Session Report – 28 July 2010

After the big attendance from the week before, I was aware that this week we would be down on numbers, many people having indicated that they would be missing. So I made sure that I had some games in my bag that would scale down to 2 if necessary. As it turned out it was 3 with Colin and Steve H (who was unexpected).

We played Fury of Dracula, which plays well with 2 & 3. Steve and I both know and like the game, while Colin was new. The problem with the game is that it usually runs too long for one of our sessions with about half the games we've played at the club going unfinished, this was also the case with this one although it was tight and interesting throughout, with the possible exception of the unfortunate ending (despite the fact that I made a number of mistakes).

Steve and I have played a series of games alternating as Dracula, I couldn't recall who's turn it was but Steve thought he had played the count last so I took the role (when I checked I discovered Steve was right) and Steve divided the hunters with Colin.

I started off in Dublin and remained there with a Dark Call which was necessary because I had no Vampires to start with, before heading over to Galway and placing the Vampire. It was at this point that the Evasion event occurred, really too early in the game to be of any help. Having thought for a bit I headed off to Hamburg, so leaving the Vampire unprotected as I didn't have a chance to hide (this was mistake number 1 I think, I should have played Hide with the evasion).

From Hamburg I headed down to Berlin, at which point my location was discovered due to hypnosis of Mina, and I was faced with Van Helsing heading my way, so I double backed to Hamburg so I could put to sea, stopping time so that the hunters would have to face the Vampire at night if they found it (This was mistake number 2 as it meant the time for the Vampire to mature was delayed by one turn and Dr. Seward found the Vampire with 1 turn to spare).

In an attempt to throw the hunters of the trail, I returned to the British isles, but was found and there ensued a chase around England, Wales & Scotland, when I able to keep the hunters behind me until night again fell, due in large extent to the fact that it was very foggy throughout the UK at that time. This ended when I was able to catch Dr. Seward in Edinburgh after he had been he had been stripped of his equipment by the Scottish customs, unfortunately he escaped immediately (I don't think I won a single combat roll all evening).

After this I set off to sea again and sailed around Britain, throwing the hunters off my trail, because when they thought I was in the Mediterranean I was actually in the Irish Sea. I landed in Liverpool and planted a Vampire. It was at this point that I totally screwed up, intending to hide and then head up to Edinburgh via Manchester; I actually laid the hide card and then must have had brain fade as I next laid down Edinburgh as if I was already in Manchester. This was discovered at the end when van Helsing used resolve to jump to Manchester at which point we decided to call the game. The penalty for the illegal move may well have made the game unwinnable for me at that point, but who knows.

I will take this opportunity to acknowledge publically Steve's paint job on the game figures.

Fury of Dracula 180 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Dave D
1=	Colin
1=	Steve H

July 2010 Meetings 4, Games 12, Average Attendance 7.5

Session Report – 21 July 2010

This was our largest attendance for a long time with 12 people. The numbers were swelled by the arrival of a group from Erdington, including Andy Hopwood designer of Mijnlieff, which won the award for best abstract game at this year's UK Games Expo. We had already split into 2 groups before their arrival, so in the first instance they sat down for a game of For Sale, which I do not have a record of. After that we rearranged things.

On our table we started off with a game of Gheos, a nice light little game which has been a few times before, particularly in 2008. The game can vary sharply because of the random order of the tile draw and this was so in this case with 4 out of the 8 epoch tile coming out in about the first 6 player turns of the game, which although the rate levelled out later this meant a short game. I was caught out by the end game when I forgot to play a scoring tile on what turned out to be my last chance and then the game ended on Dave's turn immediately before mine. If it had got back to me the scores would have been rather different but this is always a possibility in games with random endings. Gheos is light enough for it not to be an issue.

Gheos 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	34
2	Ben C	33
3	Andy	29
4	Dave D	22

After that we rearranged 2 groups and Andy H and Pete came over to join Andy E and me while Ben and Dave joined Hugh and Ed on the other table. We played Saint Petersburg, which Andy H had brought with him. This is a game I like a lot, although in this case we had not the expansion on hand so the base game only was in play. A lot of people claim that the base game is broken in favour of anyone who has the chance to pick up a Mistress of Ceremonies in the first round. I wouldn't go as far to say broken as other things can happen, but there is a big advantage. This was demonstrated by Andy H who finished with a handy win. I have said we must have a rematch using the expansion cards, which halves the income from the Mistress. Still a very enjoyable game.

