Just a quick note, on the offchance that anyone might show up anyway, but this is just to say that there will be no meeting on December 24th or 31st. The next meeting will be January 7th.
I will be shortly be bringing things up to date for the year 2008, including notes on the last few sessions and the stats for the year.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Session Summary – 19 November 2008
5 players this week, which was a good number for Amun-Re. Looking back at my records I see that my previous play of this game was in December 2006, so I was well past due for another game, based on my usual thought that once every 6 months is a good rate.
After the old kingdom, Dave C had already moved into a good lead with 19 points, I think the usual 3 pyramids in a set, with most on one side of the Nile, 2 power cards and a temple. I think Mike was next up on 13 with the other majority, followed by Andy on 8, and Ben & I tied on 6, I had been unable to secure any useful power cards at that point, but I was holding 3, which I hoped to use in the new kingdom.
The new kingdom was a very fertile time, Andy had 17 farmers, while I had 12 and between us we were able to ensure that the income was at least 3 throughout, whereas it had not got above 2 in the old kingdom. I came unstuck on turn 5, when I placed a 0 point bid on Thebes (a good province, coming with 2 power cards) in the expectation that I would be able to move and grab a more useful province later. I was somewhat surprised that I was left with it, as players decided that they would not spend that round, I think the highest spend for any of the 5 provinces was 1. In normal circumstances I would have been happy to get such a province for nothing, but as things were it rendered 2 of my saved power cards useless. In the final round I made what turned out to be a mistake when buying stuff, I bought 4 building stones, which with a builder card allowed me to build a 4th pyramid in one province and leave 2 stone in another. I expected the 4 pyramids would frighten off any challenge for majority on my side of the Nile and I would be able to complete the pyramid in the other province (and a set) after the sacrifice. I should have bought another stone however because Ben did it across me by spending all his money to build to 5 pyramids in another province on the same side, so I was forced to use all my 3 picks from winning the sacrifice to build a 5th pyramid to match Ben, leaving the second pyramid (and a set) in the other province incomplete, so losing 2nd place (it was already fairly obvious at this stage that Dave was going to win). I may also have been better off spending a couple more in the sacrifice forcing the harvest up to 4, which would have earned me a couple more temple points.
In the final scoring Andy had most money (about 80) from Dave, them me (both of us in the 40's), leaving a dominant victory for Dave C.
Amun-Re 120 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Dave C
|
1
|
42
|
Andy
|
2
|
36
|
Dave D
|
3
|
33
|
Mike
|
4
|
32
|
Ben
|
5
|
26
|
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Midcon 2008 by Dave D
Midcon is over, over the course of the weekend I played 16 games, including first plays of 5. Other members of the club present at various times included Mike, Dave & Ben, Julian, Andy, Steve Perkins and Paul. I also met a few new people and also saw many old acquaintances from other conventions. This is a brief rundown of what I did over the weekend and is based entirely on memory, so I will not rule out any errors in the following, also apologies to anyone other than regulars who may be reading this and who's name I may have forgotten.
FRIDAY
I arrived just after 1 o'clock in the afternoon and had a wander around the Wroxton suite, where there were quite a few games going on even at this early stage. After wandering I approached the table in the corner of the room near the bar where Dominion was being played and asked if I could watch which was no problem. After one game one of the participants left and I accepted the invitation to join in. The previous game had been played with the card combination suggested for the first game and Chris who's game it was wanted to try a random distribution, I had no great problem with this so it was in at the deep end for my first game, although I did get to try with the "basic" set later on in the con. I ended up playing 5 games of Dominion during the afternoon, the first 2 being with Chris, Phil & Becky. Phil, who I believe was also new to the game was very impressed by it and also picked it up very quickly, winning his second game (my first) after coming close in the first game. I actually won my second game as well, in a strange selection of cards including the thief, but also (as Chris explained) a number of anti thief cards. Having had the fear of God put into us about the thief stealing our treasure, the game followed what, on the evidence of the other games I played was a strange pattern, with very little treasure taken and as result few provinces. The thief was also never taken. I won by using Villages with workshops to grab Gardens, the game being ended by running out 3 of the supply piles.
After 2 games of Dominion, Richard Dewsbury joined us and we played a lap of Powerboats. This is a race game involving a modular board representing a lake with small islands in it and you have to follow a course such that you pass by a number of buoys on the correct side, you have to thread your way between the islands in the most effective way. The boats are controlled using some interesting looking 3 sided dice, which were apparently made for it (these are very nice, but the same effect could have been obtained using 6 sided dice with duplicated sides). You start the game rolling one die and each turn you roll the same number or can add or subtract 1 die, in addition you can leave any number of the previously rolled dice on the same number, rather than reroll them, which adds a small amount of control. The problem I found (and Phil even more so than me) was that it seemed that to weave between the islands, rolling exactly the number you needed was often critical, one over or one under could result in crashing into an island or having to stamp on the brakes such that you lose vital momentum. I forget who won this one, I was fourth, the game is supposed to be played over 3 races, with each worth more than the previous one, but we knocked it on the head at that point Phil had had enough and I was not over impressed either.
