A truncated blog this month as our venue is not available over the party season so only two official club nights to report. As a consolation we have our regular end of year list where we muse on the most and least enjoyable games that were new to us this past year. Feel free to add your own thoughts or simply shout abuse from the sidelines.
Roll on 2017!
Wednesday 7th December
Contributors: Jon, David
Fabled Fruit
started off my evening, this time as a 5 player experience with Jon,
Phil, TomToo, David and John B involved. We're now into the second deck
of location cards, and the game continues to evolve at a pleasantly
serene pace. The thieving monkey gets used frequently, and there is
still the incentive to have more rather than less cards in hand. In this
game, Tomtoo was the first to 3 fabled juices, but it was only David's
random moving of the monkey in his last turn which prevented Jon from
equalling his feat. 
Flamme Rouge
was next up, with John B and Tong joining Jon. In a shock IBG first,
Jon had to correct a John rules misunderstanding (if you run out of
cards, you re-shuffle your deck and start again). Apparently John and
Tong had both experienced games where it was common for players to run
out of cards. When James reads this he will be yelling at the screen -
"You see - I told you so!!!" - in an excited, high-pitched voice. No
James - this only proves that there are other players who are as bad as
you at this game... 
What a different game this turned out to be! Mainly due to John and Tong
playing very low cards at the beginning, Jon's rouleur found himself in
a single rider breakaway, with 3 hills in between himself and the
distant finish line. The beauty of the 3-player game is that the field
can find itself stretched out a bit more, leading to exhaustion being
picked up by more riders and giving a breakaway a slightly greater
chance of success. And this is what happened - Jon's rouleur regularly
played high cards to keep himself away from the peloton, and as he
approached the crest of the final hill, he was still just ahead. A
constant accumulation of exhaustion cards had meant that his deck was
now fatter than a whale omelette, but the timely appearance of a '7'
card at the foot of the final descent was enough to push him over the
line, prior to collapsing from complete exhaustion. A start-to-finish
win that gives hope to breakaways everywhere... 
Power Grid: The Card Game
was up next for Tong, John and Jon. This was John's first experience of
the card game version of Power Grid, and despite having an impressive
array of efficient Eco-plants, he didn't have enough large capacity
plants to challenge for the win. Last time Tong played this, he won by a
single electro, having being tied on power plant points and money bonus
points. And this time? Exactly the same result... 1 lousy electro.
Still a brilliant game - all the PG tension without so much maths and in half the time. Nice.
Kingdomino
was the final offering of the night for Jon, TomToo and Phil. This is a
light family game, that plays quickly but still has some interesting
decisions and spatial skill involved. Jon and Tom's kingdoms were
beautifully ordered and symmetrical and received the appropriate
end-game bonuses. Phil's was a little more eccentric, and despite a
large and valuable forest, his final score was less impressive. Jon's
small collection of stone buildings turned out to be the crucial factor,
scoring 18 points for 3 tiles and winning the game by a comfortable
margin. There's a lot worse ways to spend 20 minutes - as some of us at
IBG have had the misfortune to experience from time to time... 
.....
To start the evening Phil and I managed to get a round of Lost Cities
in before TomToo turned up. I played, as I always do, incredibly
conservatively in the hope that my opponent takes risks which then don't
pay off. This was the case again as Phil took a few of these risks by
starting expeditions with handshakes only for the higher numbers to turn
up in my hand. The round ended with myself on 18 and Phil on 0.
When more people turned up we played a five player game of Fabled Fruit which Jon has covered above. Although I blame the monkey rather than myself for stopping Jon tying with TomToo
After that TomToo, myself and Phil then split off to play Black Orchestra.
A co-op game where players are part of the assassination plot to kill
Hitler. Each player chooses a character from history with different
special abilities and then work their way around Germany planning
numerous different plots in an effort to kill Hitler. At the end of each
round an event is drawn that swings the game either in your favour or
Hitlers. These events are also tied to historical events such as
Stalingrad, the fall of Norway and Hess fleeing to Scotland. We started
by carrying out a Coup d'état in Berlin, this was an Abwehr (German
military intelligence organisation) plot so it was down to my character
to carry it out. We had planned this meticulously, Hitler wasn't too
powerful and we had the odds in our favour. I only needed to roll three
successes on six dice....I rolled two. Of course after this failed
attempt on Hitler's life I was arrested and the plot unravelled.
