have it at the end of the game becomes a seven in value. Plus the two different three value cards. One being Legolas and if you have the lower value card in the hand comparison you are out (nothing new there), and the other being Tauriel which switches that comparison totally around, so the person with the highest value card is out.
Coming from behind I managed to get the win. By the time I had achieved my victory, the other group were coming to the end of their game and using advanced calculus working out the scores and who had won.
We split into different groups this time, Debbie, her Dad and myself played Kingdom Builder, whilst the others went off to play at bomb disposal.
A victory for me at Kingdom Builder gave me a hat trick of wins for the evening.
While we were waiting for the other group to finish their game, I quickly set up and read the rules for Codenames.
Codenames is a game Jonathan had been wanting to try for a while. Well it has been getting a lot of buzz earlier in the year when it came out. It also has made a few top ten lists of games of 2015 since.
We split up into two teams, blue and red. Blue was Jonathan, Debbie and Jo. While Red was myself, Katie and the girls Dad. Jonathan and I were the clue givers for our respective teams.
The history books will record that Blue won two games to one. But the history books won't show that we had a great time playing this. It's always a good sign when folks ask to play another game when the first play finishes.
I liked Codenames (which is cool because I bought it!). But boy giving the clues is hard. Trying to find clues that relate to more than one word is hard. You may think the clue is obvious and it just doesn't click with the guessers on your team. Keeping that poker face amid frustration seeing the guessers go down the wrong path is hard.
Then there is the doh! moment when you the second after you give a clue you suddenly realise it applies to more than one word, and you had missed that!
The game has a lot of replayability, and is a steal at the price. A great party game (which I'm not usually a fan of).
The other group played the new Pennsylvania map for Ticket to Ride (which I want to give a try), and also the rather good Bomb Squad Academy.

Don't forget if you are local and into gaming, or would like to try something more than mainstream fair, why not come along to one of the Fenland Gamer sessions.

Costa and Gaming… Reprise

Once again I had an errand to run in town, so plans had been made to again meet up at Costa for coffee and games. This mornings casual gaming session was attended by Debbie and her visiting Dad. Jo had decided the warmth and comfort of staying in bed asleep was more preferable than enjoying a hot beverage, got d company and games. That or she didn't fancy hanging out with two old fuddy duddys like her dad and myself. Which is totally understandable.

The coffee shop gaming experience started off with a game of the push your luck dice game Age of War. After Debbie beat the two old dudes, we played Oink Games little push your luck game Deep Sea Adventure. Whilst playing a lady from another table enquired about the game we were playing, because she hadn't seen anything like it before. In the meantime Debbie's Dad and I struggled to get any treasure to the surface, whilst Debbie once more racked up the points. After the third and final dive, Debbie was the only one to score anything, a win by default!

Our final game of the mini meetup was a game of my favourite version of Love Letter, Batman. Look I'm a Batman fan, so why wouldn't this be my favourite version? Anyway I managed to get a convincing victory and stop Debbie walking away with a clean sweep of wins.

Another great caffeine meetup, thanks Debbie and Debbie's Dad for a great time.

Boss Monster II Final Part of Kickstarter Jigsaw Arrives…

 

 

 

Haggis Anyone?

apps, Fenland Gamers, game night, online play

For the Christmas break I took a “few” games to play. It will come as no surprise that we didn't get to play most of the games. I even have a semi-valid reason for not playing one of them!

I had packed Magic the Gathering Arena of the Plainswalkers for Nath and I to play. However there was one slight flaw in my plan.

About a week before Christmas I had decided that it would be a good idea to use the rather nice storage box that comes with the Zendika Fat Pack to store the spell cards and character cards for the game.

Can you see where this story is going? Yep I remembered to pack the little storage box I am using to store the dice and tokens for the game, but had forgotten to pack the box with the cards in. A fact that I remembered about 3am Christmas Eve, when during an awake moment I thought we can play Arena of the Plainswalkers, “oh bugger!”

Due to the fact Nath had to work over Christmas, we didn't get to play as many games as we would have liked.
As I have already written we got to play Netrunner, Magic and Star Realms Colony Wars. But with Nath now having the full Star Realms app, we had played a few games of Star Realms.
There has often been the old running joke about couples being in the same room, sitting on the same settee, only talking to each other through their phones and Facebook/Twitter. Well that was Nath and I playing Star Realms. It was funny because after taking his go, Nath would lean across to see what cards I was going to play!
I will say that my coverage of Star Realms Colony Wars were I was going to look at the cards is going to have to wait. As I was dropping Nath off at work yesterday before heading back to the windswept plains of the Fens, he asked if he could borrow Colony Wars to play with his girlfriend on Wednesday when she was visiting his. Naturally I said he could, but I went a step further and said he could keep them, I would get another set when they were released in the new year.

This morning…

Jonathan and I met up at the local Costa for a coffee, catch up and possibly a game or two.