More people had arrived at this stage was we now split into 2 groups, each playing Dominion, Richard moved over to the other table with his set, although he had only brought the "basic" cards. We played 3 more games during the afternoon with Julian joining us later on. After this people decided to stop for something to eat and, as I was not staying in the hotel that evening, I headed home at that point. What did I think of Dominion? Well it's OK, the secret is to put together a deck with combinations in it that will help you, while not clogging it with useless cards so your combinations stand a chance of coming up. The problem seems to me, that despite the multiple ways of getting there, it all boils down in the end to getting the scoring cards as this is the only way to win points. Also with 4 players (which all the games I played were), even at about 30 minutes length, some of the games played felt a bit too long. I can see playing this as a single game at the beginning or end of a session, but not multiples, like we played here. Maybe my opinion would be different for games with fewer players.
Ratings for Friday: Dominion – 7/10, Powerboats 4/10.
SATURDAY
Arrived at about 10 o'clock and again joined up with Richard and Phil form the day before, this time to give Le Havre a try. I have been interested, but certainly on first play it did not seem to click. I'm not exactly sure what you are supposed to represent in the game, presumably some kind of entrepreneur in the town, but each turn you add certain goods to supply spaces and can then take an action which can either to be collect supplies or move your person disc into a building and take the action associated with that building, which may include building new buildings or ship, gaining further supplies or converting supplies into other types or into money (which is also VP). At the end of each round of which there are 12 in the 4 player shortened game that we played, there is often a harvest when extra cattle and grain may be collected as well as food from ships and then, whether or not there has been a harvest the workers must be fed. The amount of food needed starts low but by the end of the game has grown to problematic levels. The big issue I have with the game is the limited options. There is only 1 supply space for each type of goods and if you take supplies you can't use a building action. This is compounded by the fact that if you take supplies, your disc is left in the building it is currently occupies, so even though you are not using the building you are still blocking its use by other players. Both I & Richard found ourselves desperately scrabbling for food at the end of the game because people were already sitting on buildings we could have used to feed our men more efficiently. I have since realised that I could have improved my own situation by selling my own building, so turfing out the sitting tenant allowing me to use it myself, but the idea that I have to sell my own building to allow me to use it does not seem a good mechanic to me. I have to say that my first play was probably tainted by the fact that the game was interrupted several times, so probably lasted longer than it should have, but even so this was supposed to be the shortened game. I will give this one more play and if that is not a better experience that's it.
Next up was a single game of Dominion, followed after lunch by Jet Set introduced by Richard with Phil, Mike & Julian. In this one you run an airline and I'm not actually sure of the thematic logic, but on each turn you have an action, where you can claim links by placing planes, claim routes (which give VP and income) by having planes on each link of the route (and then removing them) or claim income from routes you have claimed previously. You also have a final flight route card which is worth up to 20 VP (if you are first to claim yours), which can't be played until the second vacation card comes up. Once a player plays a final flight the game has 5 turns to go and those who have played final flight no longer have a normal turn, but simply add a plane to the flight, so that's a maximum of 5 planes each worth 2 VP. My view, only one action per turn made it far too pedestrian. It didn't take long until I was pretty bored, so I finished my final flight and then tried to force the second vacation card by drawing more short route cards. This worked and I was immediately able to play my final flight, starting the countdown. The fact that this also won me the game did not improve my opinion of it.
The rest of the game was known games, after a quick game of Dominion, a game of Power Grid with Mike, David Norman and 1 other (Richard I think). We played this on China, which I think may be becoming my favourite board (although Mike prefers Korea) I won on the tie break with 17 Elektros to David's 16 and Mike on 12, so quite a close game. We split into 2 groups with Mike, David & another playing Mykerinos, while Steve Perkins joined Richard? & I for Saint Petersburg with expansion. Again this was a close game with Steve beating me despite having 1 fewer aristocrat. Interesting play ensued, with Steve taking the Textile Factory into hand although it was worth nothing to him (he had no shepherds) to prevent me (to who it was worth 10 points a turn) from having it, but due to its clogging his hand he used Away with it! to discard after one Building phase and I was then able to pick it up in the following Building Phase using the Debtor's Prison. The expansion certainly adds a lot to this game and I have now moved it into my Top 10.
After that I played no more and spent the rest of the time wandering and watching, including Dave C game of Red Dragon Inn (this does look fun) and also World of Warcraft the Adventure Game on another table. I was interested in this as I have bought a copy for my niece and nephew at Christmas in an attempt to educate them that there is more to games than the computer variety (a forlorn hope I suspect).
Ratings for Saturday: Le Havre 5/10, Jet Set 3/10, Dominion 7/10, Power Grid 10/10, St. Petersburg 9/10
SUNDAY
I don't think I got more than a couple of hours sleep in the night due to the traffic going by outside, so was up bright and early. After breakfast I grabbed a table in the Wroxton suite and filled with the Bolide board and sat studying the rules, which I suspect are not the greatest translation from Italian. When Dave & Ben came back from breakfast, we tried a few turns, before digging Nottingham out when Rob & Tony (see Dave's report) arrived. This is always a fund game and I think I've played it most at Midcon over the years; I again won on the tie break.