It took
us a while longer to reach the point where we were ready to strike
again, this time the plan was poison gas. Hitler had moved into his
fortified bunker but I wasn't to be deterred as it fell to me again to
carry out the deed. This time I needed four successes in six dice....I
rolled one. Again the clamp down came, we were all arrested after a
Gestapo raid (or three) and it took us too long to escape from prison.
By the time we had formulated the last plot we had run out of time.
Hitler had us all arrested and executed. We came close, especially at
the beginning but then we were hit by a series of set backs that cost us
too much time.
It's a great game with a compelling theme, the game
seems to know when you're about to strike and throw things at you to
stop you. I really liked the way the real historical events worked as
well, Hitler moving around the country to attend meetings and rallies as
well as his power rating increasing and decreasing based on history.
Would happily play again.
.....
Wednesday 14th December
Contributor: Daniel
Twas the last IBG night of 2016 :sniff: but we made the most of it with two tables on the go and a variety of games in play.
Gareth,
John (no the other one), Alex and Phil were caught up in a longer than
expected game of Artificium, one of those where there is forever always
"just five more minutes!" to go. In the meantime Tomtoo, David, and
James II joined me for an obscure and little known cycling
game that hit the table through unanimous assent.
We used the
Milano track which has three long straights interspersed with two steep
hills that both have a very short downhill slope - so positioning and
timing were absolutely crucial. James tried to make an early break for
it, shooting ahead with his Sprinteur while the rest of us trailed in a
tight pack that kept blocking some of the back riders from fully using
all their movement. The first hill hit hard as the Peloton stretched out
thin and quickly caught up to James trailblazer but, unfortunately for
his tiring legs, remained in his slipstream.
In the second
straight both David and Tom tried to break away. Although I decided to
be more restrained with my Sprinteur I eventually caved in to peer
pressure and also pedalled hard to catch up - this would ultimately be a
big error as the pack once again juddered to a halt at the next hill
and my Sprinteur was knackered with exhaustion cards from being a loose
link in the approach. As a result I slowly merged back into the pack and
was one sprint card short to boot. After struggling over the crest of
the hill I was on a losing streak with only one decent card buried
amongst fistfulls of angry red ones. Fortunately my Rouleur was faring a
little better and powered over the hill and into the midst of the
leaders as if it were a mere bump in the road.
Coming into the
home straight saw my Rouleur tussling for the lead with David and Tom’s
Sprinteurs. I knew that they both still had a big nine card somewhere in
their decks and when my trusty course-man came within biting distance
of the line with a guaranteed draw of a six card in the following round
the only thing that could stop him sailing into victory would be if Tom
managed to draw his nine. He shuffled and drew and then attempted to
pull his poker face, at which point the rub was in. Cards were revealed
and his Sprinteur elegantly swerved around the waiting line and slid
just past the post to claim the win.
We then busied ourselves
with a few rounds of Rhino Hero to the exhortations of “just five more
minutes!” from the Artificium table, and after about twenty minutes of
this gave up and opened up the next game. The choice this time was 51st
State Master Set, Ignacy Trzewiczeks third attempt at getting his
card-comboing empire-building resource-swapping opus just right (or
fourth if you count the expansion to the original game).
Out of the two
expansion decks in the box I had already mixed in the Winter one which
is geared to a more friendly game of building and sharing resources. As a
result there was no aggression between us, not even a single raised
building, with the only competition being who would first send their
workers into the most favourable open production zones. Both David and
James broke away early in the scoring with nice setups that were
regularly churning a couple of VPs per round, however a turning point
came in the third round where I managed to chain a load of cards
together that saw my score rapidly creep up from single digits up to
just a single point shy of hitting the game-ending target of twenty
five. We went in to the fourth round knowing that it would be the last,
however with no cards left in hand and having gained most of my points
through upgrading buildings rather than spreading further out, it was by
no means a done deal.
James continued to grow his sprawling
empire through a huge production of settlement tokens and I believe that
he gained the most points from tableau size at the end. Tom also
started to expand at a rapid rate, having found a good mix of card draws
and tokens, whereas I continued to focus on banging out VP scoring
actions then upgrading the now useless building. David found himself
caught out in a dwindling spiral as he had neglected to secure enough
bricks to begin upgrading and so kept running out of things to do and
dropped out for an early bath. At the final counting Tom managed to get
within touching distance and there were only three or four points in it
at the end, a close and tense race to the finish. I definitely think
that this is a marked improvement on previous versions (including IS) as
it is much better balanced. I’m looking forward to trying the more
aggressive expansion deck next time, which should ramp up the
interaction and add a whole new dimension with much more incentive for
tableau razing.
