Wednesday saw the Fenland Gamers monthly meet up for October.

It was a small affair, with just 4 (including me) attending.

I don’t get our club sometimes. I may have mentioned this previously. But I’m not sure how we increase attendance to events. I’ve put surveys up asking what days would be best for for members to attend. You guessed it, even those are poorly responded to.

We try and vary when sessions are held. We aim sessions at specific games and different types of games. But we get the same disinterest each time. I flabbergasted and at a loss on how to improve participation at game sessions.

Wingspan as always was a joy to play. Really looking forward to the first expansion coming out next month. European birds, a couple of new mechanics, new bonus cards and end of round scoring tiles. So expect to see it being played lots once I get my grubby mitts on it.

We rounded off the evening with a change from the usual Love Letter: Batman. We played the Hobbit version instead. A couple of slight rule changes. But still a great fun game to end on.

Games played: Wingspan, Love Letter: The Hobbit – The Battle of the Five Armies
Wednesday Fenland Gamers we’re approached by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire if we would be available Thursday to do an interview to use in a piece about boardgaming for the mature gamer that they were doing on Friday morning.

A bit short notice, especially considering people have jobs. But I have some flexibility in my schedule. So I arranged for the interview to happen at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole.

Thursday morning saw John (FLGS owner) and Kath (who helps out at the store) and myself being interviewed about boardgames by a local BBC radio journalist on his iPhone!

So that there were some “gaming” noises going on in the background during the interview, the reporter had John rolling lots of d6 dice and Kath and I playing Connect 4 (the journalist bought a copy with him).

I hadn’t played Connect 4 since about 1988. I was back then pretty good at the game, and unbeaten. And that streak remains. I still got the skills. I won all of the games Kath and I played.

The interview took about 20 minutes. More material than they could use for the 5 minute slot they had planned.

In the end the interview went out about 9:10 on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (you should be able to listen to it on the BBC Sounds app). It was about 3 minutes long. And concentrated on why we played games. Despite having notes written down, the reporter got who I was wrong, and said Fenland Games, but got it right in the interview itself!

It was an experience, and a little promotion for the club and my FLGS.

“You free to play some light games this evening?”

Not surprisingly I was.

So last night Jonathan and I ended up at The Luxe playing some light games.

We started off with a game of Penny Lane. Which saw my worst score for the game. I just didn’t get the engine side going. My butt was truly kicked.

Next up was the classic abstract game Santorini. We played using just the god cards from the base game, leaving the Golden Fleece expansion in the box. Each player was dealt two god cards, and selected one to use. We got some cool combos, where the god cards were opposites to each other. This is really one of those “just one more game” games. So quick and fun. After an initial run of victories, I hit a losing streak.

Our final game of the was the classic two player game Lost Cities. Jonathan hadn’t played this before. He wasn’t entirely sure about the game after the first play, but I think he had warmed to it after our second game. The actual game itself is simple, and has some interesting decisions to make. It’s the end of game scoring that seems over complicated, and takes a little getting your head around. I’ve been playing this game for years. But the app version, which does all the scoring for me! So you get lazy on that front. I also missed the little card count of the deck as we played. It helps having that info at a glance, knowing roughly how many turns you have left, and can plan cards to play based on that. But it was nice to actually play the physical version against a friend, and not just people online I’ve not met.

We shared the honours one game a piece.

Jonathan and I did have a gaming related discussion about an opinion from a friend on Stonemaier games. Which lead to a brief chat about luck of the draw within Viticulture, and how it can have a big impact on a game. So many games rely on or have as part of the game a luck element. But even if we just consider luck of the draw, lots of games rely on this to varying degrees, such as every Deckbuilder, Magic the Gathering, Tapestry, Scythe, Wingspan, London, Memoir ’44, etc, etc. The list goes on.

You either are going to love that element of luck, and the having to work around the challenge it throws up. Or you hate it, and need to find games that don’t have that element.

I don’t mind it. I like how it adds variety to games, varies the challenge from game to game. And if I get totally screwed by the cards, I accept that from time to time that will happen. I certainly don’t take it to heart and start sulking. Which some do.

Anyway that’s my not some well thought out thoughts on the subject

Jonathan and I had a great evening of gaming to end the week at The Luxe.

Games played: Penny Lane, Santorini, Lost Cities