After that, Race for the Galaxy, again without the goals, which I want to introduce next time I get to play without new players. I had Earth's Lost Colony to start and an initial hand consisting of Mining League, Mining Robots and a couple of Rare Mineral worlds, throughout the rest of the game I was able to add Mining Conglomerate and more Rare Worlds, so Mining League was worth 13 points at the end and I was also able to make good points by consuming the goods at x2. I had a handy win from Tony, who got the hand of the game quickly and finished it by building a 12th Tableau card, although I only had 9 cards on the table.
After that Mike showed up, he had been playing 18GA in the Ariel suite and seems confident that it should play in an evening, so we must try that some Wednesday. We then all played the 6 player game of Bolide Dave mentioned. As I said in my comment on his piece, I think perhaps fewer players would have been better, unless everyone knows exactly what they are doing; the game certainly bears further play however.
After that it was time to pack up and go, it was an enjoyable weekend, but the new games I played seemed to confirm what I suspected before, that this year's Essen did not produce a vintage crop.
Ratings for Sunday: Nottingham 7/10, Race for the Galaxy 10/10, Bolide 6/10
Friday, 21 November 2008
MidCon 2008
MidCon 2008
Dave Cooper (Brass Jester)
Another year rolled round and Ben and I headed off to MidCon. We arrived around 10.30 on the Saturday, this time coming in on the train from Cradley Heath. Our room was ready when we arrived, so we took the case upstairs, then headed down to the Wroxton. It transpired that our name badges had gone missing overnight, but we were wearing Halesowen Boardgamers T-shirts. Said hi to lots of people; Halesowen was well represented with me, Ben, Dave D, Mike, Andy and Julian. Met up with Richard Denning, who introduced Ben and I to Red November, a game of trying to survive on a crippled Gnomish submarine (!). The aim is to survive an hour (game-time) against all the disasters happening to the sub. It ended when Ben had to defuse the malfunctioning nuclear missiles; to do so he had to drink a bottle of vodka ( to give him courage to enter the burning compartment); he put the fire out but then passed out due to the vodka, so the missiles exploded, killing everyone, with only four minutes to go! A fun game; could easily be turned into a participation game.
Mike then joined us and we played Colossal Arena, has been around for a long time under the name Titan: The Arena. Ben and I headed for Bishop Games stand; Ben bought Super Munchkin and I bought After the Flood (Martin Wallace’s latest). After this, Richard introduced a prototype game for playtesting. Called London 1667, it was about the Great Fire of London. Basically, played on a map of medieval London; the fire is raging and spreading via play of cards by each player. You are trying to protect your properties (distributed at random on the map at start) at the expense of your rivals; plus you have Secret Objectives to gain extra Victory Points. It was mentioned that the Great Fire was in 1666; maybe it broke out again. We played two games of this, tried a short game of Super Munchkin with Dave (?), then broke for tea. Deciding not to risk the hotel’s horrendous prices, Ben and I went up town to Kentucky Fried Mollusc
On the way back; I was stopped by the police! It transpired that the officer knew me from 20+ years ago, when I worked at Halesowen Jobcentre; he used to be on the training side.
Back at the hotel we met up with two guys from Swansea, Rob and his nephew Tony. It was their first MidCon and they were keen to try lots of different games. We were joined by Paul (from Telford, a frequent visitor to Halesowen Boardgamers) and introduced them to Power Grid, on the American board, using the original deck. Paul won, Tony was second and the rest of us tied. Ben was third, Rob fourth and I was last on the money. Tony and Rob went for something to eat (I gather they’d had a marathon session of Arkham Horror at the hands of Great Cthulhu himself (aka Nick Kinzett).) They left Ben and I playing The Awful Green Things from Outer Space, a re-release of a game I first saw given away in Dragon magazine sometime in the ‘70s. I was the crew of the spaceship, Ben was the Awful Green Things that swarm and multiply. I get to use lots of potential weapons, but the fun thing is that you don’t know what the weapon’s effect on the Awful Green Things is until you use it (determined by a chit draw). Some cause them to multiply and spread faster! My last ditch defence was hurling drums of fuel out of the engines at them. Special mention must be given to the marine with the pool cue who attacked an adult Awful Green Thing on Round One and finally fell around Round 20! Eventually my entire crew was eaten.
Rob and Tony had returned so they got out a game called The Red Dragon Inn. This is a fantasy drinking game; you are brave adventurers relaxing in the Inn after your latest adventure and you are having a drinking contest. Your Fortitude starts at 20, your Alcohol at 0. If the two ever meet then you are passed out under the table. Each player runs a character with a unique set of cards; you play these to do Actions, then drink your Drinks card. Unless you can avoid the effects; you get steadily more drunk. I was playing the Priestess and managed to change wine to water a few times to keep sober; Tony went out first; Rob was barely hanging on; he survived a nasty drinking contest with Ben so I offered him a drink to help him recover! That left Ben; another drinking contest and a Water to Wine spell took Ben out. A fun game. There is another game (Red Dragon 2) that is stand-alone but can be combined to take the players up to 8.
