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.

Thursday 26 June 2014

Games Played 25 June 2014

3 comments
12 people in attendance, split over 3 tables of 4, the games played were Battlestar Galactica, Power Grid and Caverna. Further details follow.

Thursday 19 June 2014

Games Played 18 June 2014

2 comments

13 this week and games played were Steam over Holland, Animal Olympics x2, Tzolk'in, Dominion (with Intrigue and Alchemy), Cosmic Encounter and Among the Stars. No new games this week.

Games Played 11 June 2014

0 comments
13 this week, games played The Palaces of Carrara, Strasbourg, Gloom, Boss Monster, Power Grid and ...und tschuss! The first 3 of those all being new to the club and it has to be said that there was some truly bizarre dialogue emanating from the table playing Gloom. Power Grid was played on the Indian subcontinent board.

Results follow below

Games Played 4 June 2014

2 comments
I've been busy with some other projects recently including getting the Games Expo tournament results online, so I've just two quick updates and then some more detail regarding 18 June (that's 3 separate posts)

14 players this week and the games played were Canal Mania, Legendary, Boss Monster x2, Tzolk'in, Hive and San Juan. Of those Boss Monster is a new game to the club and 2 sets saw games played on 2 separate tables.

Results follow below, Chris has made some comments on the games he played here.

Tuesday 3 June 2014

UK Games Expo 2014

3 comments
This is the second year that Halesowen Boardgamers has run many of the board game tournaments at the UK Games Expo. Besides Steve H, Gordon and myself - who participated as unpaid, unfed, overworked and sleep-deprived volunteers - I saw a few other club members at the Expo over the weekend. I would be interested to get your perspective on the event as "normal punters". In the meantime, here is my view.

The Games Expo certainly seemed a lot busier this year and the official numbers confirm this. The number of unique visitors was up from 3,500 to 6,000, while total attendance increased from 5,700 to 10,000. Friday is devoted to open gaming, with the trade halls not yet open, but when I arrived at around 4.30 pm there were already a lot of people around. By the time we finished running the tournaments, it was getting late. So late, that everything close to the NEC was closed. Gordon and I finally sat down to a meal in Solihull town centre at around 11 pm. Meanwhile, Steve had his own adventures in the open gaming hall. More space was available this year, yet it seemed far too little on the Saturday when the big crowds arrived. I didn't manage to patronise the bring-and-buy in 2013, but from what I remember it was relatively calm. Queues were long for breakfast and lunch, but just about manageable for those of us with little spare time. This year, I brought a couple of games to sell but when I finally wandered over to the bring-and-buy I found an hour long queue just to drop off games! Needless-to-say, this was more than enough to deter me. None of the three of us even bothered trying to get lunch due to lack of time and reports coming in about the impossibility of getting food within a reasonable time. We considered ourselves fortunate to find Subway open for our evening meal of a tuna sandwich each. Sunday was considerably less crowded. A friend kindly volunteered to do the bring-and-buy drop off and pick up on my behalf, resulting in two sold games! And, due to an unscheduled trip home on Saturday evening, we had the luxury of lunch: mango-flavoured fizzy drinks, cheese and parma ham sandwiches, and biscuits.

The Board game tournaments themselves went well. Of course, there were enough problems to keep our stress levels in the danger zone and we were so busy that trips to the toilets had to be carefully rationed. But we expected that. Whereas in 2013 we ran 7 tournaments over two days with a total of just over 100 participants, this year we ran 11 tournaments over two-and-a-half days with over 200 gamers taking part. I noticed more international players - Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, Malaysian - though I can't confirm that anyone actually travelled from abroad just to participate! But we will be sending four of the players out of the UK to take part in the world championships for Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride.    

Sunday 1 June 2014

Games Played 28 May 2014

2 comments
End of the month and 15 people in attendance, 7 games were played and I notice that the total number of games recorded since April 2003 passes 2000, including the Saturday Games Day. Games played were Istanbul, Dominion, Caylus Magna Carta, Carcassonne, Power Grid, Guillotine and Vinhos.