It was a busy night at the club with 3 tables on the go. Table 1 started off with Elysium a game designed in Britain which is a set collecting game. It has received a mixed reaction but is currently enjoying a reasonable position on the geek listing and was enjoyed by those at the club.

Table 1 followed this with a game of Arboretum a card collecting game. On your turn you take two cards from the either the central deck or any of the discard piles (each player has their own discard pile), they then play a card and discard another, thus taking 2 cards and losing 2 cards a turn.

Regal Poinciana will score as there is a traceable run of increasing value cards between the 1 and the 5.

The cards you play are laid out in a personal grid with the idea of creating runs. At the end of the game you score for all runs, a run consists of cards adjacent to one another in increasing numerical value where only the start and end card need to be of the same suit. However a suite is only scored if you hold the highest total of that suit in your hand when the game is ended, normally a single card is sufficient however a final twist is that a 1 cancels out an 8.

The players control the speed of the game, taking from discard piles (always tempting) slows the game down. The game is interesting with some interesting tactics of which cards to hold on to towards the end of the game, the lovely artwork is also worthy of mention.

The first game on Table 2 was AquaSphere a Stefan Feld game, and as with most of his games you are taking actions for small gains whilst also trying to build up your position to obtain bonus points at the end of the game, the best route to victory is in creating extra actions of which there are several methods.

Sometimes his games can appear “bitty” or fiddly and Aquasphere is no exception with lots of options every turn, however there is a hidden logic to it all and it all fits together excellently. It is all a matter of balance which I failed to achieve and in our game.

Table 3 started off with something a little lighter, Lords of Vegas.

I have yet to play this game however the howls of laughter from the table where it was being played made me feel that I am missing something with a huge fun factor, so it is definitely on my list of games I must play.

Table 3 then moved on to Hanabi a co-operative game of deduction where each player sees every-ones hand of cards except their own. Through information given to you by the other players, which must contain a colour or number, about your hand (e.g. you have no green cards) you deduce what you hold in your hand.

The hand holder is not permitted to see this hand

As a group the players try to play their cards in numerical order onto coloured piles. Although a game of logic and deduction the play of the game does depend on the group playing it and a certain amount of latitude.

On Table 3 there was still time left for a quick game of Sushi Go! which has become quite popular and now leads the table of games played at the club.

After Aquasphere Table 2 teamed up with Table 1 to play a game of Buccaneer Bones, this is a simple game with only a few rules, there are tactics but they do tend to be led by the luck of the dice. You have a personal display with ships on numbers 1 to 6, on your turn you roll 4 dice and get one re-roll.

Reds Player Board with ships sailing to the Southern Islands looking for treasure

With 3 of a kind you can move that ship down 2 spaces and with a pair you can move the relevant ship down one space (eg two fours allows you to move the 4 ship down 1 space). If a ship is at the bottom and you roll its number on 3 dice you move it back to the top of your sheet and collect a treasure token the first to three treasure tokens wins.

Whilst ships are at the bottom of the sheet they bring extra in-game bonuses which you lose when they get returned for a treasure token.

The final game on our was Sushi Go!, well we did not want to miss out did we?

Last weeks picture was of a solo game of Roads & Boats a very nice game by Splotter which I can highly recommend. This weeks picture should be easy to deduce despite the poor picture quality.

Medway Area Boardgamers