Catch up 15-29 April 2009

Ok, a long time has passed, so this is going to be a very quick recap of what has gone in the past weeks with very little commentary. This post covers the end of April; hopefully I'll do May tomorrow.
15 April
8 players

Small World 100 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	99
2	Andy	98+
3	Paul	98
4	Mike	84
Njet! 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	67
2	Dave D	60
3	Paul	59
4	Mike	52

There was some discussion of the rules for this game, which we revisited after a long period, looking at it, afterwards, I think I discovered that we had made a few errors.

Pillars of the Earth, The 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve Pe	56
2	Gordon	40
3	Steve H	38
4	Simon	33

This was the basic game without the expansion.

Dominion 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve Pe	30
2	Steve H	25
3	Gordon	23
4	Simon	21
Dominion 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve Pe	29+
2	Simon	29
3	Steve H	23
4	Gordon	21

 
22 April

 
5 Players

Battlestar Galactica 160 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Dave D
1=	Andy
3=	Ben C
3=	Dave C
3=	Steve H

We introduced Andy to this, but I don't think it is really his type of thing. Characters were Dave D– Zarek (Cylon), Steve – Tigh, Ben – Starbuck, Andy – Apollo (Cylon), Dave C - Chief Tyrol.
I seem to recall that Ben made a move that I thought indicated he was a cylon and therefore my ally and so, as President, I played an arrest order on Apollo, the other pilot. It turned out that it was actually Apollo who was my Cylon ally, but all turned out well in the end as the humans were defeated.
29 April
7 players, Dave & Ben played Monsterpocalypse, I don't have details of that game

Comuni 150 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Gordon	43
2	Steve P	29
3	Mike	24
4	Steve H	21
5	Dave D	11

I have to say that if I never play this again it will be too soon, the game seems to exemplify everything that is wrong with many of the recent euro game that I have been introduced to. A hodgepodge of mechanics slung together to make a really boring game that is almost like Caylus in its ability to cure Insomnia.

Session Report – 8 April 2009

We had 6 upstairs this week, while Dave C was running a holiday role playing session of Corporation downstairs in the bar. We welcomed back Jeremy, who came once last year and played Pillars of the Earth. We split into 2 groups of 3.
Steve H, Jeremy & I played 2 games of Small World, which I discussed in some detail in my last post. I have now played 6 times including a couple of games on Saturday and Dave's house, 5 out of 6 games being with only 3 players, I really would like to try it some more with 4 or 5. Anyway, Steve & I greatly enjoyed both games, which were both very close, with us each winning one, although as Steve pointed out, on aggregate points I was one ahead.
All that said, I can't remember very many details and the only thing really sticking in the mind were the Pillaging Skeletons, which made an appearance in both games, first in my hands and then in those of Jeremy. The skeletons do appear to be a powerful race with their ability to add extra units by capturing occupied areas and in this case they were combined with a powerful ability that complements them. Pillaging giving extra VP for capturing occupied areas.

Small World 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	99
2	Steve H	96
3	Jeremy	87
Small World 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	100
2	Dave D	98
3	Jeremy	76

Over on the other table, Mike, Gordon & Andy first played Chicago Express, another game coming back for a second week. The following comments are Mikes

Chicago Express game played totally differently to last week's - an auction frenzy rather than an engineer's paradise with no sign of the Wabash arriving.  This game has some real depth to it - trying to pitch a fair price, whilst trying to maintain or eliminate majorities, is a real challenge and something I'm nowhere near mastering yet.  Andy and I just shouldn't have allowed Gordon to dominate the two companies with the lowest shares, hopefully we'll learn the lesson.  After 2 plays I am still very enthusiastic, should have plenty of replayability, but I'd definitely like to go back to 4 players for the next try.

Chicago Express 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Gordon	67
2	Andy	52
3	Mike	45

Next they played Caylus Magna Carta, which we played twice back in 2007, when I felt it less offensive than Caylus, but still way too long to want to play again. It was shorter this time, but 70 minutes for this game is still longer than I'd like. Mike wrote

This was played with the 'quick start' variant - you add one extra card to the recommended start number, and make sure that the 2 deniers cash card is used.  For me the game length then felt about right, so I'll certainly suggest it for future plays.

Caylus Magna Carta 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	48
2	Gordon	35
3	Andy	34

Session Catch-up – 25 March, 1 April

I think it's time for a quick catch-up. I've been spending far too much time thinking about my online game of Battlestar Galactica on BGG (see here & here), so details here will be sketchy, but here goes.
25 March
We had 6 players and Ben wanted to play Munchkin, so we split 4 & 2. On our table we played Vinci, as I was keen to play again before the appearance of Small World, which I was expecting imminently. Not my finest hour as the scores show, things were going well enough until just past the halfway mark, when I chose to take the Specialist Livestock breeders, which had sat in the "I" position of the list for some time and accumulated some bonus VP. The problem was that they did not have enough units and although they did well enough initially, once forced into decline my scoring fell to near zero and I fell way back, the VP accumulated on the combination, being nowhere near enough to balance things out.

