The fortnightly gaming meetup started off differently for Jonathan and myself this time. We had been swapping messages discussing games and numbers for the evening. Which turned to whether we would be going for a kebab afterwards. I hadn’t had a kebab in a long time, and fancied having one again.

But Jonathan had been craving a pint and food at Spoons for most of the day. I pointed out that by the time we’d finished gaming he’d be competing for table space with people that would be jacked up alcohol, or just about starting on their night of alcoholic debauchery. Not the greatest atmosphere for enjoying a quiet pint and food.

So I suggested I was up for the Spoons thing, how about eating before we started gaming? 15 minutes later we were sitting at a table, food ordered, drinks in front of us and chatting away about life, the universe and gaming.

I did think my food was a little on the cold side, maybe not as hot as it could have been. Possibly a timing issue bringing my plate of food together. I think a couple of items had been waiting for the wings to be ready. Ok I admit it, I do like the wings that Spoons do. I could easily eat just a plate of them.

At The Luxe we got setup ready for our evenings gaming. We just needed to wait for the official start time, and those to turn up that said they were coming. While we waited Jonathan showed me the latest prototype of his Sherlock Holmes reskin (trolling him there) of The Streets of Commonville. I forget what he calls it. But it has those muted colours that suggest Victorian Britain and the setting of the Holmes stories. It’s nice theming. We discussed mechanics, particularly the dice rolling. I suggested he looks at games like Age of War, Bang the Dice Game and Elder Sign for their approach, and even Run,Fight or Die!. But I can see why he’s gone for a more Pandemic the Cure approach. It is his favourite Pandemic I believe.

After the brainstorming I taught John the quick drafting card game Tides of Time.

I really thought I’d played this game before with Jonathan, but I hadn’t. Drafting isn’t one of Jonathan’s favourite mechanics. But this is a quick game, with a slight twist to the drafting. The game is literally over before Jonathan realises he doesn’t like drafting!

For me this was a welcome return of the game to the table. Last time I had played this was before I’d started tracking my game plays. It is a very nice 2 player game. Like many games deserves more table time. But like so many games it’s competing for that limited time. Adding to the difficulty of getting to the table is the fact it’s a 2 player game, and those gaming opportunities are even rarer.

Although as I write this and think of my 2 player games that don’t get nearly as much love as they deserve, I’m rather happy with the fact I think I have a pretty strong 2 player game collection.

By the time we’d finished playing, no one else had turned up. We’d seen a message from one person letting us know they were ill. But there was no sign of the father and son we were expecting. I know life throws things in the way, plans change. But it is annoying when this happens. Part of our earlier discussion was about what games to bring along that were for the appropriate player counts, and audience. This information really does influence what we take with us for people to play. If we’d known it was just going to be Jonathan and myself we would have bought different games.

Our next game was a 2 player game of Waggle Dance. A game new to both of us, and only recently added to Jonathan’s collection. This is basically a gateway worker/dice placement game.

The dice are cute with a bee representing the number 1. On the whole the components are reasonable quality. Although both Jonathan and I think a playmat would be nice for the game.

Waggle Dance plays nice at 2 players, it uses 12 dice from one of the unused colours to occupy 3 random spots on each of the actions that can be selected.

The flow of the game is nice, as is resolving the various actions in the same order each turn during the night phase. It means you have to think about that order so that you have the resources in place to be able to take a later action in the same turn.

The Queen bee cards are the only way to mitigate dice rolls. The only way to get the cards is by putting a die on one of the spots for the action that gets a card. The cards do more than mitigate die rolls. They allow you to get honeycomb tiles, eggs, resolve a honeycomb tile with differing dice, etc.

The cards are pretty important. Jonathan took an early lead on having 2 more dice in his pool, and therefore able to do more on a turn. But I got cards from turn 1. I think it started off with a single die allocated. But after getting a free tile with it, I was allocating 2 dice each turn. The abilities I was drawing negated the advantage of the extra dice, or gave me the advantage. Jonathan started getting cards pretty late in the game, and too late.

The game uses that action selection based on the values of the dice you roll mechanic. Similar to Marco Polo (but not quite) and Covert. I quite like this mechanic, and because it’s not used a lot (well in the majority of games I own and play) it’s refreshing.

I won our game. But it could have gone in Jonathan’s favour. The cards gave me the edge, along with a couple of times Jonathan messed up his turn.

During our game Justin popped in to say hi, so there was a short intermission while we chatted and I hooked his son on Ice Blast drinks. It was great catching up with Justin.

Despite the low turn out this time. We still had a great evening gaming. And once more a big thank you to The Luxe for being our amazing hosts.