Plans change, and it’s our ability to adapt and make the most of the new situation that makes the difference between success and failure. What’s this got to do with this post? Who knows I thought it might be possible to segway into the fact we had an unplanned games night. But reading it, it doesn’t really work. Let’s get on with this post and forget this bit.

Last night Jonathan and I met up to play The Voyages of Marco Polo (again) and Spiel des Jahres nominee Imhotep.

First to the table was The Voyages of Marco Polo. Jonathan suggested we could use our ids from the previous day but swap them over so we played each other’s. But we went with random selection instead. Funnily enough I drew Jonathan’s id so I could set the dice to whatever value I needed. Jonathan got Polo and his wife, giving him two figures to move around the board.

I was the first player and held that advantage until the fifth and final round. My first move each round was get six camels and buy a black dice. Which shut that option down for Jonathan unless he wanted to pay for it. But he still was able to get camels from other sources. As I also did. 

I reached two cities that were on my hidden route objectives. But I wasn’t really trying to move round the map. My tactic was to score points completing contracts. 

Jonathan was moving around the map using actions on the map that traded goods for moving. He wanted to steal first player but needed me to move first.I wasn’t doing moves, so he’d hold off and hold off and then not have the resources to do the move action.

In the end Jonathan was getting frustrated but still enjoying the game!

You can guess I was victorious. We were playing with part of a mini expansion that added gifts to the game. I can’t really say if they added much to the game because I didn’t get any. Jonathan got two or three, one even gave me money. But they didn’t seem to make a big impact on the game.

Imhotep sold out at the UK Games Expo, won’t be back in stock until the Autumn, had the nomination for a prestigious award. So it definitely qualifies as a hot game of the moment.

It’s a simple game with basically four actions. But there is a surprising amount of depth to the decisions you have to make with those actions. Especially where to move the boat to. 

My downfall was not really appreciating how many points were at stake on one location. The one where you score points based on connected stones of your colour. It not only allowed Jonathan to catch up but take a massive lead, that I did well to close to four points. 

I love the 3D element of the game. It looks lovely.

This is a good, quick game. Ideal for noobs to the hobby and also has enough there for hardened gamers. Which seems to be a new trend, because the same is also being said about the Spiel des Jahres recommended game Animals On Board from Stronghold Games.

A great evenings gaming, thanks for the invite Jonathan,

Yesterday evening despite the earlier news that just shy of 52% of my fellow countrymen were gullible sheep that believed the fud of the mass media of the country and were talked into self harming, the evening of gaming at The Angel still went ahead.

Jo was at the Angel when I arrived, so after getting refreshing beverages I introduced her to the ccg/lcg experience by teaching her the gateway drug of Epic.

We used two pre-constructed decks using the suggested deck lists for the demigods (Kickstarter stretch goal cards) Riksis, Dancer of Destruction (Jo) and Shadya, the Shadow Walker (me).

As you can see the demigods also have a special ability. Did we use them? Nope! 

I like to think of these decks as the Epic version of the dueling decks for Magic. Having pre-constructed decks available other than the mono colour ones I think makes for a better experience. The mono is there if you want to play that way. But I prefer these decks. Also pre-constructed decks allow you to jump straight in and teach the game, without the overhead of explaining drafting and the other player not knowing what the cards do, combos etc. 

Without my playmats there, scoring was done using the awesome free Epic Score app. Hence no photos of the game being played.

Jo took an early lead delivering some damage to me. But after some exchanges between our champions I was able to get a wind to deliver some damage of my own, which would prove fatal and give me the win.

During our game Debbie arrived, so with Epic finished Batman Fluxx hit the table. We made reference to our last marathon game of this and the Eric Sommer house rule of stopping at the half hour mark if it went on that long. 

Our game was pretty quick, in fact it was still the basic rules of draw one, play one when I won.

Jonathan arrived at that point, so we played another game of it. 

This time it went on a little longer, and I was looking at another victory that relied on me being able to play three cards in the correct order on my go. Jonathan and Debbie took their turns,  I was still on to be able to win. To get in Jonathan’s mind and show him how he could have won, I pointed out if he had zapped Bane in front of me he would have won! Then Jo threw a spanner in the works by resetting the rules back to basic ones. I was stuffed. No way I would be able to take three turns to get the win, the game changes so much between turns. I needed a card that would allow me to play more than one card this turn. I draw my one card. OMG I’d top decked the perfect card to give me the win, Play All! I play the card, the win was mine, I just had to play the three cards in the correct order. Steal Batman from Jonathan,  get rid of Bane using his ability, play my keeper, play the goal to give me the win.