As the other table were still playing at this
point - I think they may have changed game by then, but given that we
were still hearing the cry of “just five more minutes!” I have no real
idea what was going on – Tom suggested we try Champions of Midgard, a
game that I’ve heard a lot of positive things about and which sits in a
very similar vein to Lords of Waterdeep but with more interesting and
challenging decisions to be made.
In our particular saga on
Wednesday night Tom set himself up as merchant king, although it was
more like a thieving bastard as his setup allowed him to constantly
swipe all the goodies that were arriving at the harbour without having
to pay for them. James, meanwhile, painted a huge target on his back by
going monster slaying which put him into the lead, and also by creating
early game enmities that would later come back to haunt him. I was
having difficulty figuring out just what the heck I should be doing and
so harvesting resources in preparation for the hope that things would
somehow click for me sooner or later. I also felt the impact of the
random element with a totally fruitless hunting expedition, i.e. a
wasted action in a game with predictably limited opportunities. Tom then
moved onto Troll-slaying, piling shame upon James for abandoning his
people to go swanning off to fancy forrin’ places. I put my horde of
resources to good use by buying my own private boat and used it to cut
down not only a couple of the smaller foe (I was aiming for low hanging
fruit in order to get some bonus scores) but also a deadly Kraken along
the way – all in a days work for your friendly neighbourhood Viking
berserker.
As our halls filled up with bold warriors and our
store rooms bulged with produce the game turned heavily toward questing.
Leaving Tom and James to squabble over who would get to take a shot at
the most glorious expeditions, I instead turned my attention to homeland
security and cut a few trolls and beasties down to size. James had a
bit of a disaster in the final round by botching every single one of his
dice rolls – as he had an ability to add extra hits to successful rolls
he had stretched himself a bit thin and paid the price when his
fighters fell in quick succession. My late start and slow pace paid
dividends in the end, with Tom not too far behind yet still welcome to a
seat at our dining table in Valhalla. James, meanwhile, would likely
end up in the kitchen on the back of this performance
If
this had turned up a few weeks earlier and I had another handful of
games then it might just have snuck on to the back end of my best of
list for this year. Play it again please Tommy!
.....
Wednesday 2nd November
Contributors: Daniel, Tash, David
We started with a real time game of Captain Sonar, good fun shooting at
James' sub which I shall now dub "The fish in a barrel." Our magnificent
vessel, "Jurgen Prochnow's Last Hurrah", entered the fray with a simple
strategy to load and fire torpedos as rapidly as possible. We had a
whale of a time driving in big circles to confuse James II who was on
navigation duty for the opposing side and when we inadvertanly caught
them in the blast from one of our salvos we spiralled in closer behind
them taking chunks out of their hull like a cartoon dog biting the seat
out of their trousers. I couldn't have done it without my magnificent
crew, although clearly in this case success followed great leadership.
.....
So, Last Friday. I was pretty disappointed with my performance as
the Maniac. I'm just not sure I'm really entitled to cut loose on the
game, because my feelings are coloured by the thought that I played the
Maniac badly and therefore gave everyone a nofun game as a result. I
suspect the designer would respond to any criticisms of mine with "That
wouldn't have happend if you had played better". So I apologise for
that.
I feel like Dan gives a good account of the disadvantages I
faced and the general tedium that I experienced in the game after the
brief excitement of Phase 1. Listening to four good gamers debate your
every possible move is NOT a lot of fun when every three turns you have
to tell them EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE NOW. So the prize for a brilliant
escape (Mr X style) is to INSTANTLY REVEAL WHERE AND HOW YOU ARE
SLIPPING THE NET, before you can actually get away.
It was
probably my fault that in Phase 2 I didn't realise that committing
suicide on turn 1 would have had far, far better outcomes for the Maniac
than actually escaping the campers as instructed, allowing them time to
clear away all obstructions and lay down a vast and sprawling
latticework of defences. That might not be true in all games of Last
Friday, but it was true in ours.