After catching up on our gaming Christmas, Jonathan introduced me to a new game to me called Haggis.

Haggis is a trick taking card game for two or three players.

Now I'm not saying the following because I won, or due to the fact I CRUSHED Jonathan. But I liked the game. At first I was a little “confused” about the game play, but soon picked it up. I liked the tokens Jonathan had made to record what bet you made at the start of a round for if you will be the first to get rid of all your cards. If I got the game I would be knocking on his door for a set.

The idea of each round is to get rid of all the cards in your hand, whilst winning tricks. Some of the cards like the 3,5,7 and 9 (iirc) are worth one point, and at the end of the round you score that point for each of them in your pile of cards won. There are also wild cards represented by the Jack, Queen and King that are also worth 2,3 and 5 points. If you are the first to get rid of your hand, and you made that bet at the start you get those points on top of the cards you scored. Plus as a reward for getting rid of your cards first you get the “haggis”, which is a small pile of left over cards that you also score (if there are any scoring cards in it).

I won the first two rounds, and decided to take a bet that I would again be the first to get rid of his cards and did a thirty point bet. I was half expecting that this would be the round that I would not be the first to get rid of their cards. But my doubt disappeared after I made a very strong start, getting down to about four cards in three tricks. After a little comeback by Jonathan I did get rid of my last card and score a massive amount of points, including the bet, about sixty five points!

Afterwards Jonathan admitted that he used to play the game a lot with his daughter, but not only that but using an online app (can't remember the name) he'd been tutored by the game designer on how to play and tactics. So luckily for me beginners luck trumps skill and being rusty at the game.

It was a great way to spend a bit of time, I enjoy my coffee shop gaming sessions. They are always with great company.

Trying a new thing…

After watching the latest Boardgame Blender and the Suzanne segment where she showed an app for tracking the games played, I hunted down the app she was using because it looked interesting. I liked the idea of tracking the games I've played and producing stats based on that info.

Ok yes I know I write about them here on the blog. But the stats angle is something that appeals to me. Plus this app ties up with bgg, and updates there for you too. It's not a free app, costs under three coins of the realm.

So we'll see how this goes. I'll try and post the stats each month on here.

 

Nibbles and Games

Fenland Gamers, game night, neuroshima hex, tabletop

Jonathan, Jo and myself met up yesterday for the first of three planned gaming meet ups of the Fenland Gamers for the holiday period.

To accompany the planned gaming we had bought “nibbles” to eat and beverages to drink.

As you can see between Jonathan and myself we had a “small” selection of games to choose from for the session.

We started off the session playing Jonathan's latest addition to his collection, his just arrived Kickstarter copy of Bomb Squad. Earlier I had downloaded the companion app for the game that provides a timer for the various missions in the game.

Bomb Squad is a collaborative game where you are all working together to rescue hostages, and disable bombs before the time runs out. However this isn't your normal collaborative game. Imagine the love child of Robo Rally and Hanabi, put it against the clock and you have the game play of Bomb Squad.

We played the training mission, with the program cards being played face up. So “easy” mode. Our first game we failed miserably, rescued a hostage but failed disarming the first bomb. The second game we did better and rescued the first hostage, disarmed the first bomb, and got the second hostage. Which we repeated on our third and final attempt at this mission.

The timer certainly adds to the tension. You can't spend time thinking too much on your go. It can be frustrating if another player isn't getting the hint which card to play. And I certainly need to remember the clues given to me more. I bet that was frustrating for the others when I guessed the card totally wrong when trying to charge the robots battery.

To play the game you don't need to have the companion app, anything that can be used to time something, like a stopwatch, kitchen timer, can be used with the game. This is how apps should be used with boardgames. The app should compliment the game and not be an intergal part of the game play. So that if you don't have the app you can't play the game. It's why I've avoided the XCom boardgame. I should be able to play the game without an app, end of.

The app did add to the experience, with the ticking noise, spoken ten second count down.

I enjoyed playing Bomb Squad. I'd definitely play it again. I can't imagine at the moment what it'd be like to play when the cards are played face down when programming the robot. That just takes the game to at the moment an unimaginable level of difficulty. In fact playing it that way sends shivers down my spine.

Jo selected Splendor as our second game. I got a nice little engine going that was getting me lots of free cards, but sadly hardly any blue gems. For most of the game I was trailing behind Jonathan and Jo point wise. However that soon changed when I nabbed two of the nobles for six points and pushing me to thirteen points. I was in touching distance of the required fifteen points to end the game and hopefully win. Sadly Jonathan took the next noble to reach fifteen points to get the win.

There was a little bit of “banter” or gentle ribbing of Jo about how long it was taking her to take her goes especially at the start of the game. Hey I'm not a young guy, time is precious to me, I don't have much left.

For our third game I selected Kingdom Builder. Wow what a great deal I got on this game. Jonathan said he was expecting this heavy euro style game that would take along time to play. But instead it was the opposite.

