Well this was a surprise.

Not only has the month gotten off to an amazing start in the number of games played. But some of the gaming was Netrunner and SWU. With the later being played weekly, and the former possibly becoming a monthly thing. Things are looking up for these two games for me. Now if I can get a regular Ashes thing going.

Netrunner: in the aftermath of UKGE and trying to capitalise on the flurry of interest of those that did a demo of the game on the NSG stand, a Netrunner session was setup at “local” game store Angle in Peterborough. I got a chance to playtest my two decks a bit more. The corp deck needs more testing because it had mixed results out of two games. The first I just wasn’t getting ice to secure my servers. Naturally I lost that game. The second game with the corp deck it won. Servers were iced up. I was getting additional advances, scoring agendas, stole an agenda back, tagging the runner, getting value from the tags. It worked. It also helped that the runner was not finding their ice breakers. Now the runner deck needs tweaking. Some of its milling and recursion worked. The main idea works. But I need to look at the economy and ice breakers. Overall it was a fun evening at a new location. Can’t wait until the next Netrunner evening.

Star Wars Unlimited Twin Suns: I attended my first SWU TS evening at the Angles and got to play a couple of three player games using the new Master and Apprentice, Count Dooku and Asajj Ventress precon TS deck. Which I have to say was pretty fun to play. Especially the spamming out of droids. I must build my All the Vaders deck idea.

Shallow Regrets: I carried this with me everyday at the expo, but never got a chance to play it. This is a very fun light micro game that gives the feels of its much bigger brother. Plus it plays much quicker! I like that there is a little take that. With the micro expansion you get on going abilities as well. Which I think almost makes it a must include.

Agueda City of Umbrellas: Nice production. The game is ok. Not amazing. But also not a bad game. It’s fairly quick to play, and doesn’t over stay its welcome.

Las Vegas: the new edition plays up to six players, but the publisher Ravensburger did drop the quality of the components, and tweaked the rules. So I’ve decided to stay with the previous version and include the new 5 or 6 player variant when playing at 5 players. It’s disappointing really that they dropped the quality. The rules tweaks? I don’t think having a larger die worth 2 points is that great a change. I’d rather have the larger dice of the previous version.

Beasty Bar: this was surprisingly fun. Lots of take that trying to manipulate the board with the card you play. Everyone has the same cards, it just down to you trying to second guess the cards you think your opponents are going to play, and remembering what they have played. Very much similar to the first round of Libertalia. That is the game really. Why didn’t I think of that until now? Still fun.

Tropichaos: loved this. There is so much component wise for being in such a small box, tile holders, tiles, tokens, season track, bag. But this is a nice tile drafting game that plays quickly as well. Nice tactical element as well having to decide when you score tiles. Miss the season the tile scores its maximum and you could be looking at zero points. Like Deep Sea Adventure, simple, quick, and fun.

Kobayakawa: I saw this described as Love Letter with betting/bluffing. At three players it was fun. However I think this is amazing at the higher player counts. As you can see below in the new arrivals I did buy a copy of the previous version just to get the metal coins!

Railroad Tiles: I like Railroad Ink, well the app version. The roll and write is too “arty” to play physically. More so than Cartographers. So a couple of years back when the publisher did Railroad Tiles as a kickstarter I backed it all in. I have played this once. And it was fun. Charlene requested to play this. So who am I to disappoint?

Seti Search for Extraterrestrial Life: I’ve wanted to play this. Massive game, can be a bit overwhelming when you see everything set up. However I really liked it. Like the asymmetrical player powers. Really like it. Would love it in my collection. But can’t justify another game that’d rarely hit the table.

Pixies: like Rebel Princess this has become a staple of a club night.

3 Chapters: at six players this played very well. Yeah still a very nice trick taker with its twists of drafting your hand, and scoring.

Excalibur: was great fun at six players. However this game is over priced for what it is. What the deluxe version goes for you can get much bigger games.

Duck & Cover: this was ok. It’s light, quick. Not a game I’d ask to play.

New Arrivals

• Kobayakawa (2018 edition with metal coins)
• West Story plus expansion
• SWU TS playmat, cards and tokens

A good start to May.

Thoughts are definitely focused on UKGE at the end of the month and a planned return to baking. But I’ll write more about that return in a future post.

Here are the games I played at the start of this month.

Deep Regrets: we played using the brand new, literally dropped through the letter box that morning expansion Even Deeper Regrets, and the mini expansion Lamentable Tenticles. This was a surprisingly long game. I liked what the expansion bought to the game. New area to fish in, alternative fish deck, and cards that wipe out whole shoals of fish!