It was probably my fault that in
Phase 3, entitled "Massacre" and billed "Protect the Predestined and
run run run from the horrible maniac!!" I didn't realise that without
meticulous Maniac planning, campers can push the Maniac around and
generally pin him in corners with no ill effects.
What I think is most wrong with Last Friday is an equal problem for Maniac and Chasers - everyone's behaviour is totally mechanical and predictable.
You
know how in Scotland Yard, if you're Mr X if you can just get to the
bus stop you can get around behind the guy and get away, except that
you'd put a bus ticket down on your tableau so they'd know that you've
gone by bus and that would give them a big fat clue as to where you
were, so maybe if you do get to the bus stop you should go the other way
on the bus, would that keep them guessing? Would they fall for it? And
if you're the detectives you'd better NOT use the tube again Dave or
we'll be out of tickets you daft bastard and have to wait for Mr X to
use some and Oh My God Sally WHY ARE YOU GOING BY TAXI because I am
saving bus tickets WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU WE HAVE SO MANY BUS
TICKETS etc etc etc
Yeah there's no buses in Last Friday, or
tubes. You get to cross the lake occasionally, that's it. The Maniac
moves number to number and the campers move dot to dot. Very
occasionally you can move an extra number or dot. Some territories are
good for dots. Some are good for numbers.
So I know where you can
go, you know where I can go, nobody can go very far, nobody can go very
fast, as long as you crunch the data, the variables are pretty low.
This actively increases the analysis time as you can actively appraise
all the possibilities both in terms of past and future moves in just a
few minutes.
Let's cross the map, me chasing you! Plod plod plod.
Now it's your turn to chase me! Plod plod plod. Surprise! I popped up
right where you least expect ... no, no I didn't do that. Nope. Didn't.
Unless I spam these tokens I've got. In which case it's not really me is
it? It's just a special power I used that one time. Aha! I totally
outwitted you by... no, no I didn't do that either. Because a
well-trained vole could probably crunch finite permutations available
given the time. And he has the time. All the time he needs. Zzzzzzzzz
.....
The Pillars of the Earth: Builders Duel
This was an incredibly close game between James B and I with the winner
being decided on a tie. I didn't like the first few games I played of
this due to the flipping mechanism of the seals but I've grown to really
enjoy it as it retains just enough elements of the main board game Pillars of the Earth.
I played as Bishop Waleran and went first, James then didn't manage to
wrestle control from me as first player until the last round of cards
which turned out to be a pivotal move. We both managed to build every
part of our castles with James building two parts on his last turn in
thanks to a powerful ally card. So it came down to who had the most
money. James had 2 and I had spent all of mine so James won. A very
close game with some luck for James on the last turn.
Captain Sonar:
This was a fiasco from our side and some luck from the other side. We
had James as captain who unfortunately had a rather motley crew that
consisted of James B who struggled with navigation, myself who didn't
have much of a job other than to tick boxes and Philip who worked the
engine room but whose directions didn't make it to the captain. Added to
this the opposing teams first missile to test the waters hitting us and
it was just a matter of time before we were caught and destroyed. The
only person who can hold their head up high on our team was James, I
fear we as his crew let him down. I think I would prefer the turn based
variant, more strategic, less shouty. Although it was fun.
Imhotep: Everyone was rather keen to play The Last Friday (ahem!) so that left James B, myself and Jon to play Imhotep.
This was light and very fast. It probably only took us 30-40 minutes
but still had plenty of decision making and limited control over where
your (nice big chunky) blocks end up. Much to my consternation that's
what happened to my blocks on more than one occasion thanks to James B,
although he was returning the 'favour'. The scores were fairly close
until the end game scoring where Jon raced into the lead mostly due to
his collection of statues which we really should have stopped him
collecting so many of. In the end Jon won by 10 points over James B and I
was last two points behind James.
Flamme Rouge:
I'll throw this out there now that this is the most fun I've had with a
new game for some time. I think it really nailed cycling without going
overboard and even though it's a simple card driven experience there's a
lot of choices to make. Stick with the pack and hope to race to victory
on the final straight, or race into an early lead and hope you don't
run out of steam. This is what Alex (who had just arrived in time to
join us) did. He went full pelt and made a dash for it. I thought he
would run out of steam early on but with a bit of luck he was using his
exhaustion cards on the down hill sections and it looked as though he
might hang on. Jon, myself and James meanwhile worked our way around the
course in a pack up until the last incline where both Jon and James
made their moves. Something I didn't expect and left me to catch up.
