It’s that special commercial holiday Valentine’s Day. So what better way to spend it than spending the afternoon playing Scythe and Kemet.

The day had started well with the taxman sending me a Valentine’s Day letter informing me of my tax code for the upcoming tax year. But I knew that this was their grey taxman way of saying they love me. I’m disappointed there was no romantic dinner arranged to discuss how much tax I could avoid paying. But I guess they are saving those for their high end corporate whores such as Google.

Our first game of the afternoon was my game of 2016, Scythe.

For the first time I was playing a new faction for me, Akiko & Jiro (Togawa Shogunate). Jeff actually had the other new faction Connor & Max (Clan Albion). While young Lucas had my favourite faction, and the only one I’d played to date, Olga Romanova & Changa (Rusviet Union). Diego had Anna & Wojtek (Polania Republic), and Jamie had Gunter von Duisburg with Nacht & Tag (Saxony Empire).

Diego took the early “lead” getting three stars out, and bring first to the factory. I was second to the factory and laid a trap token on it! The traps had a great psychological affect on the others. None of my traps were set of, instead that acted as deterrents and stopped the others trying to take over my territories with them on.

It was interesting that Jeff hardly laid any of his tokens. I think I only remember him placing one. 

I was busy grabbing land, making sure I was going to score lots at the end. The others were not building much, or grabbing lots of territory. Which allowed me to get in a position where I could place two stars on my final go using my factory card ability. My fifth star was completing all my enlistments, and the sixth game ending star was defeating Saxony for my second battle star.

Once the dust had settled, points added, I had won with a comfortable margin. It was my best score ever, and my first ever victory. 

We had played with the board extension. So it was a bloody big board. Which I enjoyed playing on. I enjoyed playing the new faction. It was the first time playing with this player count. I liked it, more was going on. I won’t play it with more players. 

But I won! 

Our next game and final for the afternoon was Kemet. Which with its “attack, attack” philosophy capturing the true spirit of the day.

So we were playing with the C2K expansion adding in the Cyclades monsters. And it was the first time playing with the max of five players.

I’d taken an early victory point lead. But it wasn’t there for long before it was a question of “how could we delay Diego”.

We actually ended up with Diego and Jamie getting eight victory points at the end of a round. But with the tie conditions the victory went to Diego.

Another game I enjoyed as a five player game. It was a lot longer game than our previous play. But then this was more players. The extra monsters from Cyclades were a nice addition, and additional tactical decision whether to buy or not.

A great afternoon of gaming in the spirit of the day. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to try Blood Rage tomorrow.