Saint Petersburg 75 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy H	116
2	Dave C	87
3	Andy	62
4	Pete C	54

After that Andy E departed while Andy H took the opportunity to demonstrate his game to me. This is definitely a game where the more experienced player is going to win most of the time. It is a quick game where each player has 8 pieces to place on a 16 square board, winning points at the end of the game for scoring lines of 3. The mechanism is such that the piece you play constrains the position of the piece that your opponent can play in the following turn. My problem I think was not having learnt to think more than 1 turn ahead so I would play a piece with the idea of forcing Andy not to play in certain positions without considering the nature of the pieces he could play. Andy would then play a piece such that I had no legal play and I ended up missing a turn. This happened on a couple of occasions and it's the sort of thing you learn over time. While it's a good enough game and takes next to no time I can't see me having much chance to improve considering the scarcity of 2 player gaming that I do.

Mijnlieff 10 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy H	2
2	Dave D	0

Dave & Ben joined Hugh and Ed to play Small World, this played without any expansions. I don't know any details of the play. I have referred to Ed as Ed-2 in the results to distinguish him from the Ed who visited us in March.

Small World 80 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Hugh	105
2	Ed-2	93
3	Dave C	90
4	Ben C	85

On the other table we had Mike, Andy S, Dave F and Steve H. They first played Caylus Magna Carta which again clocked in at just under 2 hours. Mike pointed out that I'd said I give this one another chance and I pointed out I had. The big problem to me is the length, if it could be made to consistently come in at an hour or fractionally more, I'd probably play this.

Caylus Magna Carta 110 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew S	47
2	Mike	46
3	Dave F	44
4	Steve H	42

After that they played The Speicherstadt, which I don't know much about other than it is by Stefan Feld, who has a somewhat patchy record with me. I like Notre Dame but am not too keen on In the Year of the Dragon (possibly would be OK with 2 players, but I don't tend to play many of those as mentioned above). This was still going on when I left, but looking on, it seems to consist of a series of Dutch Auctions to buy things, which presumably help you score points to win the game.

The Speicherstadt 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew S	32
2	Dave D	25
3	Mike	23
4	Pete C	14

 

Session Report – 14 July 2010

With 8 this week, we split into 2 groups of 4.

First up on our table was Workshop of the World. As the previous game we played at the club, this was a close affair. We did not run into quite such problems with spending all the money as in the previous game, I was pre warned and I was able to warn the others who were new to the game about being careful with their money.

I thought that Dave was going to win some way out but was surprised by the narrow margin of victory, which thinking about it was explained by Dave having spent somewhat more money during the rail age. I was surprised to see Donald so close at the end as he was lagging at the end of the Canal age, having spent that time getting used to the game. In the rail age he managed to put together a sizable connected series of Railways which earned him the points to bring right up although not quite close enough.

Workshop of the World 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	111
2	Dave D	110
3	Donald	109
4	Ben C	97

After that was Forbidden Island, which is very much a simplified version of Pandemic by the same author. It's an OK game and plays slightly quicker than its predecessor, but Pandemic does seem to have more to it, particularly with the variations added by the expansion.

Forbidden Island 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1=	Dave C	L
1=	Dave D	L
1=	Donald	L
1=	Ben C	L

Over on the other table was Steam Barons. This is an expansion to Steam and requires the base game to play. The game does seem to be substantially changed by the addition of the expansion, so I have recorded it in the stats as a separate game, contrary to what I'd normally do, I'm still thinking about that though and might yet change my mind.

In this version of the game players do not control railways for themselves, but instead control companies that, in turn, control the railways. Companies are controlled by the ownership of shares in a similar way to an 18XX game, although glancing through the rules, the way in which shares are acquire is somewhat different, as is the way that shares become available, only being issued by companies when they need the money.

Steam Barons 150 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	102
2	Andy	88
3	Andrew S	83
4	Colin	60

Session Report – 7 July 2010

The game was played using the Pegasus expansion with the Kobol objective and no cylon leaders, I know Mike does not care for New Caprica and I would not want a Cylon leader in a 5 player game (I would with 6). It is well that the expansion is designed to mix and match.

The players were Andy S – Starbuck, Steve Perkins – William Adama, Paul – Tom Zarek, Mike – Helo and myself – Gaius Baltar. It was suggested that I chose Baltar due to his slightly increased chance of being a cylon, but the actual reason was I couldn't choose a military leader (else I would have had Cain) and I don't care for pilots or Chief Tyrol. That left Dee or a politician which became a choice of 2 characters as I don't like Roslin (or Ellen if there are no Cylon leaders) making a 50/50 choice and Baltar had the advantage of coming with the Presidency so it was unconnected to the slightly higher cylon chance.