Alex meanwhile was finally running out of momentum with only two spaces
to go. We rounded the corner and on the last turn it was a sprint. Alex
crossed the line first but not far enough, Jon then raced past which
looked like enough to win however James than beat them all as he past
Jon by a single place. I meanwhile chugged over the line and took third
place from Alex. What a great game.
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong:
We ended the evening with three games of this. I started as the
forensic scientist and had to finger Alex as the murder. It was close
but Jon somehow managed to work out that my clue of 'perversion' meant a
video recorder and caught Alex. Second game James B managed to escape
detection partly in thanks due to the poor clue cards Alex was dealt. In
the last game I managed to catch Alex working out quite quickly he was
the murderer. Played this a number of times now and it doesn't get
boring. Good stuff.
.....
Wednesday 9th November
Contributors: Daniel, Jon
Crazy Carts and Fabled Fruit were all on the go so it looked like an
alliterative evening of great games, mad moments and tremendous times
for all. We had a quick fling with Avenue while the fruit chasers
were finishing up. The game was notable for an extended stretch of grey
cards in the midgame that then resulted in the last three rounds
finishing incredibly quickly. Both Raj and James exploited this well to
set themselves up for big scores and continuous builds, whereas the rest
of us simply floundered. Raj somehow managed to better his big mid-game
scoring round to get a huge step ahead, and James also did very well by
playing the game properly and extending his routes each time rather
than producing a mad scribble. One of them won, but I can't remember who
so choose your favourite.
I rather hilariously blocked out one
of the castles in my first two moves which rewarded me with the doofus
of the night award, although I still managed to score more than either
John or David despite my best attempts to ruin my own scoring.
Tom had brought along Dream Home (formerly, and in fact
still currently, known as Domek) which I have had my eye on for some
time so was delighted to get in on a game along with Jon. It's a swift
and light game with a charming everyday setting that is very appealing
and beautifully presented. In comparison to other recent featherlight
family games such as the big box ones Haba have been putting out, this
has the decency to keep the gameplay short and engaging and avoids
becoming a repetitive activity as a result.
The nicest aspect is
the core mechanism of planning the market for the round. In a family
game I can see this taking on the angle of making sure that everybody
has access to something that they want, so almost a co-operative edge in
helping everybody build their 'dream home'. However, when you sit down
with grizzled gamers it takes on a whole new edge of tactically screwing
each other over, resulting in bitter enmities and simmering grudges. As
of such there is an edge to this game so dark that it could have been
crafted by Frank Miller in a gloomy room in the middle of an overcast
night.
Tom went straight for some basement rooms, digging out a
big garage to fill with all his junk (like all those boxes of failed
filler games - ahem hem), and while Jon was making Laurence Llewyllen
Bowen proud with his tastefully decorated living room I chose to focus
on what I am sure you will all agree is the most important part of any
home - the games room. Despite hitting the wall in the mid game with a
shabby half-finished basement (thanks Tom, you total git) I was able to
string together a few scoring combos although hampered myself a little
with my amazing walk-through pantry in the middle of the kitchen. Tom
won in the end after Jon forgot to put a roof on top of his house,
turning the entire top floor into a rather elegant swimming pool.
The
three of us then moved onto Imhotep, an old-school Euro design that is
basically an entire game based around point-salad scoring. It's like a Euro-gaming orgasm where you literally just push cubes to score points.
You either
stick a block on a boat or sail a boat that is ready to leave, and when
you sail a boat you decide its destination. All the blocks unload in
order with some locations giving an immediate score, others at the end
of every round, and still more that score only at the end. Every scoring
mechanism is slightly different with the one commonality that the order
that the blocks go down is absolutely crucial. There is enough tactical
consideration as to when and where you think boats are likely to go to
keep the game interesting to play without being overloaded by nonsense
decision making, and a deck of bonus scoring cards that you can
sometimes pick from and which can be surprisingly pivotal if used well.
There
was a little bit of that typical points counting drag going on in the
final round trying to gauge which variation of one or two points here or
there was going to make more of a difference, and this is definitely in
flag-waving Euro territory, but I quite liked it all the same as it had
the feeling of getting back to the root of good Euro design circa ten
years ago before the animal started to eat itself.