Kingdom Builder plays quite quickly, and the variety between games is amazing. Mixing the game boards up, along with the scoring conditions even without any expansions gives a lot of replayability.

Our first game was a pretty tight game when it came to scoring. I won, but there was only a four point spread between myself and last place. The second game the spread between winner and loser was much wider. But that was due to a single decision mid game by Jonathan that if he had played differently would have given him over twenty points instead of three!

I think it's safe to say Kingdom Builder was a hit.

Our fourth game selected by Jonathan was the reward that came with Bomb Squad, Bomb Squad Academy.
I really enjoyed playing this push your luck card game. I can see this going on my wishlist. It's not a quick game, which was surprising. You play over three “rounds” or as the theme puts it you are attempting to disable three bombs.
I love the second guessing of which wire to cut, trying to work out what the others are going to for. Having to decide when to play the Halt card to bloke a wire, or even when to play the chicken card to get a peak at the wires. The tools cards add nice one off powers to use during the last two bombs. The first bomb is meant to be a training bomb.
The scoring gets rediculous, Jonathan won with a score over two hundred points, and I wasn't far behind him in second place also with a two hundred plus score. Which brings me to the only minor complaint about the game the fiddly double sided score tokens. The small cardboard disc version of the authority cards in Star Realms. I didn't like them much, and Jonathan was keen on them either.

It was Jo's turn again to select a game. Her choice was Machi Koro. I totally owned this game. With four cafes in place and the right completed building (forget which one it was) every time one of the others rolled a three it cost them eight coins. I was rolling in money, while the others were cash poor. For some reason they would build up a little cash and then go and roll a three. I think this must have been the best I've played the game.

My choice was Neuroshima Hex. We played a three player deathmatch. It was interesting to play a three player game. In the app I've only played two player, which I enjoy a lot. But three player was fun.

I was abit apprehensive about the game with the others. I knew Jonathan wasn't a big fan of the scifi theme. And I wasn't sure about the abstract nature of the game either. However I think the game grew on Jonathan. I'm not sure how Jo felt about the game, but I think she liked winning.

The session was bought to a close with Jonathan choosing Age of War. Jonathan really liked this game. Hey it's in my collection, so it's obvious I like the game. Jonathan managed to steal one of my cards to complete a set. Jo also tried to do the same with one of my cards, but after three attempts to steal it gave up. Jo once more won this game. If memory serves me right, she won the last we played this also.

Through out the session Jonathan was partaking in his new “passion”, taking 3D photos of the games. The photos should be appearing on the Fenland Gamers blog that Jonathan writes over on bgg.

I had a great time, with fantastic company. We played some great games.

I'm not able to make the second holiday meet up. I have other plans, but I will be at the third and final holiday meet up. Which I am looking forward to.

 

Villas and Trains

Fenland Gamers, game night, tabletop
With such a bounty of games (photo below) all in one place it can only mean one thing. Yes another Fenland Gamers meetup.
After renewing friendships and making new ones, we got down to some gaming.
Our first game of the evening was the “classic” Alhambra. I was glad Gavin had bought this. The game has been in my collection for a long time, but sadly has been sitting in my pile of shame. I have played the game using the app a couple of times, but I find the interface of the app a hindrance, and a barrier to playing it regularly.
So having this chance to play the game was really welcomed.
I like Alhambra, it's a simply game! Collect the different coloured and valued money until you have enough of a particular colour to buy hopefully the tile you want to add to your Alhambra. Naturally there are one or two more rules than that, for example about how you place your tile in your Alhambra. But that gives you the basic gist of the game.
During the game there are three point scoring opportunities. The first two occur at random points, while the third happens at the end when the tiles run out. At these point scoring breaks points are score based on who has the most of a particular colour of building. The two early scoring opportunities can give a false sense of security, that person seemingly not scoring or building can suddenly in the last third of the game close that gap and jump ahead.
This is what exactly happened with card hoarder Jonathan. Boy did he have a lot of cards in his hand. But that final third he built and built, getting a large share of the points in the final scoring. Taking him from hardly any points to challenging for first place.
I liked playing Alhambra a lot. With six players you aren't going to be building massive alhambras, the competition for cards and tiles is fierce, and by the time it comes round to you there is a very good chance of the cards or tile you wanted having been taken. However I thought it played well with this number of players.
Oh and for the record Simon won, I came last! Good job I enjoy the journey! However even though I lost, I still felt in the running right upto the end. And that is the mark of a good game.

After a little chat, and an opportunity for Debbie to make hot beverages for those that wanted one. Well she did volunteer by saying she wanted a cuppa. I just took advantage of it when she voiced that fact.

Our final game of the evening was a return to the table for Colt Express. What more can be said about this game than I have previously said? Colt Express is a visually impressive game sitting there on the table in its 3D glory.