Skull: we played Gavin’s copy because he hadn’t played the game before.

Excalibur: I started off lukewarm warm to this game, but by the end of the game I actually really liked it. I was playing tiles for their comedic effect rather than some grand tactical plan. I was embracing the chaos. Near the end keeping track of who had the Excalibur tile meant on my last turn I had a one in three chance of guessing right. I gambled and guessed right to force them to hand me the sword and the win,

Pixies: almost a staple of game night now. Really like it, as did Diego.

Rebel Princess: full player count. Lots of tactical play. Great fun.

Pili Pili: more trick taking goodness. You have to definitely embrace the chaos in this game. Especially when you have to bid on the number of tricks you will win before your hand changes in some way.

Root: it turns out we had a massive rules misplay on tokens. I was playing the Corvid Conspiracy, Dave was the Marquise de Cat, Jeff went all religious with The Lizard Cult, and Colin was Eyrie Dynasties. I do like the advance setup for faction selection. The winter map was chosen , and we used the black market landmark. After a slow start I started amassing points. But the misplay on the trap token and the keep token meant it was not possible to enter those clearings, and it made it possible to lock off parts of the map. It saw Colin trapped in one half and Dave in the other. We hadn’t realised place and move were different. We were treating them the same. Where in reality pieces could be moved into the clearing with the token, and they could attack the token. That would have changed the game. It would have stopped the field hospital shenanigans of the cats. Oh and me cutting the board in two. I did like the winter map and the random setup of the clearing markers. But we had fun, and I won my first game of Root.

New Arrivals

• Even Deeper Regrets
• Shallow Regrets

I’m writing this round up a couple of days earlier than normal because there will be no gaming before the end of the month. But posting on the last day of the month. Which is also known as my birthday!

Biblios Dice: I think this is the first time I’ve played this game since buying it years ago when it came out. It’s out of print. So was miffed a brown cube was missing. But it’s not going to be hard to replace that. Still this was a fun game to play. Love the drafting of dice, and the auction.

Skull: Colin had expressed a desire to try this game. Luckily I was able to find my copy of this bluffing game. We had fun, Colin liked it.

Pixies: Safe to say this is or is it has become a favourite.

Vegetable Stock: Love this drafting, market manipulation game. Just a great, quick, light game.

Twilight Imperium 4: In the end this was a rushed game cut short by clashing with an evening event going on. But still an epic four player game. The 3D printed insert made a massive difference in setup and breakdown.

3 Chapters: a fast trick taking game. What separates this one from the crowd is the drafting. Yep you start off drafting your hand to play for the trick taking round. Which is pretty cool because it starts you off with some tough choices. You don’t just draft on value but trying to get combos that will score you points not only during the trick taking round but also the final scoring round. Some cards score only during the trick taking round, others during the final scoring. You are hoping that others drafted cards you need to combo off. However it’s almost a dark draft where you are not 100% sure what’s been drafted because you don’t draft all of the cards, one goes back unseen.

Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game: although I like how this game handles two players with the dummy hand. It really does need the minimum of three players. We got to chapter 7. But the game kicked our butt too many times.

Bohnanza: a three player game that was just as good fun as the five player game.

New Arrivals

• Halo Flashpoint latest wave all in pledge
• Cat and the Tower
• Dice Town Cowboy expassion

After what I can only describe as dismal March for gaming, April has got off to a flying start. In fact this first half of the month has seen me play more than February and March combined!

Obviously I’m not expecting the later half of the month to be the same. But TI4 should be hitting the table twice! Which will be amazing.

Ok so this is what has hit the table.

Star Wars Unlimited: a visit to Dave saw us playing the spotlight decks from the last two releases for the first time. The “rebellion”/hero decks in these two releases do seem stronger than their opposite deck. I played a couple of times using the “empire”/villian deck from the last release and came closer to winning than Dave with those decks. But still I lost. I’d be interested to see the play testing data for these decks.

Pili Pili: a fun trick taking game. One rule sees you bidding the number of tricks you think you will win, and then pass your whole hand to your right. I got royally screwed on that one. But in the following game I was able to return the favour. Chaotic trick taking at its finest!

Pixies: an interesting drafting and set collection game. It’s rather cheap as well. So I can see this joining the collection.

Snow Colony: an interesting race to build an engine game with dice drafting. The penguin pieces are minuet, I’d say too small. It was fun.

Joyride: Survival of the Fastest: Chaotic! That is the only way to describe this. The chaos reminds me of Robo Rally. It’s fun. It helps not to make any plans and embrace the chaos. The state of the board is so fluid between turns you can only decide in the moment what you are going to do at the start of your turn.