Vinci 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	130
2=	Mike	121
2=	Andy	121
4	Dave D	100

After that Andy moved over to the other table with Dave & Ben and we played Dominion, this being another long one, involving the Witch. I played Chapel from the start and had some success, but with the accumulation of curses, I was never able to trim my deck as I would have liked. By the end of the game, most of the curses had been eliminated from the decks by either Chapel or Remodel.
Over on the other table Dave & Ben played Munchkin

Munchkin 50 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	10
2	Ben C	8

Followed by 2 game of Through the Desert

Through the Desert 20 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	93
2	Ben C	85
Through the Desert 20 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Ben C	102
2	Dave C	75

They were then joined by Andy and played Mordred, Arthur was victorious here.

Mordred 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	16
2	Andy	15
3	Ben C	8

Finally Andy introduced a prototype called Wreck! (more later), a quick filler.

Wreck! 15 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	10
2	Dave C	31
3	Ben C	32

1 April
Happy 50^th birthday to me and everyone insisted I take first turn in each game, although this did not turn out to be an advantage.
Again we had 6 players and spent the early part of the evening down in the bar, while we waited for the committee room to become free. We played a couple of fillers, first being Tsuro.

Tsuro 15 mins.
Posn.	Player
1	Mike
2=	Ben C
2=	Andy
4	Steve H
5=	Dave D
5=	Dave C

Next up was Wreck! This time with 6 players. This is a fun little trick taking game, with a nominally pirate theme. The aim is to score the fewest points, calculated from the cards in the tricks you take. You don't have to follow suit, but if you don't then the card you play counts as zero, so you'll probably take the trick, unless you are playing later on as in the case of a tie the first player to play the lowest value takes the trick. As the game goes on it becomes more difficult to avoid taking tricks as players can add the values of previously taken cards in the appropriate suit to their score.
It is a fun and quick little filler and my only win of the evening.

Wreck! 15 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	0
2	Andy	2
3	Steve H	18
4	Ben C	26
5	Dave C	40
6	Mike	56

After that we moved upstairs and split in to 2 threes with Ben joining Steve & I in a game of Small World. This is a new Days of Wonder game, being a reimplementation of Vinci set in a fantasy world. I played the game again on Saturday and I like it, but I am not entirely sure, yet, which of this or Vinci I prefer. Here are a few of my thoughts.
The game is for 2 to 5 players, rather than 3 to 6. An unusual feature is a different board for each player number, which balances the game better than the token number adjustment in Vinci, the lower maximum player number is not a problem for me as I don't think Vinci played that well with 6 anyway. (1-0 to Small World).
Whereas Vinci has a completely random selection of special powers, in Small World they are split between a Race and a special ability and each combination will have one of each, so you might get a combination such as Berserk Skeletons. Many of the Race abilities and special powers replicate or are similar to powers in Vinci. This seems to have the effect of giving more balanced combinations. (2-0 to Small World).
In Small World each race has its own set of counters, rather than using a coloured disc to represent all a players units. When a race goes into decline, its counters are flipped over, rather than using special markers. This has the advantage of doing away with the decline markers, but I found it is often difficult to find all a player's units on the bard, compared to the obviousness of the coloured discs. (2-1 to Small World).
Small World has hidden scoring, compared to the open use of a scoring track in Vinci, it has been suggested that this will reduce a Kingmaking problem that some people (not me) see in the Vinci end game. If the problem exists I don't see that this solves it as the game is short enough for anyone with reasonable memory to have a fairly good idea about who the leaders are. In addition I have seen another problem in one game due to the use of small cardboard counters with identical backs to represent VPs. It is too easy, if the counters should get into the wrong slot in the tray to give out the wrong counters. This is probably a mistake that won't be made twice, but is not a good thing (2-2).
Vinci has totally deterministic combat, which I regard as a good thing, but Small World introduces a die which you can use to attempt one final conquest, if you have at least 1 unit and are no more than 3 units short. 3 of the 6 sides are blank, meaning you always have at least 50% chance of failure, so I don't think that the die really affects the game much if used for final conflicts. Unfortunately there is also a special power (Berserk) that allows the use of the die every turn and I think that is a bit much. (2-3 Vinci).
The point penalties for passing over combinations in Vinci are halved to 1 point in Small World, which seems to be a good thing as it makes is a conceivable option to take the combination in 6^th place (although I haven't seen it yet). In Vinci, I don't think this could seriously be considered. (3-3)
So on these points I sit on the fence about which is the better game, there are other things to consider such as the much better quality of production. This does not sway me one way or the other, although it has to be said I actually prefer the look of my old 1^st edition Vinci board. Some may be swayed, one way or the other, by the fantasy theme; again it makes no difference to me.
This was a close game with Steve winning on the tie break (something else that Vinci doesn't have). I shall have Small World in my normal selection, rather than Vinci for a bit in the hope of getting more play of the new game, but looking forward I would still like to play both games.