Jon had a
convincing victory with both Tom and I tied a few points behind - I
think that Tom overscored me at one point and he actually came in ahead
but then again I totally failed to digest one of the scoring mechanisms
and completely cocked up a couple of moves that ended up being fairly
awful for me. Can't really tell you much about what happened in the game
itself as it's not the sort of game that is filled with thrills and
spills - you are literally just moving cubes to score VPs after all -
but I would definitely play again, maybe with one or two of the
alternate scoring boards which, despite being a mixed bag, looks like
there a couple of gems in there.
7 Blunders followed - even
better than last time I think as we started experimenting with different
strategies. Dave went for all-out military which we had mused would be a
great way to buy into non-scoring cards that nobody else wants in
return for an affordable 18pt hit. The upside of this appraoch is that
the lack of resources means you get to force yourself into selling cards
a few times which is great as it's only a 1pt hit each time you do that
(my suggestion of a build is that you keep any sold cards to the side
and take additional VP according to the era of the card, although all
the free builds do tend to mean that it isn't easy to put yourself into a
position to sell cards very often). It worked well for him alhough he
couldn't quite keep up with Jon's glorious failure to score many points
which led him to success.
I came in second last after
experimenting with heavy blue, but cashing in at an average of four or
five points per card isn't great and I was hindered by a 20pt hit as a
result. As the Colossus I would have been far better off going down the
military route. I also see that there is a lot of value in collecting
science so long as you never make a full set - with two matching cards
they are only hitting you for 2pts each which is a great return. Really
loving this variant as there is so much more to think about than the
regular game, and looking forward to another play!
We finished up
with two rounds of Temple of Shrieking Tommies, which is a superior
upgrade on Time Bomb in every single way, mainly due to the simple yet
pivotal change of putting a second fail card into the mix. This tiny
change utterly transforms the experience from a ho-hum anti-climax as
it's the point where you think you've fingered one of the
guardians/bombers/werewolves/whatever that things get interesting from
the perspective of social deduction. It's madness to suddenly stop the
game right there and then. Would play this over the original any day,
but at the same time think I would still much prefer to be playing
Saboteur, Diamant, Good Cop Bad Cop, or Nanuk for a big end of evening
game. It's good to know that we have another option available though
.....
After a slightly underwhelming first shot at Fabled Fruit
a couple of weeks ago, Tom & Jon were keen to give it another go,
but this time progressing further into the deck. They co-opted Phil, and
then TomToo, and ended up playing 3 games - and this time it was loads
better.
It turns out that the 6 starting decks of cards are
fairly uninteresting, and are there to just get you started. Once the
other decks start appearing, with the market starting to come into play,
it gets much better. One card allows you to steal from the player with
the most cards, which helps to curb the 'collect a fistful of cards and
then just buy fabled juices in consecutive turns' strategy. It also gets
more difficult to collect the right cards to buy the juices, as Tom
& Jon both found when they had plenty of cards, but couldn't match a
single fabled juice recipe.
Definitely a game not to 'reset'
back to the starting decks, unless you are playing with a group of
non-gamers for the first time. We got up to deck 12 I think, so shed
loads more to explore - and I'm looking forward to it...
.....
Wednesday 16th November
Contributors: Tom, Jon, David
Jon - please bring Fabled Fruit
to every game night. If you do, I will happily say bollocks to
marking, planning or parents' evenings. It's a glorious thing
especially as things become more difficult with managing your hand (damn
that kangaroo) and blocking strategies make themselves more wildly
known (Tom 2's pineapple loving tapir is no longer safe). One of my
favourites of the year so far - along with Avenue which made a very
satisfying closer.
In Avenue, I thought that I was doing rather
well until I saw Jon's rather miraculous loop which seemed to take him
through every grape field. The less said about Phil's atrocious
attempts at road building, the better.
Dream Home was great again
- Sarah bought lots of decor, Jon managed to actually build a roof and
my house looked a total mess. All I can remember is that I lost -
convincingly.
Flamme Rouge was tremendous fun too. A rules light
concoction with a lot of tension. I managed a win with a late sprint
despite Jon having reached the brow of the gigantic final hill one turn
ahead of me. I look forward to playing this again very soon - the one
thing that I am concerned about however is how much I am playing the
game and how much it is playing me.
All told - a five star evening of gaming! Actually, make that six stars as I got a hug from Neil.
