Games Played 20 November 2013

This was the first meeting at out new venue, the Stag & Three Horseshoes, with 11 people in attendance and expressing favourable first impressions. The extra space is great, although we did learn that there is a right way to lift the tables when moving them.

Although the place had changed, the games were very much the usual suspects being (as at this moment 5 of the top 6 games played this year), although going on longer. We have more available time in the new place and in this case the last players didn't leave until around 11:30. If this is the regular situation, then the recorded player hours are going to rise regardless of whether we get more people or not.

Games Played 13 November 2013

This was our last meeting at the Townsend Social club as from next week we will be at the Stag. 10 people were in attendance. The games played again included Tzolk'in, now with the expansion, which sounds as if it makes the game longer.

Full list of games follows

Halesowen Boardgamers is moving

After meeting at the Townsend Social Club (previously the Conservative Club) since the 20th Century. Halesowen Boardgamers is moving to a new venue.

Starting from 20 November we will now meet at the Stag & Three Horseshoes pub. This is on the Birmingham side of Halesowen at the top of Mucklow Hill. A room has been arranged on the upper floor which is several times larger than our previous location and will make it possible to run more than three games at the same time, while it should also be easy to move around if someone needs to get out of the room without having to squeeze between the backs of chairs. It should also be possible to stay until around 11:30 allowing the possibility for slightly longer games to be played if required.

There is separate access from the outside of the pub at the back,  so it won't be necessary to lug bags through the bar area and we will also have access to the bar from inside. Car Parking is at the front and back of the pub and (from an approximate count using Google's satellite photography) looks to support 80 to 90 cars which should be enough to accommodate both ourselves and the pub's other clientèle.

Based on current attendances, there should be no need to change the £1 weekly charge.

For further location information see our website here or the pub's site here. Any queries contact Dave D.

Games Played 6 November 2013

14 this week with the addition of Cedric, Mark W's friend from Germany, who's in the country for a couple of weeks.

Games played were as follows, Power Grid being played on the Baden-Wuerttemberg board.Having bought coal plant 25 in the second round, my expansion was slow and I thought I was being seriously screwed by the amount of coal that Phil was buying up using the 8 and 20 plants, both of which burn 3 coal, but things improved as we moved to the early step 2 (5 cities) when Coal refreshed at 9 per turn and I was able to play from the front of  the player order for most of the game after that.

06/11/2013
Power Grid - 130 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	16
2	Steve Pe	14
3	James S	14
4	Cedric	12
5	Phil	12
6	Isabel	10
Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar - 100 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	51
2	Steve H	46
3	Mike	45
4	Stan	15
Love Letter - 25 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	3
2	Mike	2
2	Dave F	2
4	Stan	1
The Witches - 80 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mark R	24
2	Steve W	23
3	Mark W	23
4	Jaime	19
Citadels - 50 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve W	31
2	Mark R	27
3	Jaime	25
4	Mark W	23

Games Played 30 October 2013

11 this week including newcomer Stan, we also saw Lee & Rachel back, it being half term.

Games played included Battlestar Galactica with Pegasus, I also included the characters only from the Exodus expansion and 2 of those appeared in the game. The characters were as below

Andy S - Samuel Anders
Dave D - Admiral Helena Cain
Dave G - Chief Galen Tyrol
James S - Cally Tyrol
Mark W - President Gaius Baltar

This was a game that seemed to go reasonably well for humanity up to the sleeper agent phase, although there were signs that Food and Morale might become problematic. As Admiral I guided the fleet to an Asteroid Field and then to Deep Space to reach 5 distance, while holding off on using my Blind Jump ability lest I find I was a Cylon, later in the game. At the same time we were only briefly free of attacking Cylon ships as  we were "Surrounded" on the first Crisis phase following the first jump.

In both cases the fleet was able to jump away without damage, despite losing 2 civilian ships (which fortunately carried nothing useful) and in both cases making early jumps (lucky die rolls). The other factor was due to adept manoeuvring of Civilian ships using Communications, while Anders seemed parculiarly ineffective as a pilot, never having Maximum Firepower. Initially this was put down to his being not very good, but perhaps the truth may have been in the later discovery that he had been a Cylon from the start.

Come the sleeper phase I suddenly found myself a Cylon. Knowing that Baltar whose turn was next up would immediately use his Cylon detector against me and the current turns crisis being "Pressure the Supply Ships", I (as Admiral) elected to take -2 Food, reducing it to 2, representing a serious problem for the humans (although it was Morale that would be their downfall). On Baltar's turn he did check me (although I would have thought my allegiance was obvious) and then drew "Guilt by Collusion" as his crisis allowing him to send me to the brig by passing it, saving an Admiral's Quarters action. On Anders turn "Thirty-Three" brought more Cylon ships on to the board and on my turn I played Critical Situation allowing me 2 actions, I launched a Scout, hoping to get a look at a really bad destination that I could blind jump to, but the scout failed losing the humans a raptor, having already lost two. At that point I decided to reveal and headed off to the resurrection ship.

At this point we were looking like running short of time (as often happens) and I was trying to hurry us along, but from this point on, the game moved to quick close, due to crisis results. First "Scar" appeared, then it was "Colonial Day" and Cally elected to take the skill check  which was failed with a suspicious number of red cards, plus a 5 Green from me resulting to -2 morale (down to 4). Next it was "Forced Water Mining" and Baltar chose not to take the check resulting in +1 food and -1 morale (down to 3), followed, on Anders turn, by "Informing the Public", he chose the skill check which was failed resulting in -2 morale (down to 1). On my turn I activated the raiders in the cylon fleet and Scar moved into a group of undefended civilian ships. I can't remember the next crisis, but the ensuing raider activation resulted in Scar destroying 2 civilian ships, one of which lost the final morale. I think I would have jumped the fleet previously, but I was no longer giving advice due to my new found allegiance and by that time I think the game was essentially lost to humanity anyway.

A full list of games played appears below.

30/10/2013
Battlestar Galactica - 150 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	0
1	Andy S	0
3	Mark W	0
3	James S	0
3	Dave G	0
Citadels - 70 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Stan	36
2	Steve G	28
3	Andy T	25
4	Rachel	24
5	Mike	23
6	Lee	19
China - 40 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	47
2	Stan	41
3	Rachel	35
Love Letter - 10 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Stan	3
2	Mike	0
2	Rachel	0
San Juan - 30 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	36
2	Andy T	35
3	Lee	26
Eight-Minute Empire - 20 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Lee	16
2	Steve H	14
3	Andy T	11

Full details for October

October saw a total of 142.92 player hours recorded, which is the highest recorded for a single month, beating the previous high of 122.83 recorded in March 2006.