Early in the game the first cylon was discovered, although not by all of us, when Steve, by virtue of the Code Blue crisis which was passed giving the current player a chance to look at a loyalty card from another player. Steve targeted Mike and discovered he was indeed a cylon, revealing this information to the rest of us. We could not of course know for sure at that point whether he was telling the truth, but when 3 Blue/Red cards turned up in a later crisis skill check, which implicated either me or Mike, I was fairly sure that Steve was correct in his accusation. This was soon followed by the Cylon Accusation crisis on Mike's turn, which we decided to fail sending Mike to the brig.

At this point Mike went into human mode until the sleeper phase was reached although there was some discussion when the Assassination Plot appeared. As President I decided that Admiral Adama would be executed, if Helo were human (although I didn't believe it), then Adama was a cylon and this would prove it one way or another, Adama was human then his condemnation of Helo was all but proved right. Mike as Helo however used his once per game ability to change my choice resulting in the loss of cards and drawing of Treachery by Adama and myself. Mike argued that executing the Admiral was wrong for humanity, although it was really to keep some doubt alive as to his loyalty. As it turns out if Adama had been executed the extra loss of morale may have been resulted in a Cylon win, although other things might have played out differently as a result.

With the arrival of the sleeper phase, things looked good for the humans, although morale was a little low, Mike was still insisting on his humanity so I used my Cylon detector power to confirm (at least to me) things one way or another, it was probably not the best use in retrospect but at least I now knew (Helo was a Cylon). Mike now gave up and headed to the resurrection ship.

Things started going a bit pear shaped at about this point with the jump that took us to 6 distance arriving at a Mining Asteroid resulting the appearance of Scar who moved into position just in time for the evil Helo to order him to destroy 2 Civilian ships, resulting in the loss of population and morale. Morale was becoming an issue and despite 3 meticulously planned Inspirational Speeches by myself we gained none back. After this we discovered our other Cylon, when Zarek proceeded to seize the presidency, which would later present him with the opportunity to destroy 2 further civilian ships further reducing the population, which he hit again by using his OPG to increase food, which was not a problem.

Zarek did not reveal and remained President at the end of the game as we had no chance to unseat him being more concerned with protecting Civilians from Cylon attacks and then having reached 8 distance (with the help of a Legendary Discovery) and then pushing the jump prep marker as quickly as possible. Adama was camped in the Pegasus Engine room and a series of executive orders were able to get us a jump every turn until we would hit the auto jump having won the final crisis by everybody throwing in all their positive cards. The humans won but it was very close with Morale and Population both standing at one.

GREAT Game.

Battlestar Galactica 180 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Dave D
1=	Andrew S
1=	Steve Pe
4=	Mike
4=	Paul

Over on the other table Steve H was introducing Donald to Through the Ages in preparation for a game planned at the weekend. This had no result.

Through the Ages 160 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Steve H
1=	Dave F

Sessions – June 2010

2 June

5 of us this week and a single game Vinci. I have to confess that this is the first time I have been slightly irritated by the end game, although I know that many people do see issues with it quoting kingmaker problems to a lesser or greater extent. In this case though I was a bit peeved with Mike, who was in second place with no chance of catching Andy and equally no chance of being caught by myself or Dave F, who's final play gifted 3^rd to Dave.

Vinci 120 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew S	106
2	Mike	97
3	Dave F	86
4	Dave D	85
5	Steve H	75

9 June

This was the week after Games Expo and there were new games to play, which had been acquired at that event. We had 9 in attendance and split over 2 tables including one new player (Ben).

On one was Priests of Ra. Not a new game, but new to us. It is basically the same game as Ra with regard to the auction mechanism, but the tiles are completely different with many of them being double sided and the player having to make the choice as to which side up they are placed on the track. As a result of the new tiles, the scoring system is also changed with the exception of the scores for highest and lowest Sun totals at the end.

In this game, I was fortunate in the second epoch when I was left as the last player and was able to collect a complete row of 8 pretty good tiles. At the game end we had a situation that I have never known to occur in Ra, which was running out of scoring tiles, necessitating the making of notes for some players final scoring.

Priests of Ra 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	87
2	Andrew S	66
3	Colin	42
4	Mike	34
5	Ben D	27

After that a quick game of Guillotine, much closer than the one we played the other week.

Guillotine 20 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Colin	15
2=	Andrew S	13
2=	Ben D	13
4=	Mike	12
4=	Dave D	12

Followed by another quick game, Vampire.

Vampire 20 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Colin	24
2	Mike	21
3	Andrew S	21
4	Dave D	20
5	Ben D	19

Over on the other table was Age of Industry, which Dave picked up at Games Expo, this is Martin Wallace's follow up to Brass, which I had a chance to play as a prototype along with Steve and Mike at Midcon last November. From what I recall the game seemed to play OK at that stage, I am not sure what (if any) changes have occurred since then.