By now it was about 01:30 and the Wroxton was emptying. We arranged to meet up the following morning, then Ben and I turned in.
Sunday, breakfast was excellent as usual, then we checked out and returned to the Wroxton. Tony and Rob arrived and we were joined by Dave D from Halesowen Boardgamers. We started off with Nottingham, which was close-run but Ben eventually won with 60+ gold. Ben then went off to play Galaxy Trucker with Tim (?), a game he’s wanted to try for some time. The rest of us played Race for the Galaxy, another new one for Rob and Tony. Dave D won this. Ben was busy winning Galaxy Trucker so I headed out to get some lunch. I watched the prototype of Steam being played on the next table with Martin Wallace, Richard Drewsbery and a couple of others who I’ve met before but whose names I can’t recall.
In the afternoon, rejoined by Ben and Mike, we played Bolide. This is a motor racing game with an intriguing vector movement system. You move your car, then the ‘bolide’ marker moves ahead from your car, mirroring the exact move the car just did. On your next turn, your car can move to any of the legal 25 vertices surrounding the bolide, thus steering, braking and acceleration are all handled. The bolide then moves again and so on. It takes some planning to move to keep the bolide where you want it for your next move and it is very easy to find yourself heading at full speed off the track. I liked the bolide idea and have already adapted it for a space combat game (Full Thrust, if anyone’s interested)’ but I found the game was way too long to play and quite fiddly with several players, it also helps if you can keep vector mechanics in you head. The race lasts two laps of the circuit, we played for over three hours and only managed one. Maybe if the circuit was shorter, but this would need a complete redraw of the map.
This was the last game we played, we said our goodbyes and headed home on the bus.
Overall, this was one of the best MidCon’s we’d attended. It was Ben’s second one and he really enjoyed it. After The Flood looks really good, I played a solo set up on the Sunday evening prior to introducing it at the club.
Dave Cooper (Brass Jester)
Another year rolled round and Ben and I headed off to MidCon. We arrived around 10.30 on the Saturday, this time coming in on the train from Cradley Heath. Our room was ready when we arrived, so we took the case upstairs, then headed down to the Wroxton. It transpired that our name badges had gone missing overnight, but we were wearing Halesowen Boardgamers T-shirts. Said hi to lots of people; Halesowen was well represented with me, Ben, Dave D, Mike, Andy and Julian. Met up with Richard Denning, who introduced Ben and I to Red November, a game of trying to survive on a crippled Gnomish submarine (!). The aim is to survive an hour (game-time) against all the disasters happening to the sub. It ended when Ben had to defuse the malfunctioning nuclear missiles; to do so he had to drink a bottle of vodka ( to give him courage to enter the burning compartment); he put the fire out but then passed out due to the vodka, so the missiles exploded, killing everyone, with only four minutes to go! A fun game; could easily be turned into a participation game.
Mike then joined us and we played Colossal Arena, has been around for a long time under the name Titan: The Arena. Ben and I headed for Bishop Games stand; Ben bought Super Munchkin and I bought After the Flood (Martin Wallace’s latest). After this, Richard introduced a prototype game for playtesting. Called London 1667, it was about the Great Fire of London. Basically, played on a map of medieval London; the fire is raging and spreading via play of cards by each player. You are trying to protect your properties (distributed at random on the map at start) at the expense of your rivals; plus you have Secret Objectives to gain extra Victory Points. It was mentioned that the Great Fire was in 1666; maybe it broke out again. We played two games of this, tried a short game of Super Munchkin with Dave (?), then broke for tea. Deciding not to risk the hotel’s horrendous prices, Ben and I went up town to Kentucky Fried Mollusc
On the way back; I was stopped by the police! It transpired that the officer knew me from 20+ years ago, when I worked at Halesowen Jobcentre; he used to be on the training side.
Back at the hotel we met up with two guys from Swansea, Rob and his nephew Tony. It was their first MidCon and they were keen to try lots of different games. We were joined by Paul (from Telford, a frequent visitor to Halesowen Boardgamers) and introduced them to Power Grid, on the American board, using the original deck. Paul won, Tony was second and the rest of us tied. Ben was third, Rob fourth and I was last on the money. Tony and Rob went for something to eat (I gather they’d had a marathon session of Arkham Horror at the hands of Great Cthulhu himself (aka Nick Kinzett).) They left Ben and I playing The Awful Green Things from Outer Space, a re-release of a game I first saw given away in Dragon magazine sometime in the ‘70s. I was the crew of the spaceship, Ben was the Awful Green Things that swarm and multiply. I get to use lots of potential weapons, but the fun thing is that you don’t know what the weapon’s effect on the Awful Green Things is until you use it (determined by a chit draw). Some cause them to multiply and spread faster! My last ditch defence was hurling drums of fuel out of the engines at them. Special mention must be given to the marine with the pool cue who attacked an adult Awful Green Thing on Round One and finally fell around Round 20! Eventually my entire crew was eaten.
