Last night was the latest Fenland Gamers club night.

I got to try the heavy (in every sense of the word) flip and write Hadrian’s Wall.

Which was my thirty first new game to me that I’ve played this year. I find this incredible. At this rate I’m going to complete the challenge easily before the end of the year.

I love Hadrian’s Wall.

There I’ve said it.

We played on the standard (green) difficulty. For those into video games and have played the classic video game Doom, is the equivalent of “Hey, not too rough” in difficulty.

Like Three Sisters when you first see the two sheets you will be playing with it’s all a bit overwhelming. But after a brief overview it starts to make sense. Then after using your first couple of resources everything becomes clear.

Generating the resources needed reminded me a bit of Imperium Settlers/51st State. It also gives the game a little euro boardgame vibe. It’s kinda cool how at the start of each round/year players get the same resources based on the flipping of a card, and then addition resources are gathered depending on unlocked sections of your player sheets. Then as you spend those resources you get further ones to spend during the round. Any not spent get lost. Very Imperial Settlers like.

Hadrian’s Wall isn’t as combotastic as Three Sisters. But it has combos. It’s definitely a deep thinker.

If we were putting Hadrian’s Wall on a difficulty scale for Roll/flip and writes, it’s firmly in the heavier, more complicated camp. Not one you’d play with noobs.

I really really did like the game. It’s gone on my wish list.

Our second game was Dungeons, Dice and Danger using the Clumsy Cultists map. Which in Doom difficulty level terms is “

Charlene and myself both took a few hits from not being able to use a dice combo. Mine cost me the game by a point.

Our second play of Hadrian’s Wall saw the difficulty level dialled up to eleven as we played it in hard (Red) mode. Aka it’s version of the Doom “Hurt me plenty” difficulty level.

What this means in reality is that during the year end of each round we are drawing more cards from the Fate Card Draw Pile. Which means we have to defend more attacks from those pesky Picts and potentially taking more damage in the form of Disdain.

Disdain is not good. It’s negative points at the end of the game.

Playing at this harder difficulty level with the greatly increased number of attacks to defend against certainly changed the focus of the game. You are spending more resources trying to build up the cohorts to defend with. Whilst still trying to do the other stuff like meet the criteria for the path cards you decided to score.

I did find the drawing of more cards exciting! Yes I’m that sad.

The games that made it to the other tables Transmissions (looks stunning) and Dice Theme Park (sequel to Dice Hospital).

A fun evening of a genre I really like. Off to Westeros later today.