The first round of the game saw me getting shot twice thanks to the special power of Jonathan's character, which meant he couldn't be shot if others were in the same carriage as him. My hand of cards for the next two rounds were watered down by those bullet cards I had been given. Forcing me to at one point skip a turn to draw three new cards so I could have an action to move as my final turn that round.

There was a mini race to the engine to get the briefcase, which I won, beating Jonathan to it. Then a similar mini race happened to get the gems in the next carriage, that also saw Jonathan coming up empty handed.

The final round card we used was from the expansion (not intentionally, but does add a bit more variety), which meant that all those in the same carriage and level got to split the spoils of a briefcase I had looted. This cost me 750 points in the final tally up of our spoils!

Gavin was the run away winner, and although having had to share the points of a briefcase I got a healthy 1500 points, and didn't end up losing.

This sounds so corny and cliched, and gets said after every session. But it's true, this was another great gaming session with great company. The embers of new friendships started, others grew brighter.

 

Mid Week Gaming

Fenland Gamers, game night, tabletop

Wednesday saw me meet up with Mat and Jonathan for a cheeky evening of gaming.

We started off playing The Manhattan Project. This was the first time Mat had played the game, and not to spoil it too much he did really well.

I started off with my predictable first move (especially as the first player) of grabbing an engineer so I could start getting buildings for free.

My board started to build up with buildings to get my engine going. Mat didn't seem to be buying many buildings, but grabbing yellow cake and money. Jonathan was also buying buildings especially one I wanted, which gave three yellow cake for the cheap cost of one worker.

Despite using spies to use the buildings of the others to get stuff I needed, I fell behind on the bomb building side. Jonathan seemed to be pulling ahead on that front. Then bang Mat completed two bombs putting him in the lead and ten points from victory. Ten points which I pointed out to Mat he could get by loading his two bombs onto bombers. Which Mat proceeded to do and get the win.

Mat then shared his winning tactic, he lets Jonathan and I duke it out, and then he comes in, steps over our battered corpses (my words there, Mat was a lot less graphic in his description) to get the win. Are Jonathan and I that competitive, or predictable? It's not something I'm consciously doing. I put it down to seating arrangements, Jonathan sitting opposite me (in front) while Mat is next to me (on my right). So I'm more aware of what Jonathan is doing because he is in front of me, while Mat is out of sight! An interesting theory of Mats which I'm going to have to investigate more.

Our second game of the evening was Colt Express with the time machine car expansion.

I liked what the time machine bought to the game. Not knowing where Jonathan's outlaw was an interesting twist, and added a nice element of surprise, and hidden information.

The last round seemed as Jonathan observed pretty pointless because between all three of us outlaws we had looted all the loot from the carriages, caboose, and engine already in the previous rounds. Mind you I think we were less aggressive towards each other than the previous time Jonathan and I had played the game. Which meant that our plans to nab loot were not interrupted by an unexpected punch or marshal visit as often.

We still had an enjoyable game, and Jonathan grabbed the win, while Mat and I drew for second place or last, depending on your point of view.

Jonathan very kindly gave me a spare copy he had of the promo “patron” (can't remember what they are called) tiles for Splendor.

Another great evening of gaming, thanks guys.

 

Dice, Gems, and Markets

Fenland Gamers, first look, game night, tabletop

Yesterday saw three Fenland Gamers meet up for an afternoon of rolling dice, pushing tokens around, plotting and general cardboard shenanigans.

Amazon had let me down again. Colt Express was meant to have arrived Friday, but it didn't. So after chatting with their support I had an extra month added to my Prime membership as a “gesture of good will” from them for the inconvience, and an assurance the game would be delivered by midday on Saturday so it could be played that afternoon. Guess what? It never showed up. When I contacted support again, was told it was still at the couriers local distribution centre. I wasn't happy. In a fit of rage, I performed the act known as cutting my nose off despite my face, and asked to cancel the order and get a refund, saying I would get it elsewhere.

After getting hot beverages organised, our afternoon of gaming started with the three of us learning the new arrival I had this week Dice City.

So a brief read through of the rules, then we started play. Our first couple of turns saw us fumbling around like new born foals finding their legs. Through out the game questions would crop up for various situations, and the rule book would have to be consulted.