Rob and Tony had returned so they got out a game called The Red Dragon Inn. This is a fantasy drinking game; you are brave adventurers relaxing in the Inn after your latest adventure and you are having a drinking contest. Your Fortitude starts at 20, your Alcohol at 0. If the two ever meet then you are passed out under the table. Each player runs a character with a unique set of cards; you play these to do Actions, then drink your Drinks card. Unless you can avoid the effects; you get steadily more drunk. I was playing the Priestess and managed to change wine to water a few times to keep sober; Tony went out first; Rob was barely hanging on; he survived a nasty drinking contest with Ben so I offered him a drink to help him recover! That left Ben; another drinking contest and a Water to Wine spell took Ben out. A fun game. There is another game (Red Dragon 2) that is stand-alone but can be combined to take the players up to 8.
By now it was about 01:30 and the Wroxton was emptying. We arranged to meet up the following morning, then Ben and I turned in.
Sunday, breakfast was excellent as usual, then we checked out and returned to the Wroxton. Tony and Rob arrived and we were joined by Dave D from Halesowen Boardgamers. We started off with Nottingham, which was close-run but Ben eventually won with 60+ gold. Ben then went off to play Galaxy Trucker with Tim (?), a game he’s wanted to try for some time. The rest of us played Race for the Galaxy, another new one for Rob and Tony. Dave D won this. Ben was busy winning Galaxy Trucker so I headed out to get some lunch. I watched the prototype of Steam being played on the next table with Martin Wallace, Richard Drewsbery and a couple of others who I’ve met before but whose names I can’t recall.
In the afternoon, rejoined by Ben and Mike, we played Bolide. This is a motor racing game with an intriguing vector movement system. You move your car, then the ‘bolide’ marker moves ahead from your car, mirroring the exact move the car just did. On your next turn, your car can move to any of the legal 25 vertices surrounding the bolide, thus steering, braking and acceleration are all handled. The bolide then moves again and so on. It takes some planning to move to keep the bolide where you want it for your next move and it is very easy to find yourself heading at full speed off the track. I liked the bolide idea and have already adapted it for a space combat game (Full Thrust, if anyone’s interested)’ but I found the game was way too long to play and quite fiddly with several players, it also helps if you can keep vector mechanics in you head. The race lasts two laps of the circuit, we played for over three hours and only managed one. Maybe if the circuit was shorter, but this would need a complete redraw of the map.
This was the last game we played, we said our goodbyes and headed home on the bus.
Overall, this was one of the best MidCon’s we’d attended. It was Ben’s second one and he really enjoyed it. After The Flood looks really good, I played a solo set up on the Sunday evening prior to introducing it at the club.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Session Summary – 12 November 2008
Just a quick update this one, so I get it done before Midcon, after which I expect to have some more to write about.
A good attendance of 9, including Simon, who we haven't seen for a bit, we split over 2 tables.
On our table we played 2 games, the first was Race for the Galaxy, using the Gathering Storm expansion, but excluding the goals as it was Julian's first game, although considering that he won despite this, we maybe should have stuck them in anyway. I started with Earths Lost Colony and when I looked at my opening hand I found I had been dealt the Alien Toy Shop. Now I have been reading on the geek in the last few days that this is a broken combination, so I thought I'd try it out. It became apparent (as indeed as had been suggested on the geek) that if the combination is broken, it is in relation to the advanced 2 player game, since it relies on running out the VP chips through a string of Consume(x2)/Produce cycles and ending the game before your opponent gets up and running earning 6VP a turn. The problem with multiplayer is that you only get to play one action a turn so you are scoring 6 points (instead of 12) per 2 turns, also you only have to exhaust 24VPs in 2 player compared with 60 for 5 player. Any way I had a try at this and although I got the consume engine going, I couldn't afford to keep powering it as I had to select other actions to get cards, etc.
Perhaps I would have been better going all out on consume/produce earlier but I missed on the possibility if the games end by miscounting the size of Andy's tableau. On the final turn I went for produce and the following turn I would have been up at least another 12 points if the game had gone on. Oh well.
Race for the Galaxy 80 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Julian
|
1
|
37
|
Dave D
|
2
|
34
|
Andy
|
3
|
32
|
Ben
|
4
|
31
|
Dave C
|
5
|
28
|
Colossal Arena 40 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Dave C
|
1
|
14
|
Andy
|
2
|
10
|
Ben
|
3
|
9
|
Dave D
|
4
|
7
|
Julian
|
5
|
6
|
Agricola 150 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Steve H
|
1
|
36
|
Steve P
|
2
|
26
|
Gordon
|
3
|
25
|
Simon
|
4
|
20
|
Friday, 7 November 2008
Session Summary – 5 November 2008
Only 4 this week. First up was a quick game of Tsuro while we waited to see if others would arrive. The game was very close and I knocked Julian out on my penultimate turn picking up his tile as I had the dragon. My following turn found all 3 remaining sitting around one empty square and whichever way I played the tile I had resulted in mutually assured destruction, so Mike & I ended up in a collision while Andy ended up off the board.