Age of Industry 120 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	35
2	Dave F	29
3	Ben C	26
4	Dave C	22

16 June

8 players split into 2 4s.

On table 1, we played Workshop of the World, the new Ragnar Brothers game which won the best new board game prize at the recent expo. The theme is the same as Martin Wallace's Brass but the game encompasses all of Britain rather than just Northern England and the mechanics are very much simpler and more abstracted than the former game. I had a demo game at expo and I was left feeling a little unsure at that time how the game would go down, but as it turned out it seemed to go down quite well.

The game is divided in Canal and Rail eras as in Brass, but the essential mechanic is a blind auction of turn order each turn, after which each player gets to build an industry in a town/city identified by a card that they will draw (a number of cards equal to the number of players are drawn each turn). After placing an industry the player may build up to 2 links connecting to the industry they have just placed advancing their revenue track for industries connected by the links just built. This is repeated for a number of turns depending on player number and then money is collected based on the player's position on the revenue track together with the number of links on the board and the demand values of any towns with industries in them. The board is then cleared of links (industries remain) and the process is repeated for the rail era before collecting money again at which point the one with the most money is the winner.

One thing we noticed were players running out of money towards the end of the canal age, this did not occur in the demo game at expo because it was played over a reduced number of turns, but the starting money (£50) was not reduced. Money will be tight in this game because you have to spend it both on auctions and also to buy links, so both whether and how much you bid and also whether you build links are factors that bear a bit of thought in this game.

The final result was close.

Workshop of the World 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	103
2	Steve H	102
3	Andrew S	99
4	Colin	81

After that Andy left and we played Priests of Ra, which was a much close affair than the previous week.

Priests of Ra 80 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Colin	73
2	Steve H	69
3	Dave D	65

Over on the other table was Attandarra, which I don't know much about but seemed to go down well with those who played it.

Attandarra 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	94
2	Mike	84
3	Andy	83
4	Ben D	72

And the Sherlock Holmes card game.

Sherlock Holmes Card Game 40 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	-88
2	Ben D	-109
3	Dave F	-143
4	Mike	-236

23 June

7 people split 4 & 3.

We played Glen More a newish Alea game which is not currently available in English but playable with the help of player aids.

The game consists of moving a meeple around a track made up of tile. The player at the back moves as far as he wants to land on a tile he wants (and can have) which he then picks up, the problem being that the further ahead you move the longer you are likely to have to wait before getting your next turn. When you place the tile you can activate it and any adjacent tiles you already have in your display to collect resources and take other actions. Your placement options are limited depending on the position of your clansmen (meeples) and it is possible that some tiles cannot therefore be placed by you and so you can't pick them from the display. I made the mistake of leaving myself with only one clansman to move about at one point, which in turn left me quite limited in the tiles that were available for me to draw and at the end forced me to move a long way ahead to find one, which in turn meant I did not get another turn.

I will say that the game is OK when considered in relation to the current euro paradigm, but no more having the common problem of virtually zero evocation of the purported theme, more of an abstract with pretty pictures. Still better than many.

Glen More 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Colin	65
2	Dave F	46
3	Andy	34
4	Dave D	33

After that we played Fzzzt!, which we tried and abandoned about a year ago. As I thought at that time we had been playing wrong and the game seemed horribly broken because of that. This playing was much better but there are many better short fillers.

Fzzzt! 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	52
2	Andy	43
3	Dave D	39
4	Colin	26

Over on the other table we had Caylus Magna Carta, which again took up the whole evening.

Caylus Magna Carta 135 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	50
2	Mike	49
3	Andrew S	48

30 June

8 players split 4 & 4.

On one table we had World Without End, which provided another close game. This time I decided to go for the medicine strategy and was somewhat surprised to finish second as I felt I was lagging well behind. With the scores as they were I could actually have won if I hadn't been forced to only use 1 resource on my only building project in the last chapter. The game was actually light on available buildings with only 2 coming out in the event card draws.

World Without End 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	44.5
2	Dave D	43
3	Steve H	42.5
4	Andrew S	37.5

I left at that point as it was quite frankly too hot for me in the room, another game was played afterwards with Dave winning again, this time seemingly a lot more easily.

World Without End 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	50
2	Andrew S	39
3	Steve H	37

Over on the other table another run out for Attandarra.

Attandarra 150 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	124
2	Mike	120
3	Colin	110
4	Donald	108

Note that the timings for the last 2 games are my estimates base on session length.

June 2010 Meetings 5, Games 15, Average Attendance 7.4