Three turns after getting the catapult I realised I had missed placed the catapult. Basically shutting down my ability to use it, and my main ability to attack bandits.
On the other hand Jonathan's dad had established a really effective engine that got him free army units, and allowed him to get more than enough swords to attack bandits, and build up points that way.
Jonathan was just scoring at will. He was trading, attacking bandits, purchasing. His engine was on fire. The victory points were just piling up for him.
I completed my second row, activated my three deactivated properties, and called the end of the game. It was time to put me out of my misery. There was no way that I'd be able to catch up.
As the final score below shows I wasn't even close to winning. I had made the right call to end my suffering.
Wow. This game took a lot longer than I was expecting. I thought this game would be a quickish game. But it took around two hours. Maybe some of that time was due to the three of us learning the game. But still, there are a surprising amount of decisions to make while its your turn.
I like the fact that there is a mechanism that mitigates the luck of rolling dice. Which is basically being able to move a dice one adjacent position to its left or right. However there are buildings that you can buy that allow you to move a dice to any position on its row.
Surprisingly for a dice game, you need a lot of table space to play. The player boards are massive, plus the space for the various card piles, and tokens, it's not a small game.
I like the fact there are different paths to victory you can take. Ok I didn't do very well executing mine, but Jonathan's dad had the military path pretty well worked out, Jonathan's was fairly successful. In our game there was no attacking the other players buildings. Which would have been a good extension to the military path.
Overall I liked the game, definitely want to get this to the table again.

Our second game of the afternoon was Splendor. Having had the custom playmat made for the game did aid setting up. I didn't have to remember where everything went for starters.

I like Splendor, especially the tokens for the gems. The fact they are poker chips with the relevant image of a gem on is nice. But I just like the tactile feel of these chips. It's hard not to play with them when they are in front of you waiting to be spent.

Although Jonathan managed to attract the first patron, and also take the early lead with a couple of one point cards. I quickly caught up, and pulled ahead, before attracting two patrons. Jonathan did pull back, but by then it was too late I scored the fifteen points to get the win.

Our final game of the session was Istanbul. The tile setup used was the short paths one, with no expansions or promos used. We went this route because this was the first time Jonathan's dad had played the game, and didn't want to over complicate things.

Once again Jonathan won. That's all three games of this I've played so far and he has won all of them. I came second in this game due to the tie breaker rules. Jonathan's dad and I both had three gems, but I had more money than him.

After the game, Jonathan shared his winning tactic for the short paths set up. Which basically meant grabbing the tile power up that allowed him to reroll a die, or change it to the number four. Then visiting the tea house to get money and the gemstone store to buy the gems. And alternating between the two. I must find a way to disrupt this tactic if we play this set up again. Which while writing this I think I have.

A great afternoon gaming, great company.

 

Nuclear Bazaar

Fenland Gamers, game night, tabletop

This evening Jonathan and I met up to play some games. Mat should have been there too, but he had to drop out at the last minute due to illness.

The original plan had been for the three of us to play The Manhattan Project (Mat had really wanted to play this game) and Lords of Waterdeep with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion (Mat and Jonathan were keen to play this).

However with no Mat the plans were in disarray. Well kind of. Jonathan had bought with him Istanbul with the Mocha and Baksheesh expansion, plus the kebab stall tile promo.

We winged our plan of games to play, starting off with The Manhattan Project. For this play through we used the Nations expansion (one and two), used the tile to change the number of bomb attacks down from two to one. This made more sense for a two player game, and the mini bomb placement board for laying out the bomb cards. Oh and naturally the player aid cards were also used.

I really do like the Nations cards, they add a little more theme to the game, give a unique power to each player.

It would be cruel to say that every move we took we said “oh Mat would love this” and we didn't. But Mat would have loved the game.

I managed to ramp up my engine quicker than Jonathan, I had all my workers bought and working for me well before Jonathan. The only real place my system was not very good at generating stuff was generating lots of yellow cake. This meant I had to keep using a main action to get yellow cake, and normally ended up giving Jonathan free yellow cake so I could grab more.

I managed to beat Jonathan to testing a bomb first, which meant I claimed six points for being the first to test a bomb (second in a two player game gets no points) and switched on the higher point total.

Each bomb I made (except the one I was going to test) I loaded onto a bomber. It's a cheap way of getting five points.

I thought this worked really well as a two player game. And I'm not just saying that because I won. Jonathan also enjoyed playing it this way.

Jonathan and I both played in a non aggressive way, I've we didn't attack each other. I think taking that attack slot down to one, would have allowed for a more aggressive game if we had wanted to go down that route. If it had been left at two slots, it would have been just tit for tat on the attacking front. However with just the one slot, it stops that, and the other player has to wait until the slot is free before they can retaliate (if that is what they want to do). It also stops back to back attacks, and being completely destroyed. I'll be interested to hear what others think on this.

But still The Manhattan Project a very very good worker placement game.

Next up Istanbul with the coffee expansion!

Well you know I liked playing Istanbul, not only because I said so in a previous post. But because the game is now in my collection. And I was keen to play the game with the expansion.

We decided on a random board setup, and the kebab stall instead of the fountain.

What can I say about the coffee expansion? I love it. It takes an already great game, and takes it to another level.

I love the new scoring opportunities the expansion gives you with the coffee tokens. Then also being able to block off routes with a log for the other players is also cool. I did this at one point to stop Jonathan from gaining control of the log, blocking his route to the tile where he could wrestle its control from me.

