After what has seemed a famine when it comes to board gaming over the past few months.

It now seems like the complete opposite. I’m gorging myself on gaming.

Friday evening saw Marcin and I play a two player game of Ra. I’d recently picked up a Pharaoh edition of the game. Which is basically the thematic way to describe the deluxe edition of Ra.

The main difference as far as I’m aware between this fancy edition and the retail edition is metal coins and wooden/plastic tiles.

The production is out of this world. The Ra token is huge. The sun boat marker, epoch marker, sun dials are all wooden. The auction board and player boards are a good thickness. It’s obvious a lot of love has gone into the production of this game.

As a two player game it worked, and was an enjoyable experience. However I need to play this at the higher player counts. I think the play experience will be completely different.

Sadly Marcin won.

For our second game of the evening we were joined by Anthony. The game was Ohanami.

I’ve been often a copy of this game ever since I hear about it in a Broken Meeple video. At the time I was unable to track down a copy. That was until about two weeks ago when I was just browsing through saved items in my Amazon basket and saw it was in stock. I clicked on the item to check my eyes weren’t deceiving me. The price was amazing. Just under £11 for this card game. I instinctively pressed buy it now.

If a purchase has not been a dice game, then it’s most likely been a trick taking or drafting game. I do seem to be into those two mechanics at the moment.

This was a great purchase.

Once more Marcin won. He was on track for a clean sweep.

Next Fuji Flush hit the table. I think I was the only one who hadn’t played it before. But I was glad I did. This purchase has been sitting in my game bag since purchasing.

The game was fun at its lowest player count. But like Ra I think Fuji Flush will be a different experience at the higher player counts. Maybe even better.

We managed to get two plays in. Marcin’s win streak was ended. With the honours being shared between Anthony and myself.

We finished off the evening (for me anyway, I left Anthony and Marcin playing some other game) with the game Haggis. I’m so glad this great trick taker is making it back to the table. Which is easier to do because it’s either a two or three player game. It’s the three player support that is enabling it to get some love.

Luckily I was able to end my evening on a win.

After that I headed home. I couldn’t be late home because I had work the next morning.

Sunday I went straight from work to game with Marcin, Anthony, and Jeff.

Our game for the afternoon was Steamwatchers.

I have to say I was pretty tired during the rules explanation and nearly fell asleep a couple of times. That was by no means an indictment of Marcin and his explaining of the rules.

But I did wake up. Or feel more awake after I purchased my usual beverage order and started playing.

The theme of Steamwatchers is a post apocalyptic one. This is Marcin’s favourite game theme.

There is very much a big influence from the game A Game of Thrones on Steamwatchers with the Dune combat system thrown in.

Early on both Jeff and I formed an alliance. We offered an alliance to Anthony as well. The aim was to focus on crushing Marcin. However Anthony made the error of joining forces with Marcin.

That meant Anthony had hostile forces either side of him. So Jeff and I jointly attacked Anthony from both sides, whilst Marcin just turtled. Yep Marcin threw Anthony under the bus in an attempt to build get enough points to win.

We had to cut the game short by one round due to the social club closing early. But it was a critical round.

I had planned to attack Anthony to try and grab a point off him. Like Dune Imperium a one point swing is huge. However he moved all of his forces out of my target space to attack me first. This was better than I had hoped. The base would be undefended. I didn’t bother winning the battle, my forces were sacrificed for the greater good. I couldn’t have him retreating back to the base.

My turns saw my train with troops swoop in and claim the undefended base and grab the point.

I also broke my alliance with Jeff to grab a last point by taking an undefended base with my last action.

Points were tallied and I had won.

Wow the banter, especially at the end. It was hilarious. Marcin was butt hurt, trying to deflect from his betrayal of Anthony. Remember those buses he let hit Anthony without doing anything?

It was a fun afternoon, a fun game, and great company.