Jo abandoned us to go have a KFC with her boyfriend! Really? Choosing the abysmal local KFC over gaming with us! Wow that stung.

Batman Fluxx was followed up with intrigue, skullduggery and bluffing when we played Council of Verona. 

I thought I had a good chance of Romeo and Juliet being together because I had them both, plus I had two cards that allowed me to move cards. However my plans were thwarted by Jonathan who split them up after I had played my last card. I was scoring nothing. Debbie took the win after we explained to her how she should have used her last cards ability to swap two tokens to remove Jonathan from the scoring and give her two scoring opportunities.

We played a second time where Debbie decided to use a unique tactic of not using her tokens! This time my plans worked  and I won. 

There was a final game but using the poison expansion. This was a first for us. I liked what it added to the game of that extra bluffing. Had they just tried to poison your scoring opportunity or were they trying to jump on the bandwagon? I was in that exact situation with Jonathan on Romero. I played an antidote token to counter a possible poison one. My final placed token was to poison Jonathan’s scoring opportunity. Still Debbie didn’t play any tokens!!!! 

Once more luck was on my side and my plans were victorious.

The final game of the evening before Jonathan had to rush off to the Jolly Fryer to take a fish and chip supper home for the family, was Harbour. 

Jonathan had never played this before, despite once owning it. 

Our opening buildings to buy weren’t very good for a first game. So upon a group concensus I dealt six new buildings. 

I like Harbour, it is a nice little worker placement game. Although the changing market place isn’t to everyone’s taste, it is one of the mechanics I like. It forces you to be aware of what the other players are doing, who is close or about to build, and changing your own supplies to ready for the new market place. Plus in this game there were a couple of cards that allowed you to manipulate the market place. Which lessened the impact of some one building a building.

Having the one worker can be frustrating because you want to do more than one action. But it does force you to make hard decisions about which action you really really want to do.

Jonathan triggered the end game, and with my last go I was able to build a final building snatching me second place. However Jonathan ended up being crowned the new Harbour Master. 

We will be playing this again soon so I can win my title back. I do like these social media bragging cards.

So with the evening of gaming over. We went our separate ways, with me hitting what is fast becoming a part of the evening Jonathan’s favourite kebab shop down Norfolk street for my supper.

Another fun evening of gaming, looking forward to next weeks.

Last night saw Debbie, Jonathan and myself manipulating the little people to try and become the Guild Master (TMG why isn’t there one of those social media bragging cards in this game?)

I’d not long gotten over my battle trauma from watching the brutal episode that was episode nine of A Game of Thrones. 

For me our game had started while we were setting up. I took seven points off the table straight away by picking the side of the Beagle card that gave guild cards instead of that massive point boost.

My guild card was going to give me a bonus based on how many livery men I had in the guild hall at the end. So I needed to make sure I bought more livery men.

Jonathan as I did in our first game took an early lead playing instant point cards and held that lead until the last two turns.

While the other two were building up to take over guilds I took an early two point guild unchallenged, grabbed five out of the six neutral livery men. Initially I was going to be very aggressive with these, but a guild card put an end to that when it gave me a point for each one I had at the end. So I was just going to sit on them.

This was to work to my advantage because Jonathan started to over commit livery workers to try and win guilds, just incase I used the neutral livery men to deny him.

It even worried Jonathan when I let him score a four point guild early on. Mind games folks.

With the guild that gave me the win if a tie happened when resolving a guild, I was basically set.

I stayed within reach of Jonathan until the last couple of rounds, where I over took him points wise. Debbie was trailing but I was concerned she had a load of guild cards. It was possible that she’d be making an end game surge scoring them.

It was funny because Jonathan trying to grasp points in the last round threw six points away to score four! He was feeling the pressure.

End game scoring saw me sail off into the distance, while Debbie narrowly came last by a point. Which if not for one decision in the last round, which was advised by Jonathan and myself because we thought that was the optimal play at the time (not knowing her guild cards), would have seen her second.

A great second play of the game. It was less mean with me sitting on the neutral livery men, Jonathan’s tactics failing, mine working. Looking forward to the next game.