The new cards this expansion introduces are amazingly powerful. However to use one requires using up your whole turn. While also the new power up tiles also pretty powerful. I got one that allowed me to move as far as I liked in a straight line.

The kebab stall was interesting. Apart from allowing you to recall all your agents from around the board, you could also choose to move your relative counter to another tile instead and take the action on the new tile if it wasn't on the police station tile.

I only went to the kebab stall once, and that was because I played one of the new cards, that moved my merchant and agents to the fountain, and allowed me to take an extra turn straight away.

Jonathan won the game six rubies to my five. I hadn't kept an eye on him, and forgot about one of the scoring opportunities, one that gave Jonathan the win. Which was a shame, because I was three turns myself away from getting my final ruby.

I love, love this expansion. You can be sure it will be added to my collection real soon. The new tiles, cards, scoring opportunities, the ability to block routes, and the coffee trader, just brilliant additions to the game.

Once again I liked how this game played for two players. Using the unused merchant counters in the two player game, was a nice touch. These merchants are placed randomly on the board using the dice. If you land on a tile with a merchant on it, just like the multiplayer game play, to do the action on the tile you have to pay two coins (but this time to the bank). Afterwards you then roll the two dice to move the merchant to a new tile.

A great evenings gaming with Jonathan, I had a great time.

 

Let them eat rock

game night, new arrivals

The Tabletop Effect – Tabletop a popular internet based to show about playing boardgames. Hosted by Wil Wheaton, where each episode he plays a boardgame with a group of celebrity chums. The Tabletop effect describes the phenomenon of a game featured on the show selling out very quickly as fans of the show rush out to purchase the game featured in the just aired episode, making the game hard to find for purchase.

I have in previous posts hinted at this effect when I've talked about when I first purchased Marvel Legendary. To be totally honest I have given in to this effect/hype myself. However I have managed to resist the effect. Yes I know shocking.

After watching the episode where Wil and friends played Stone Age, it looked interesting, and I nearly did buy it. But for whatever reason never did, and it hasn't even made my wish list on bgg.

So I was rather glad to get the chance to at least play the game last night with Jonathan and Mat.

Just before we started to play Stone Age, Jonathon said he wasn't going to take it easy on Mat and myself, and play to win!

During our game, Mat had to resort to feeding his workers with brick/stone to make up his short fall in food. Which kickstarted some capitalist/Tory banter with Mat, that resulted with Mat being renamed Tory Mat for the duration of the evening.

Jonathan walked away with a massive victory, while Mat took a respectable second place, while I dragged the score curve down by not even hitting one hundred points and coming in last.

So what did I think of Stone Age?

I enjoyed playing Stone Age. As a lightweight introduction to the worker placement genre of game, it certainly succeeds.

It did seem that if your first action when it was your turn as first player wasn't to grab the farming spot then you were at a disadvantage. My first time as the first player I didn't do this but went for one of the cards on the river. I didn't struggle to feed my workers, but it always meant I had to allocate two of my five workers to make sure I was bringing in food. So basically I had only three workers instead of four available for collecting resources to collect huts and the cards on the river.

I liked that you could block cards/huts to scupper the plans of the other players. Although this effectively also slows down your plans as well.

Our second and final game of the evening was Istanbul.

During the game the capitalism banter continued with Mat. Who did admit he was starting to like being a capitalist. If only we had recorded that quote.

I really liked Istanbul. We used the “beginners” tile setup. But with a “more advanced” setup and random tile setup there is a lot of variety of setup, which I like. It means the game board looks can be tailored for first time players and “experts”.

Right from your first turn you have several options to choose from. You don't get that “your first move has to be…” that Stone Age had.

The family members are a nice touch. Releasing them from jail to send them off to take an extra action. Or getting a reward for capturing another persons family member. A nice mechanic.

The tiles with abilities, bonus cards and the ability to increase the number of goods you can collect, nice additions that allow you to get an engine going. I had a tile that allowed me to pay two coins to recall an assistants. A useful ability that saved me having to return to the fountain to recall all my assistants.

The governor and smuggler were also a nice mechanic, especially with them being moved randomly around the tiles based on the role of the two dice.

Jonathan also won this game with Mat and myself drawing for last place! I had a nice little route going at the end. My mistake was not paying attention to the jewels that the other players had, especially Jonathan. I think I would have played with a bit more urgency otherwise.

Final thoughts…

Out of the two games played this evening my favourite and one I'd happily add to my game collection is Istanbul. I'm glad I played Stone Age, but it is not a game I'd ask to play, although I would happily play it if it hit the table.

Just in…

T.I.M.E. Stories, I think I already said in my Game of the Year predictions that I would get this game to play with Nath over Christmas. I will be getting the first expansion for the game The Marcy Case before my visit. Tom Vasel said that the Marcy Case is his favourite zombie game! High praise indeed. Nath will like playing that, he enjoys zombie themed games. Plus as the photo shows above they already named and given the genre/theme of two other expansions that will come me out next year.