Tsuro 15 mins
| |
Player
|
Posn.
|
Dave D
|
1=
|
Mike
|
1=
|
Andy
|
1=
|
Julian
|
4
|
Julian started in the area around the Black Sea but got somewhat boxed in as Andy came in through the North Eastern mountains and spread out quite widely taking the early lead and Mike came into the Balkans and Southern Italy, moving into second place. At this stage Julian considered declining on his second turn but decided to continue and I was glad he did. I had come on through Ireland and taken the port in England/Wales, my port building would persist after decline and I had thought to decline immediately using Rebirth and grab the Mining/Revolutionaries combination that had dropped into position I. I then reconsidered thinking surely that no one would decline before it came round to me and knowing I could grab a second port on turn 2 so I was a bit worried when Julian thought of a decline.
I declined next turn on schedule, having picked up my extra port and selected the Mining/Revolutionaries combination and Julian also declined on his turn (taking Fortification/Espionage), before I had my revolution in the Balkan Mountain mine and expanded into the adjacent forest mine. In the turns following first Andy declined (taking Port Building/Slavery) and then Mike who ended up taking Barbarians/Astronomy from position III losing him 4 VP. Mike was to say later that he felt he should have declined a turn earlier, but didn't expect everyone else to do so before him meaning that he could not get the civilisation he desired (there was some discussion about the lack of really powerful combinations in this game).
At this point in the mid game I started to move into the lead with the mines scoring well together with a bit of help from the ports, although this didn't last too long as first Julian and then Andy both came in through Ireland and the English port soon bit the dust, while Mike went all round the board using Astronomy, picking off my last port in the process.
A couple of turns later we started to move to the final set of civilisations, first to go was me, taking Livestock Breeding/Militia with +2 VP, which Mike had passed over earlier, followed by Mike who took Field General/Heritage for +2 VP, it being the other combination that he himself had passed over. Heritage was quite useful to him as his declined empire was spread out all over the board, but he had no bonus scoring and at this point I think he essentially was resigned to last place as both Andy and Julian were pulling away from him and closing on me. Julian declined next for Revolutionaries/Port Building, while Andy then went for Ship Building/Rebirth, he wasn't able to use Rebirth but he managed very good use of Ship Building.
Julian actually ended the game going to 121 points and I was left desperately trying to gather enough points to keep Andy behind. It was one of those situations where I would have declined if it were not for the impending game end meaning that the loss of tempo would mean more lost points than staying with the current civ. Andy passed me to win, with Mike in fourth place. I had thought that Mike's actions on his penultimate turn had, perhaps, denied me the chance to stop Andy, but in hindsight I don't think it made a difference
Vinci 120 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Andy
|
1
|
127
|
Dave D
|
2
|
125
|
Julian
|
3
|
121
|
Mike
|
4
|
111
|
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Session Catch up - 15,22,29 October
Session report - 29 October
Hi – this is my first go at updating the blog so please excuse any serious faux pas. Also please excuse any muddled English – hopefully the plain English course I’m booked to go on next week will improve it in future!
This week we welcomed back Julian who had been on a long hiatus from the group.
Again there were 8 of us this week (edit by DaveD, just to note that in addition to our 8, Dave C was downstairs with younger members running Paranoia, although I gather this didn't go as well as hoped and I'm not sure whether Dave will post on his blog). Gordon and Steve P (and I assume Julian seeing as he had a game that is not released yet) had just returned from Essen bringing with them an assortment of new games – many of which, those who had been unable to go to Essen due to Work, Money and Other-half commitments etc had been reading up about in the Essen coverage.
We split into two groups of four. Our table played Martin Wallace’s new game Steel Driver. This is a train (track) game – and is similar to the 18xx games in that you don’t own a company/colour per se but purchase shares in these companies. The game is essentially split into two phases. In the first phase a share in each of the companies is auctioned off, and then track is built – earning the players connection fees in addition to the shares they won. The second phase is pick-up-game – as players try and gain sets of goods for the companies they have the most shares in.
I played quite badly in this game – which inspired me to write my first session report on BGG http://www.boardgamegeek.com/
The second game we played was Yspahan by Ystari (who-else with that name!). To those who haven’t played it, it basically involves you rolling a bucket of dice, distributing these dice over the 6 available actions and then picking an action. Points are earned through purchasing buildings (which convey additional benefits) and placing goods into sets of market stalls. Points can also be earned for placing goods on camels – although this aspect was most definitely on the periphery in our game. The game was pretty tight, with Dave D nipping away at the end thanks to some bonus points earned through a building he purchased. Also I’m sure Steve H would’ve been a lot closer to the top of the scoreboard if he hadn’t misunderstood the rules – cashed in gold coins for points early and dropped in the turn order on the final turn.
