Well the plans for getting Tapestry and it’s expansion Plans and Ploys did change. One of the players had to drop out. We knew it was a possibility. One we hoped wouldn’t happen, but that’s life in the current world events. It was out of the control of everyone.

However as Confucius said ‘The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.’ a last minute plea for players was answered with a maybe. Our plan was still alive but we wouldn’t know until mid day if it would survive.

But survive it did, so Marcin, Julie and myself met at The Luxe to build our civilisations and see which one would be the victorious.

I had one aim in this game. I wanted to get into space. I’d never done it before and it was something cool I wanted to do. Even if doing so meant I didn’t win.

Naturally the Plans and Ploys adds more tapestry cards, more civilisations, more technologies, more tiles. And that sort of stuff is always welcome. However the new landmark cards I liked. All three of us got our personal landmarks out during the game. Which was cool. I liked how they gave you something to possibly aim for.

I think the title of this blog post and the Confucius quote best describes my approach to Tapestry when playing. You need to be able to adapt to changing circumstances, mainly from the tapestry cards you draw or play. At one point I was planning to play one tapestry card on my income phase however because of a conquer action that Marcin took I decided to play a different tapestry card to exploit that instead.

I managed to draw a few tapestry cards early on which included two trap cards. Which I did use. The first time I used one was with Marcin attacking the central tile that I controlled. Sadly he had one of the new cards that countered a trap card! Foiled. However the second time that Marcin tried taking over one of my lands the trap card was successful.

Somehow my civilisation did manage to get into space and discover a monolith (one of the new tiles). All very 2001 A Space Odyssey. But so cool. Getting into space didn’t disappoint.

Marcin was the first of us to do the final income round, and in doing so set the score of 136 that Julie and I had to try and beat in our final income rounds.

Julie was next and did really well to get over 50 victory points to take her into first place with 138 points.

Then it was my turn. For the majority of the game I had been languishing well behind the other two. My final two ages saw me catch up and move into second place. But could I get enough points to win? I wasn’t sure I could. I thought I’d end up last. However after my final income round I slide into first place by a point.

It was a very very close game in the end. But whether you win by a single point (as I did today) or by a country mile it’s still just a win at the end of the day.

Just realised as I write this post after the fact I missed 10 points for reaching the end of a development track! Doh!

It was a great afternoon gaming, great to get Tapestry to the table again, great hosts, and great friends.

Oh the title of this post I took from S.W.A.T., it’s what the team leader Hondo says to his team before they leave the tactical vehicle to respond to an incident.