After what can only be described as a disappointing month for gaming (I played a grand total of four games). I’m hoping November improves.

However this new month has got off to a good start with me able to attend my first club night for two months.

Sadly it wasn’t a well attended club night with only four of us making it. However that was the perfect number for a first play of my latest addition to the collection, Apiary from Stonemaier Games.

So not only were we playing the latest hotness (or one of them) but it was also a chance to play a game with Jonathan. Something we haven’t done for a long time.

Does it really need to be said about the production values of the game? I think by now it should be taken for granted that Stonemaier Games have produced yet another high quality game. For me considering the hive tiles and other tiles are cardboard a more durable solution to the hive mat and frames would have been nice. They seem too flimsy. I can see why they are this thin. And frankly I can’t think of a solution that’d work as well.

I love that included in the box is a new addition to a Stonemaier Games game a teach the game sheet. If I count the Swift pack included in Wingspan this is the second time such a thing has been included in the box. Granted they work differently. With the Swift pack taking players through their first few turns, and the teach sheet aimed at helping a player teach the game to new players. But it’s nice to see this sort of thing in the box.

The player aids are really useful as well, and hit the sweet spot with the amount of information on them.

We played using randomly chosen hive mats, and randomly chosen hive tiles from the marked starter hive tiles.

I love this game.

Apiary plays very fast. We learnt the game, and played the game in just short of two hours. A turn is amazingly fast.

The bump mechanic is great. I love how it increases the strength of the bumped bee.

You have a small bit of area majority going on with the hibernation mechanic and section of the board for end game scoring.

The various tiles you can add to your hive do allow some combos to kick off when you go to various spots on the board. For instance every time I did the grow action I got a free bee back from the pool (if I had any there) and a free frame.

I know there will be the usual criticism of this latest entry in the Stonemaier catalog of its “not balanced” blah blah blah. And to be fair to some of those making that comment depending on the game have a valid point. However Stonemaier Games actually listen and make adjustments based on player feedback, such as in Tapestry and the civilisation adjustments, or not allowing certain faction and mat combos in Scythe.

I’m not sure anyone can make that comment about Apiary at the moment because you’d have played a lot of games to see if that is the case. But I’m sure there will be a broken combo between the hive mats and faction tiles.

The handicap system used for getting over first player advantage is not bad with players getting a higher start on the score track.

The multi use seed cards are fun. Either being able to be discarded first one of the basic resources, played for the ability on it, or finally planted for an end of game scoring bonus.

Ok I didn’t do well on my final score coming in last. However I did do cool stuff (see my comment about tile combos above).

This is a fun game. Everyone enjoyed it. And that’s two players who coming into it had reservations about an aspect or two of the game.

I had a blast playing the game. It was a great game to share with Jonathan again. Oh and Marcin won.