.....
Fabled Fruit
Thanks to Tom's enthusiasm, this game came out
again for another couple of rounds. It really does become more and more
interesting as it progresses, with new cards coming out that work in
different ways. The bonuses from most cards also appear to be getting
more marginal, which makes the choice of where to go much more
interesting. More interaction has also been added, with advantages often
gained from having a low number of cards in hand - all adding up to
create a nicely evolving system. Could be a good evening-opener for a
few weeks to come...
Splendor
Long time
since I've played this. I'd forgotten how lovely the chips were to clink
in your hands. I'd also forgotten how incredibly 'samey' each game
feels. Don't get me wrong, I did really enjoy it (and won, as it
happens), but I would happily put it back on the shelf for another few
months before playing again.
Dream Home
3-player house
construction with Tom, Jon & Sarah. This super-filler is lots of
fun, with gorgeous artwork. This time, Tom had a bit of a mare, Jon at
least stuck a (albeit multicoloured) roof in place, but Sarah was the
best home planner and took the win.
Flamme Rouge
Great fun
seeing Neil's sprinter attempt a breakaway over the mountains, only to
come puffing to a relative standstill and get overtaken by the entire
field before the last hill. Really close finish between Jon, Sarah and
Tom, with Tom just crossing the finish line first after an epic race.
Lots of legs in this game - I'm 8 games in and just want more.
Avenue
Karuba
with less pieces. Jon managed to complete a lovely circular route in
the last round and mopped up most of the grapes in the region. Phil's
path was a little more 'fragmented', - have we finally found a chink in
this man's gaming armour??? Fun game that is also very portable in a
'holiday-friendly' kinda way...
.....
Neil kindly bought along Splendor as I mentioned it was one of the games I was eager to play
on my geeklist that had somehow passed me by. In the first game with
Neil, myself, Charlotte and James B I managed to beat James by a couple
of points. In the second game later in the evening between myself, James
B and Phil I came second behind James this time. It was nice to finally
have played it and what a lovely game. So simple and never outstays its
welcome.
I also played Key to the City – London
thanks to Neil again as it was another game, well Keyflower, on my
geeklist that I expressed a desire to play. It looks great and as
someone who loves London the theme is perfect. Would like to try regular
Keyflower at some stage but I think Key to the City – London
is the version for me. Phil won this with a hefty score of 99 with Neil
not far behind on 96(ish) James B and I then came someway off in the
60s. Even though I ran out of steam on the last turn I enjoyed it
immensely.
There was also a game of The Great Dalmuti
with a few of us at the start of the evening. We need a special hat for
the The Great Dalmuti to wear. He would also need to order the peasants
about more to fully get into character.
.....
Wednesday 30th November
Contributors: Daniel, Tom, Jon
Last night started well with the always excellent Plus Minus, then
followed by Cat-in-a-Box or whatever, an offbeat quirky filler which Tom
was all excited about playing (never a great sign). My thoughts on this
one? :flush:
I then twisted Jon's arm into teaching me Flamme Rouge which I will for now briefly sum up in one word: Exceptional! This is totally heading for my game of the year, what a wonderful and fun game that cleverly eschews obfusciating proceedings with convoluted rules and instead sticks very firmly to weighting all the decision making and considerations into the actual gameplay - how novel!
We
got on our bicycles for two games in a row, in the first I was pipped
into second place on a tie-breaker to John and in the second by a nose
to Jon. In the latter race Jon only got ahead of me because I
redundantly raced my Sprinteur into the home straight which dragged him
along in the peloton - if I had kept my Sprinteur back in the pack then
my Rouleur would have cruised firmly into first place, so lots to learn
in this one and a ton of fun along the way.
Jon and Phil then
joined me for World's Fair 1893, which seems to play very differently
depending on the player count. The scoring isn't particularly intuitive
but once you get going there are plenty of challenging decisions along
the way. With three players, compared to my previous experience of this
as a two player game, there is the unknown buffer of how things shift
between each of your turns that is harder to account for in any long
range plans. Depending on how the tickets come out you might only have
two or three actions at most in a round so need to be quite dynamic in
your choices - this clicked for me in the last round where I focussed
very heavily on getting a clear first or second majority in the three
areas that would allow me to build a second complete set of attractions.
