Sunday I woke up thinking “I wonder if Jonathan would like to meet up and play Three Sisters this afternoon?”

So I sent a message to him.

As luck would have it he was indeed free.

A time and place was quickly agreed.

Come the agreed time Jonathan and I met up at the Wisbech St Mary Sports and Social Club, the agreed place.

Our first game naturally was the recently arrived Kickstarter Three Sisters.

For our first play I thought we’d leave the mini weather expansion in the box.

This is a really nice roll and write. There is so much to like about it.

For starters it’s use of a rondel for selecting actions. You choose the die you want to draft and get the action underneath it. The die you choose selects the garden you are going to plant or water. However this also means the die you draft can deny the other players of getting that action. So you could hate draft. It’s genius.

This game really combos off. Early on Jonathan was comboing off whilst I looked on in awe and jealousy, thinking I’d made the wrong choices. You really do need to be paying attention to what you trigger.

I like how everyone gets to do one common rondel action based the position of the lowest valued die left. The highest value die left is used by the weather expansion to determine the weather for the following round. Tie this in with the end of round game effect.

The rondel board with its thick cardboard puts many boardgames to shame. For a roll and write the component quality is very good.

As you can see from the scores below the early combo stuff paid dividends for Jonathan nabbing him the win.

Our game of Three Sisters counted towards the following ongoing challenges in the bgstat app.

Our next game was one of Jonathan’s called Gingerbread House.

I liked this “light gateway” game a lot. Despite the designer having created the not a game Barenpark.

This game has a definite Kingdomino vibe to it.

The personal tile supply is a cool twist. As is collecting resources to capture character cards from for want of a better description, trade row.

I like how completing a level on your board gets you a bonus card.

As you can see from the scores below I managed to squeak out a victory.

Playing Gingerbread House only counted towards one challenge.

Our final game of the afternoon was Tussie Mussie.

I nearly played this whilst I was with Nathan. However I’d left the rules at home so was unable to.

This is a really really nice “I split, you choose” card game.

A simple mechanic. But choosing which card to have face up and which to have face down to offer to your opponent can be a very hard decision to make. Then flip that decision from the opposite side, it’s just as hard a choice.

Once round three had finished and the scores tallied I came out the winner.

Tussie Mussie punched well above its weight and counted towards three challenges.

I had a great afternoon gaming with Jonathan. We played some great games. Now to get them back to the table sooner than later.

And yes I will indeed be closing the post with the photographic talents of Jonathan.

The yesterday morning started off so well with bacon sarnies. I’ve not had one of these for breakfast for a long time. It was washed down with coffee. But I’ve been slumming it while visiting Nathan by having to drink instant coffee! It was Kenco Americano instant coffee. Which to be fair is on the top end of the instant quality scale. But still instant!

Our first game of the day was Star Wars Outer Rim.

I bought Outer Rim during the first lockdown in 2020. It seems so long ago now. Obviously it hadn’t made it to the table since gaming in person has become a thing again. We (I’m including other Fenland Gamers here) have so many games to play that we purchased during the last two years of global events it’s just not possible to get them all to the table so soon.

Luckily I knew the theme of this would appeal to Nathan and be a good game to learn with him.

Nathan chose Boba Fett to play as. Whilst I naturally had to go for Han Solo.

Despite everything being bagged and in deck boxes setup is still pretty long. It’s mainly all down to the many decks you need to separate out and shuffle.

The game is also a table hog. Not only the space required for the board and decks, but also for the player boards too. Luckily we had a pretty large kitchen island we were playing on.

We naturally were playing a two player game which meant there was very little player interaction throughout the game. At the higher player counts I’m hoping that improves. The encounter cards certainly imply that it should.

As a two player experience the game was ok. We had a good time. Nathan enjoyed it. We were playing to eight fame points as recommended in the Learn to Play rule book, instead of ten. Nathan during the game asked if we could play to ten fame points. Which is a good sign he was enjoying the game.

I did like that both our chosen characters had unique abilities that were thematic to the character. Plus our characters both had personal goals that if met allowed you to flip them over to a more powerful side. And the goals were also very thematic to the character.

