For the record

Let the history books reflect that I in fact won our first play of Saloon Tycoon on Friday at FEG@TA.

Saturday on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page Jonathan pointed out we had misplayed a couple of things. Sadly after a soak in the bath Sunday morning reading the rules ready for the afternoons play, we had miss played a few things! Like the outlaw cards for instance. But the one that gave me the win was the end game turn. I had triggered the end game on my turn, a turn in which I had stole Jonathan’s character from him. On his final turn he stole it back. But according to the rules this action was not allowed. So in fact Jonathan had scored five less points, and I’d scored five extra points. Thus I had scraped a win by one single point. 

So Sunday afternoon saw Jonathan, Matt and myself get together to play some games!

Our first game was Saloon Tycoon. This time we had the expansions mixed in also. I don’t know why you wouldn’t have them in, they add in more of the same. 

I grabbed the gardens tile early, to do so got me the outlaw that gave me minus one gold nugget each income stage. That got cancelled when I completed the gardens tile, which gave me an extra gold nugget. I then moved that outlaw to Jonathan to cripple him. But I’d need to grab that outlaw back near the end to complete my secret objectives.

Jonathan was struggling to do stuff because he ended up with three of the outlaws. I nearly gave him the fourth too, just for the giggles, but I needed to slow Matt down.

My inability to get the outlaw and character I needed to complete my objectives cost me the game? If I hadn’t triggered the end game I might have got one of the needed cards to get one objective completed and the win. 

Instead I lost to Matt by a point. While Jonathan coasted in to last place.

A bit like the law that whenever more than one Python fan gathers together they will perform the parrot sketch. It is fast becoming a law that if ever three to five Fenland Gamers should be in a room together they will play Thiefs Market.

And so it was. There was three of us, and Thiefs Market was played. 

As the photo shows I ended up winning and claiming my first win, and the title King of Thieves. Now I will have to defend my title against all pretenders.

Matt had to go after witnessing my glorious win and coronation. However Jonathan and I carried on gaming with our first play of Spectre Ops.

Spectre Ops had been sitting on my pile of shame for over a year now. It felt good having this opportunity to play the game at last.

Jonathan played the infiltrator while I played the hunters. My team for this game were The Beast and The Prophet. I chose these because they would work well together I thought in locating the infiltrator. 

What I like about Spectre Ops over Letters for Whitechapel is that the hunters do have unique powers, they aren’t just the same. Ok Jonathan didn’t “enjoy” being on the receiving end of those powers. But I felt they were balanced out. For example the Prophet had a post cog ability that if he didn’t move allowed him to see where the infiltrator had been two moves previously. The balancing bit was that the Prophet had to be stationary to use that ability and couldn’t act upon it straight away, but had to wait until their next turn before they could move. 

I felt this was the same for the Beasts abilities, and the motion sensor of the car.

This as a two player game worked well as a game of cat and mouse. Which along with a simpler turn order than Letters from Whitechapel for me was a more enjoyable experience.

In our game there were moments where I thought I knew where Jonathan was. But turned out I was completely wrong.

The hunters won in the end but it was close. Jonathan had completed all three objectives.

So with two hidden movement games down our next one to play surely must be the infamous Fury of Dracula.

This was such a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.