Getting the helper characters into hand was pivotal for this approach
so I took mainly sub-optimal choices in the last round purely to load up
cubes on the areas that I needed. This gave me a clear victory margin
of twenty-odd points along with the stack of rosettes that I collected
as a by-product of this strategy.
Finished up with Temple of
Shrieking Tommies again. The first couple of rounds were fairly
uneventful with everybody seemingly honest about what they had and a
good balance of a handful of treasure and a single fire trap coming into
play. By the third round the evil gravedigging gold hunters looked like
they were getting too close to finding all the gold so, as a proud
downtrodden native, I bluffed that I had treasure and let them waste a
couple of turns digging into my uselessly empty coffers. When I figured I
had pushed the ruse as far as it would go I tipped my hand by testing
out Jon who claimed he had fire, alas to no avail and putting beyond
doubt that I was on the opposing side.
The final round came down
to a cliff hanger. Raj knew that I was one of the natives along with
'Mr. Cool' Phil who had snuck under the radar right up until that final
round, and was convinced that one of us had the final treasure. With the
very last card of the game he had a one in four chance of getting it
right and of course I was delighted when he came after me as I had two
empty rooms sat in front of me. A default win for the natives then, and a
fun time again with this flavour of the month end of evening favourite
filler.
.....
I think me being excited about Cat Box
may be over-egging the pudding. A decent filler game which may work
better with smaller numbers. Not one for the club though I fear.
Whilst
Dan was being bitten by the Flamme Rouge bug (don't worry my Boys, I'll
be back with you soon enough), I was having a rather delightful game of
City of Spies: Estoril 1942
with Raj and James II. A deck building, area majority hybrid which a
cracking spy theme, we all had great fun with this one. At the end, my
Zsa Zsa Gabor seduced Raj's chess nerd Alexander Alexhine to go for a
pleasant walk along Devil's Chasm before pushing him into the Atlantic.
*splash* Unfortunately, this wasn't quite enough as Raj pipped me for
one point after we shared a few mission goals. Damn it, Zsa Zsa, you
were supposed to kill the Spanish diplomat! 
Following this, was a nice runthrough the new card game hotness Honshu which plays out like a cross between Pi mal Pflaumen
(i.e. when is a trick taker not a trick taker?) and Limes. It cantered
along very nicely with James II being the ultimate victor. I lost by
one point again when James gazumped me on the final auction and stole
the high scoring fish factory card; he didn't even want the bleeding
factory but was bolstering his building of the behemoth Lake James II.
Grrr.
Another lovely evening - bollocks to marking and planning lessons etc. etc. etc.
.....
For the 23rd, my memory isn't great, but I do remember a few rounds of Fabled Fruit (gets more interesting with each play) and the ubiquitous Flamme Rouge.
However, this week we tried Flamme Rouge
with 3 players, which, if anything, made it even more tactical. With 3
players, it is less likely that the peleton will consistently slipstream
along as a single bunch, and there is the risk that riders can be
easily dropped off the back and pick up exhaustion cards. We played the
routes with some tricky mountains, which make the decisions even more
interesting. Dan was a definite convert, so this game isn't going into
the 'Where are they now?' vault anytime soon... 
Dan then pulled out World's Fair 1893
with the words "You'll like this one, Jon." I wasn't so sure, as when
I'd seen people playing it before, it looked a bit complicated with lots
of cards with lots of text on them (which is one of my gaming turn-offs
- 
)
However, it turns out that all of it is flavour text, and that the game
itself is a brilliant but simple sub-hour euro. Place a cube in a
certain area. Pick up the corresponding cards. Maybe play a special
advisor card. Your turn is over. Hoppity-skip, even for an AP-prone
curmudgeon like myself.
Dan clearly knew what he was doing, and
used his special advisors to very good effect, winning a lot of
majorities and plenty of points into the bargain - romping to victory.
And he was right - I did like this one...!
(but as always, I did have to check the rules later, and found that we
were playing a couple wrong. In James' absence, even the ever-reliable
Dan feels the need to eschew the rules as written for a more free-form
experience 
)
Ed - Yes indeed, the rules that we specifically misplayed were placing a worker on every area at the start and
not being able to keep helpers beyond your following turn (although
I'll let Tommy take the credit for the latter boo-boo). I hereby declare
my magnificent victory null and void for all those counting at home
(Gareth), but I suspect the final score would still have been the same
.....