I finally got fed up with waiting for Amazon to get this Deluxe expansion in. Not even a remote hint from them as to when they could deliver it. In the meantime every podcast going is discussing the cards in detail. It's frustrating to see everyone else with the game, and not hear anything from Amazon.

So after finding a rare online retailer that had it in stock, yes most have sold out. I now have my copy. Just need to play some games now!

 

Halloween Gaming Night

Fenland Gamers, game night, tabletop

Last night the Fenland Gamers had a “Halloween” open gaming night. I say it that way because I'm not a Halloween person, I see it as a fake American/commercial pushed “celebration” over here. I know it's a big thing in the US but here? When I was growing up this time of year (I'm going to sound like an old man) the big celebration was November the Fifth, Guy Fawkes Day, penny for the guy etc. Not all this Halloween, dressing up stuff. That is the traditional celebration in the UK for this time of year, not Halloween. Halloween is American, like Apple pie, drive by shootings, racist cops, corporate owned government.

“But Darren, stop being such a spoil sport, it's just a bit of fun”, no it's not, it's a purely commercial thing over here.

Saying that our token gesture if you can describe it as that was a damn amazing, totally awesome mummy minion cake that I had Doreen (a colleagues mum, and my official cake maker) make for us.

Doreen had posted a picture she had seen online just over a month earlier of the cake, and I thought wow I want that cake. So I enquired about getting it made. Yesterday lunch time I drove over to Peterborough to pick up this amazing cake, and stupidly somehow transporting it home broke an arm off!

Between Two Cities

We opened up the evening playing a new game to everyone, Between Two Cities, a game Jonathan had backed on Kickstarter.

This is an interesting game. You can't not interact with the people either side of you. You are working with them to build two cities over three rounds. You build the cities by drafting two tiles from a hand of tiles (which gets passed to the next player after you have drafted and placed the tiles), you then negotiate with the players either side of you for which tiles you are going to place in each city, and they are also doing the same.
At the end of the three rounds, the cities are then scored. Your personal score is the score of the lowest value city you worked on, and the winner is the person with the highest score.
So the aim is to try and keep the two cities you are building roughly the same value in points, while maximising the score they will generate.
Jonathan's dad won the game with a massive fifty two points, both cities he had collaborated on were exactly the same score!
Between Two Cities is an interesting game, and has interesting twists like the scoring the lowest value city for your personal score, and having to collaborate and negotiate. I enjoyed playing the game, I'd play it again, but would I go,out of my way to play it or request to play it? That I'm unsure of, I don't think I would.

Bang the Dice Game

After a coffee/tea and cake break. And let me tell you the cake tasted even more amazing than the cake looked. Everyone really like the cake, the girls and I had the full big slice of cake, while Jonathan and his dad shared a slice.

Break over we broke out Bang the Dice Game. With five players the deputy role was added to the pool of playable roles. The deputy basically is there to help keep the Sheriff alive, and help defeat the renegade and outlaws.

Jonathan's dad was the Sheriff in the first game and his first time playing. He got a nice character card to go with being the Sheriff, the one that when another player does damage to him, that player takes an arrow. I too got a good character card to go with being the deputy. Mine allowed me to heal any player by one health at the start of my turn. I don't think the forces of good could have had better card draw really. But would the dice be favourable?

The Sheriff and I in the end won the game. But at one point there was some doubt about who the deputy was by the Sheriff. Luckily the main sower of that doubt Jonathan managed to get killed in an Indian attack.

The second game saw Jo as the Sheriff with the character I had in the first game. I had been dealt the deputy again. But sadly I got knocked out early by Jonathan's dad who it would turn out was an outlaw. So I was unable to help/protect the Sheriff. It soon came down to a show down between Jo the Sheriff and Jonathan's dad the outlaw. Who would the dice favour?

The odds looked in favour of the outlaw, who had the character that was allowed to reroll the dynamite dice. With the dice on the rerolls being kind to him was allowing him to land some serious damage on Jo. Luckily the dice were being just as favourable to Jo and allowing her to heal and land damage on the outlaw.

The game came down to who was going to be able to survive the impending Indian attack. Jonathan's dad had more arrows in front of him than health, while Jo too was in a similar position. On Jo's turn, with her ability and two beer dice she was able to survive the final arrow from the middle she had just rolled. The Indians killed the outlaw, wounded the Sheriff leaving her to fight another day and get the win.

This had been a very exciting showdown between grandfather and granddaughter.

Machi Koro

Next up on the evenings gaming menu, Machi Koro.

I was the only one who had played Machi Koro before (twice if my memory hasn't failed me), and embarrassingly I had forgotten the win condition! So while I setup the game, Jonathan quickly checked the rules for the supine condition. How could I forget it's completing the four landmarks? Doh!