Small World 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	109+
2	Ben C	109
3	Dave D	105

Meanwhile, over on the other table, Andy, Mike & Dave played Chicago Express. Apparently Andy had imported the game from Europe due to difficulty in finding it over here and was a bit put out by the fact that it is now back in the shops again. Mike also has a copy put aside at Waylands, but he may have picked it up by now of course. Steve & I played this at Gordon's place with him and Steve P and were a bit dumbstruck by it. There is obviously a lot of depth here for a short game and we were caught out by how quickly the game ended, once the Wabash was available. Listening to the comments from the other table, it sounded as if this group found the same thing.

Chicago Express 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	99
2	Dave C	95
3	Mike	73

We finished with a 6 player game of Citadels. I managed to get down a very nice combination of 2 purple buildings allowing me to get cards and money. I am sure I could have won with this if it hadn't been for the fact that I was hit by the Assassin 3 time, as it was look at the results.

Citadels 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	30
2	Dave C	27
3	Steve H	27
4	Andy	25
5	Ben C	22
6	Dave D	19

Session Report 18 March 2009

With 5 players this week, I brought Richard Denning's Great Fire prototype back to the table. This is due to be demonstrated at the upcoming UK Games Expo, by myself amongst others.
The first time I played the game, the spread of the fire was to the west as is to be expected given the mix of cards, but in all the more recent games we have tended to see a spread to the North and East. I don't see how this may be some kind of strange group think amongst ourselves, because most of the people I have played the game with have been new to it (3 in this case), but we do seem to find a concentration of trained bands in the West, together with a reluctance to play cards for that direction early on.
Anyway that was the pattern for this game, the Tower of London went up in smoke quite early (taking with it most of its demolition charges) and from there the fire spread North up through the Duke's Palace and turned west at the top of the board taking out Anton's Yard and almost reaching the Artillery Grounds by the end of the game. To the west of Pudding Lane the fire spread slowly engulfing Bread St and the areas to its west, but failing to reach St. Pauls, much to Paul's disappointment as he displayed a great aptitude as a pyromaniac and had been keen to burn the Cathedral from the beginning. In the North West the Guild Hall survived despite my best efforts (although the regions on several sides were ablaze), I had been keen to have it burn having earlier failed in my efforts to preserve the Royal Exchange (losing 6 points).
Steve Perkins succeeded in winning the Hero of London award with 6 fires extinguished, having held it since its first award; he was also the only one to keep all his bonus locations intact (including the Guild Hall) and ended up winning from Steve H, who had lost out due to the conflagration at the Tower. All enjoyed the game and at the end agreed that this was a good fun game with a theme that should have wide appeal, being a widely known historical event. The only slight concern, expressed by Paul, was that there might be too many trained bands available allowing the fire to be too closely controlled in the early stages. The problem is reducing the number may allow the first to run completely out of control. A possibility we thought may be in having fixed starting positions for the trained bands or maybe requiring the players to make one of their placements on the North, East or West edges of the board, allowing more scope for spread before they could be properly brought into play. It does occur to me that the number of trained bands might be better fixed rather than depending on the number of players, as the number of houses on the board is also fixed rather than variable.

Great Fire 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve Pe	53
2	Steve H	50
3	Dave D	45
4	Paul	42
5	Mike	41

 
Next game on the table was Nottingham. This seemed an unusual play of this game with the conclusion coming by the play of the all the missions available before the Sheriff got more than about a third of the way to Nottingham. Only 2 other sets were played throughout the game. I think one reason for this was, probably, the number of ambushes that were set up deterring people from trying for sets of 3. I had 4 of these in front of me thinking I would be able to collect good cards by ambushing other people, it didn't work out like that and it would probably have been better had I simply taken the '9' cards into my hand when I had the opportunity and made a set of them.

Nottingham 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	60
2	Steve Pe	42
3	Paul	38
4	Dave D	36
5	Mike	25

 
Finally there was time for a quick round of Tsuro, Paul winning by staying alive just long enough for the rest of us to fall off the board.

Tsuro 10 mins.
Posn.	Player
1	Paul
2	Mike
3	Dave D
4	Steve H
5	Steve Pe