The Games We Play

The Games We Play

A repository of reports on the Wednesday night sessions of the club and anything else related to the club or boardgaming in general, which may be of interest to anyone who may be passing by.

Wednesday 7 July 2010

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 3rd 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

1 comment:

  1. The only board game I can ever remember ending in an angry scene with raised voices was a game of Vinci I played in at a convention some years ago. It should come with a warning, “approach with caution", as it can feel personal.

    ReplyDelete