As you can see in the photos above we used the official playmat for the game that I picked up from the UK Games Expo earlier in the year. Machi Koro is pretty easy to explain the rules of, so an ideal game for none gamers to be introduced to. We were playing the base game, however with five players we used the fifth player cards that come with the Harbour expansion (that's the only part of the Harbour expansion we used, must get round to using the Harbour and Millionaires expansions). We also used the Mega Game Store promo, and I replaced the normal Mines card with the promo Diamines version of it (only difference is the name of card and slightly different art work).

I tried a new tactic for me in this game, and went for the more expensive landmark cards early, thinking I had struggled previously to get the money to complete them in the later part of the game when everyone's engines were in full swing, and reasoned it would be easier to complete the four cost landmark (can't remember it's name) last. The drawback of this was I couldn't roll two dice, so I avoided buying buildings that relied on rolling a score higher than six. The knock on effect of this tactic was I wasn't also putting money into the others pocket by triggering the higher number buildings that give lots of credits when triggered.

Fives and threes were getting me good economy in this game, mainly because the dice rolled by the others worked in my favour. Would this tactic have worked if the dice had not been so kind? I don't think so, I would have struggled big time. The dice can give and the dice can take away.

So with me talking so much on my tactic this game, how did I do? I won. But everyone liked the game, so I think I should be able to get this to the table again, maybe with the Harbour expansion and it's different setup.

Ark of the Covenent

Finally the evening was finished off with a game of Ark of Covenent.

Ark of the Covenent is a Carcassonne game with a biblical theme. Jonathan described this variant as the best version of the base Carcassonne game. Apparently this is a hard game to get hold of, and we were playing a German copy of the game. Which lets face it makes little difference with Carcassonne because there is no text on the tiles, so as long as you can get an english copy of the rules you are good to go.

Now I love Carcassonne, I play it all the time on my iPad online with an opponent I've been playing for years now (I get regularly beaten but still go back for more). I can't remember when I last played just the base game, we usually play with the following expansions Inns and Cathedrals, Traders and Builders, The Princess and The Dragon, and The River. And when I play the physical version these are usually the expansions I play with also.

He is a description of the differences from the base game taken from BGG:

“New features compared to Carcassonne include oases along roads which award 1 additional point to that road for each oasis, a one-time use “prophet” for each player which doubles the value of a completed city for that player, a simplified field scoring with each sheep in the field adding 2 points and each wolf subtracting 2 points, and a new scoring mechanism for temples. Additionally, players can forgo the placement of a follower on the board to move the Ark around the tiles and award 1 point to the owner of each follower it passes.“

I enjoyed playing this version of Carcassonne, Jonathan pimping out the game by replacing the cardboard Ark token with the Ark counter from the Indiana Jones Monopoly game was a nice touch.

I liked the simplified field scoring, and the tactical element added of using wolfs to reduce an opponents scoring of the fields with their careful placing. The temple scoring mechanism was interesting and added a little area control.

Jonathan's Dad and I won the game by ending up with the same winning score. Which I was nearly denied when Jonthan missed off six points for me by incorrectly adding upto two of my fields. Phew good job I spotted that. However it's an easy thing to do, and I have to admit the app does make me lazy on that front by doing all the work for you. I'd have to be constantly referring to the scoring summary if I was to play the physical version.

So does Ark of the Covenent live up to the claim made by Jonathan? I've not played other base game variants so comparing it to the vanilla game, is there enough there to justify the claim? Hmmm I'm not sure. It's certainly an easier game to score for beginners. And I certainly enjoyed playing the game, it's Carcassonne what's not to enjoy? So for me on that claim the jury is still out.

I think the joint victory was a great way to end another great evening of gaming.

 

Friday Gaming Part 2

Fenland Gamers, game night, tabletop

 

This evening Jonathan, Debbie, Jo, Jonathan's Dad, and myself got together to play the worker placement game Brew Crafters. Where we play as brewers trying to build the best brewery in the city.

I'd never played Brew Crafters before, while the others had played it once or twice previously. However it was pretty easy to pick up.

My tactic for the game was to try and keep developing a seven repetation point local brew, and make sure I had enough money at the end of each of the three winter stage to pay for my resources. I did manage to get three of those seven pointers. During the second year I spent a couple of turns trying to bloke Jonathan getting enough money to pay for his brewery resources, and force him to take out loans to pay for them. This would have forced negative points onto him. However Jonathan managed to get just enough money to avoid having to take out loans to pay for stuff.

The final scores on the doors…

As you can see it was pretty close in the middle.

I enjoyed playing Brew Crafters, the theme comes across really well in the game. I like the two stage mechanic of each season. Sending workers to the market to get get resources, like hops and malt etc, followed by then choosing a production action like make a brew, or do research. And then you could also collaborate on a brew too to gain extra money and repetation points.

So another great evening of gaming, can't wait for the next gaming session. Oh wait that's tomorrow…