I did manage to get a YT-1300 which also had a thematic shop goal that if met allowed me to turn it into the Millennium Falcon.

The goals were pretty cool and something else to aim for whilst playing.

In the end I managed to not only hit the required eight fame points but also hit ten, for the win.

Naturally playing a new game bought during the pandemic has helped progress one or two of my current gaming challenges.

Our second and final game of the day before I had to leave was Onitama.

Another new game for Nathan. Another game that he beat me at. Which will cheer Jonathan up (see his comment on yesterdays post).

Sadly after being beaten by Nathan it was time to leave. It’s always the hardest part of visiting him. But at least now I’m in a position where I can visit him more regularly.

I had such a great time with Nathan. I always love playing games with him, it such quality time. Plus so far I haven’t introduced him to a game yet that he doesn’t like.

I can’t wait until my next visit (hopefully the start of March).

Yesterday was a rare day off for me at the moment.

I’d spent the morning tidying up an area in my bedroom to have my Raspberry Pi P400 set up for a project. I hadn’t long finished when I saw a message from Jonathan asking me if I fancied gaming that afternoon.

Naturally I responded positively. A time and place was agreed.

At the appointed time I joined Jonathan at the Wisbech St Mary Sports and Community Centre to play some games.

In my bag was the still in wrap Splendor Marvel. Yep I’d been so tired since getting it I hadn’t even opened it up.

Jonathan suggested we give it a play. I was up for that.

It was nice to see Space Cowboys have used a heavier poker chip again. I have a first printing Splendor which also had a heavier poker chip. I prefer the heavier chip. They feel better in the hand. Why am I going on about this? Later printings of Splendor had lighter poker chips in them. There was a lot of criticism about this at the time when it came to light.

There are some differences between Splendor and Splendor Marvel. Not major but some.

The gold poker chip has been replaced with a grey S.H.I.E.L.D. Token. There are four Location Tiles that are double sided and replace the noble tiles.

A new Avengers Assemble Tile has been introduced that is worth three points. This is an interesting addition. On some of the cards is an Avengers symbol. The first person to have three of those symbols gets the Avengers Assemble Tile. However if another player gets more of the symbols in front of them they get the tile instead. So this tile will move around the table. It also introduces the possibility of untriggering the end of the game!

There is a sixth poker chip called the Time Token that is green. The only way to get one is to buy a level three card. You can’t spend the token. However you need one to trigger the end of the game!

There is also an Infinity Gauntlet Tile that acts as a reminder of the end game trigger. To trigger the end of the game you need 16 Infinity Points AND 1 bonus of each color AND 1 Green token.

One thing I wish there was for this version of the game is a play mat. I do like the official Splendor play mat. And yes I could use that. But it’d look odd without Marvel art work on it.

Sadly Jonathan beat me despite me having the Avengers Assemble Tile.

So I have both versions of Splendor (at the moment). But is there room for both in my collection? A bit of me says yes. I don’t have the expansion for Splendor. So Splendor Marvel gives me more bang for my money. I like the additions made to the game, especially the Avengers Assemble Tile and the majority gets it. If I had the original with the expansion I might find it a tougher decision. But theme and the changes mean Splendor Marvel is the one I’d keep out of the two.

We followed Splendor Marvel with one of Jonathan’s games, Tobago.

I’d never played Tobago before. So Jonathan did a rule rundown for me.

How best to describe the mechanics? There is definitely deduction as you try and work out where the treasure is hidden based on the clues for each treasure.

Hand management is there to as you manage your hand of clues, and deciding when and where to play them to help find the treasure.

There is definitely some variety with the use of a modular board.

Manipulating the clues so that treasures are located near to you and not near you opponents is key.

I liked the landmarks and the random placing of them following placement rules, tied in with the modular boards means no two games are going to be the same layout.

I enjoyed the game and managed to amass a lot of the high value treasure cards.

Just so you know how comprehensive my victory was I’ve included the final scores below.

The gaming session was great for a couple of the challenges. But you’ll see that in a future post.

It was great getting some gaming in with Jonathan. It was just what I needed on my day off.

And here we are once more at the end of another post and the photos taken by Jonathan during our gaming session.