Bella Vista: this game has table presence. Each round you are “building” one of your buildings in a city according to the rounds placement rules, and scoring to that rounds scoring rule and if you are the highest building compared to adjacent buildings. It’s pretty and puzzle like. I like it.

44 BCE: I warmed up to this game. However it seems too con-fluted for what it is! I think a misplay in the penultimate round cost me the game. But in the end the theme doesn’t really come through. At its heart it’s a bloated area control game that is ok. It didn’t blow me away.

Tir Na Nog: we played with the mini expansion subplots, and from the Blessings and Burdens expansion the Blessed Realms module. Although the Geas cards have been mixed in with the others, we were using the recommended first play Geas cards. I liked what the Blessed Realms module adds to the game, it makes the card you disguard at the end of each round matter. The colour and value of the card influence the positioning of the respective colour on a track. At the end of the game the colours position decides how many points that colour is worth for the biggest block in that colour.

Trio: a memory game that also didn’t blow me away. At best it’s ok. I won. But it was not by having a good memory.

Bonanza: set collection with trading. This was a blast. And I lost on the tie breaker! I think this is one of those games where your experience will vary depending on who you are playing with. Like other games you can’t change the order of the cards on your hand, and can only play the front card. Trading cards from your hand helps you get rid of cards. Going through the deck three times seems like a lot at the start. But the final two times that happens very quickly due to cards being removed to track points. This will be in the bag each club night I think.

Heat Peddle to the Metal: a six player championship game. We played the 1961 Championship. Which is the British, American, and Italian race tracks. This was crazy fun. I liked the advanced rules we played with. Each track in the championship also having a unique rule was cool. The sponsor cards were super powerful. The drafting an upgrade each race was fun, and saw the car get better each race.

Keltis: I’m not sure what the theme of this Knizia game is. It’s none existent really. The basic board is a quick race up the various tracks. However the “expansion” board on the reverse is much more gamer oriented with its more variable setup, collection of gems, and tracks that cross and swap colours. It’s the side I prefer, and not just because I won. The playing cards in ascending or descending order in their respective suit is a nice mechanic that can see you just discarding on your turn as you look for a card you can play. Yeah a nice game sadly out of print.

Nations the dice game: 9 years since this hit the table! But Ben had expressed an interest in trying at the weekend. So here we were playing with the expansion. It’s a fun, light, civ game that plays very quickly. Both Ben and Charlene liked it. But like Keltis is out of print. I might take this along Friday, it deserves more love (like every game in the collection).

Furnace: Played with the expansion. Just a great game that we enjoy.

New Arrivals

• Burgle Bros 3: Future Flip
• Netrunner Vantage Point
• Sea Salt & Paper Extra Pepper
• Pixies
• Pixies Flower Power expansion

It’s the middle of the month, which means it’s time to look at what I’ve been playing so far.

Wingspan: I carted the nesting box to Charlene’s to play. We played with the new Americas expansion and the Asia expansion. Mainly because they were unsleeved (waiting for the sleeves to come back in stock). I liked the hummingbirds mechanic. Charlene liked it so much that she is considering getting Wingspan (again) and the Americas expansion, and only playing it that way.

Viticulture: I think this was the quickest I got a new arrival to the table. The Bordeaux expansion arrived at 16:45 and 18:30 I was setting up the game with it. We enjoyed the new board, especially the specialists element, the extra starting resources, and the mini trade rows. Naturally we were using the Visit, from the Rhine Valley expansion as well. Which meant I was forced to make wine! I have won a game without making any wine. I call it the Tory win (after an MP or their friend were given a contract by the government to their ferry company that had no boats!)

Rome and Roll: Finally after owning this game for years I got to play it. It was lighter and faster to play than expected. We were expecting a game up there with Hadrian’s Wall or Three Sisters for complexity. And it wasn’t. It was enjoyable, and fun. I even went and ordered the three expansions I didn’t know existed. They give asymmetrical player boards.

Halo Flashpoint: I wrote a post about this just after playing. It’s probably best to go read that than I repeat it all here. The tl;dr for those that can’t be bothered to read the rather long post is we had fun, I won.

Sniper Elite: This was rather good fun. I was playing sniper. Gavin and Anthony played the Germans. The objectives I drew were the furthest apart that you could get on the board at opposite ends. I managed to get my first objective and blow up a guard with a mine. It was then with my position blown that things went to pot. I thought by cutting through the building of guards would fool them. Being the route they least expected. But they figured it out and managed to shoot me twice.

Machi Koro 2: just fun, not much more I can add that hasn’t been said before.

New Arrivals

• Wingspan Americas expansion
• Viticulture Bordeaux expansion