I really enjoyed playing this game but would agree with Julian’s comments that the game has too many interesting mechanics that don’t gel particularly well.
The other table played Princes of Machu Pichu – one of Steve P’s new games which he had brought back from Essen. There was a lot of odd language coming from this table with much talk of ‘virgins’ and ‘condors’ – questions I felt were best left unanswered! This game was one of the ‘stars of the show’ at Essen – and judging from the noise made it sounded like a lot of fun.
Session report - 22 October 2008
There were 8 of us this week so we split into two groups of four.
On our table we played Mike’s new game Mykerinos. This is an area-control / set-collection game. You attempt to gain control of tiles, which have a 3x2 grid on one side and one of five colours/patrons of the museum on the other. At the end of the game you earn points for the number of patrons which are adjusted by the multipliers you gain from cubes you have managed to place in the patrons’ rooms in the museum.
The patrons’ cards have special abilities during the game and there was some debate over their relative powers. We played a BGG-inspired house rule which limits the use of the Brown card to once per game instead of every turn – however my patron of choice; blue gave me an extra cube every time I used it which enabled me to gain control of more tiles. However I have a nagging doubt regarding whether I should’ve been allowed those extra turns granted by my bounteous cube supply after reading some comments on BGG. Will have to investigate before playing next time.
The second game our table played was Big City – an older Rio Grande Game. This remained pretty tight all through the game until the very end. Despite the high score, the only thing that separated first place from last place was the placement of one building. I managed to fulfil the onerous conditions to build a Shopping Centre and placed a park on my next turn to prevent Mike doing likewise.
The other table played Saint Petersburg – a game I know very little about other than it can sharply divide opinions! And from a quick glance at the wide spread of the scores I can see one possible reason why!
Session report - 15 October 2008
This week there was only 4 of us and we played two games with a broadly similar theme but very different mechanic.
The first up was Manhattan. Each player has a number of different sized buildings to start with, and has to select which ones to use before each turn begins. Each player also has a hand of cards which govern where they may place a building within a city block. Players then take it in turn to place a building in a block – attempting to either control a block (player has the most buildings) or build the tallest building on the board a the end of each turn.
As there were a number of city blocks up for grabs – it became a game of carefully choosing what fights to pick. Going gung-ho in one city block meant giving up control in another so efficient use of buildings was key – as was hand management – holding back a card or two that would allow you to take control back of a block if someone else decided to disenfranchise you.
Final scores were:
The second game was Metropolys. Due to the positive write-up in Counter Magazine combined with an odd but interesting mechanic I decided to buy it unseen and give it a whirl. Each player has 13 buildings labelled 1 to 13, with 13 being the most prestigious and 1 being the least. A player starts the bidding by placing a building in an empty area and then players may then outbid each other by placing a higher numbered building into an accessible empty adjacent area. The player who has placed the highest numbered building gets to build it. Points are scored for building in areas where there are Metro or Trendy area (‘Flapper’) tokens and lost for building where there are Archaeological site tokens. Bonus points are awarded at the end via your secret objective cards – each player has 1 area card and another card for fulfilling certain conditions.
We all guessed early on that Steve had the Park area card but none of us realised he got bonus points for building either side of bridges which allowed him to pick up many bonus points. Despite it being my game I really didn’t get to grips with the odd but fun mechanic and there was a complete reversal of fortunes compared to Manhattan when points were added up at the end:
Hi – this is my first go at updating the blog so please excuse any serious faux pas. Also please excuse any muddled English – hopefully the plain English course I’m booked to go on next week will improve it in future!
This week we welcomed back Julian who had been on a long hiatus from the group.
Again there were 8 of us this week (edit by DaveD, just to note that in addition to our 8, Dave C was downstairs with younger members running Paranoia, although I gather this didn't go as well as hoped and I'm not sure whether Dave will post on his blog). Gordon and Steve P (and I assume Julian seeing as he had a game that is not released yet) had just returned from Essen bringing with them an assortment of new games – many of which, those who had been unable to go to Essen due to Work, Money and Other-half commitments etc had been reading up about in the Essen coverage.
We split into two groups of four. Our table played Martin Wallace’s new game Steel Driver. This is a train (track) game – and is similar to the 18xx games in that you don’t own a company/colour per se but purchase shares in these companies. The game is essentially split into two phases. In the first phase a share in each of the companies is auctioned off, and then track is built – earning the players connection fees in addition to the shares they won. The second phase is pick-up-game – as players try and gain sets of goods for the companies they have the most shares in.
I played quite badly in this game – which inspired me to write my first session report on BGG http://www.boardgamegeek.com/
Steel Driver 70 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Steve H
|
1
|
1530
|
Dave D
|
2
|
1290
|
Julian
|
3
|
1270
|
Andy
|
4
|
1220
|
The second game we played was Yspahan by Ystari (who-else with that name!). To those who haven’t played it, it basically involves you rolling a bucket of dice, distributing these dice over the 6 available actions and then picking an action. Points are earned through purchasing buildings (which convey additional benefits) and placing goods into sets of market stalls. Points can also be earned for placing goods on camels – although this aspect was most definitely on the periphery in our game. The game was pretty tight, with Dave D nipping away at the end thanks to some bonus points earned through a building he purchased. Also I’m sure Steve H would’ve been a lot closer to the top of the scoreboard if he hadn’t misunderstood the rules – cashed in gold coins for points early and dropped in the turn order on the final turn.
I really enjoyed playing this game but would agree with Julian’s comments that the game has too many interesting mechanics that don’t gel particularly well.
Yspahan 50 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Dave D
|
1
|
74
|
Andy
|
2
|
70
|
Steve H
|
3
|
62
|
Julian
|
4
|
55
|
The other table played Princes of Machu Pichu – one of Steve P’s new games which he had brought back from Essen. There was a lot of odd language coming from this table with much talk of ‘virgins’ and ‘condors’ – questions I felt were best left unanswered! This game was one of the ‘stars of the show’ at Essen – and judging from the noise made it sounded like a lot of fun.
Princes of Macchu Pichu 160 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Gordon
|
1
|
36
|
Steve P
|
2
|
24
|
Mike
|
3
|
20
|
Steve Pe
|
4
|
14
|
Session report - 22 October 2008
There were 8 of us this week so we split into two groups of four.
On our table we played Mike’s new game Mykerinos. This is an area-control / set-collection game. You attempt to gain control of tiles, which have a 3x2 grid on one side and one of five colours/patrons of the museum on the other. At the end of the game you earn points for the number of patrons which are adjusted by the multipliers you gain from cubes you have managed to place in the patrons’ rooms in the museum.
The patrons’ cards have special abilities during the game and there was some debate over their relative powers. We played a BGG-inspired house rule which limits the use of the Brown card to once per game instead of every turn – however my patron of choice; blue gave me an extra cube every time I used it which enabled me to gain control of more tiles. However I have a nagging doubt regarding whether I should’ve been allowed those extra turns granted by my bounteous cube supply after reading some comments on BGG. Will have to investigate before playing next time.
Mykerinos 60 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Andy
|
1
|
48
|
Mike
|
2
|
36
|
Ben
|
3
|
33
|
Dave C
|
4
|
27
|
The second game our table played was Big City – an older Rio Grande Game. This remained pretty tight all through the game until the very end. Despite the high score, the only thing that separated first place from last place was the placement of one building. I managed to fulfil the onerous conditions to build a Shopping Centre and placed a park on my next turn to prevent Mike doing likewise.
Big City 70 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Andy
|
1
|
91
|
Mike
|
2
|
65
|
Dave C
|
3
|
63
|
Ben
|
4
|
61
|
The other table played Saint Petersburg – a game I know very little about other than it can sharply divide opinions! And from a quick glance at the wide spread of the scores I can see one possible reason why!
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Gordon
|
1
|
214
|
Dave D
|
2
|
160
|
Steve H
|
3
|
158
|
Steve P
|
4
|
114
|
Session report - 15 October 2008
This week there was only 4 of us and we played two games with a broadly similar theme but very different mechanic.
The first up was Manhattan. Each player has a number of different sized buildings to start with, and has to select which ones to use before each turn begins. Each player also has a hand of cards which govern where they may place a building within a city block. Players then take it in turn to place a building in a block – attempting to either control a block (player has the most buildings) or build the tallest building on the board a the end of each turn.
As there were a number of city blocks up for grabs – it became a game of carefully choosing what fights to pick. Going gung-ho in one city block meant giving up control in another so efficient use of buildings was key – as was hand management – holding back a card or two that would allow you to take control back of a block if someone else decided to disenfranchise you.
Final scores were:
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Andy
|
1
|
48
|
Mike
|
2
|
43
|
Dave D
|
3
|
40
|
Steve H
|
4
|
33
|
The second game was Metropolys. Due to the positive write-up in Counter Magazine combined with an odd but interesting mechanic I decided to buy it unseen and give it a whirl. Each player has 13 buildings labelled 1 to 13, with 13 being the most prestigious and 1 being the least. A player starts the bidding by placing a building in an empty area and then players may then outbid each other by placing a higher numbered building into an accessible empty adjacent area. The player who has placed the highest numbered building gets to build it. Points are scored for building in areas where there are Metro or Trendy area (‘Flapper’) tokens and lost for building where there are Archaeological site tokens. Bonus points are awarded at the end via your secret objective cards – each player has 1 area card and another card for fulfilling certain conditions.
We all guessed early on that Steve had the Park area card but none of us realised he got bonus points for building either side of bridges which allowed him to pick up many bonus points. Despite it being my game I really didn’t get to grips with the odd but fun mechanic and there was a complete reversal of fortunes compared to Manhattan when points were added up at the end:
Metropolys 70 mins
| ||
Player
|
Posn.
|
Points
|
Steve H
|
1
|
40
|
Dave D
|
2
|
29
|
Mike
|
3
|
28
|
Andy
|
4
|
25
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)