Pirates, Trains and Penguins

9th July 2014 The evening started off very light-heartedly with Crazy Derby a simple Reiner card game where collectively you try to make sets, those partaking in the successful sets score victory points, normally played to 100 points we just played a round to get a feel for it (3rounds would normally settle a 5 player game).

The Box front

There being 6 of us another filler was required I suggested Jamaica a race game where the fortunes of die rolling and card drawing make this a game of luck, the fun being in the journey rather than the goal. The first attack of Pirate against Pirate was a reluctant affair with only a small pile of booty being taken, however with the second attack any chance of “honour” was lost and from then on everyone grabbed what they could. The game split between a front group of three and “The Others”, a misplayed card destroying the hopes of one Pirate, I had no such excuse.

The pirate fleet sets sail - guess who is trailing.

2 of my 5 holds - 3 doubloons and a couple of shot - meagre holdings indeed 

We divided into 2 tables after that, one table playing Oregon the other Chicago Express Oregon is an odd game where you use cards to place generic buildings or your own pieces, the idea being to maximise your points by placing pieces next to high scoring buildings. The game does rely on drawing the right cards.

Oregon opens up to settlers

Chicago Express I had been looking forward to playing and I was not disappointed. On your turn you buy a share, lengthen a railway or improve a rail line, the value of a railway increases (as does the value of your shares) by reaching various towns or making improvements. Regular dividends increase personal cash, maximum cash holder at game end decides the winner. It took me ¾ of the game to understand some of the subtleties in the mechanisms but once understood it is a fairly simple game to play. I see many battles ahead.

The box

Three routes reach Chicago - I only had shares in one of them :(

Last games on the tables were A Fistful of Penguins and Drunter and Druber . The former is a nice game of dice rolling where you use “penguins” as cash to buy new dice or re-roll bad rolls.

Crib sheet, coins and laser cut penguins in a Fistful of Penguins

The latter game is route laying game where you build walls, roads and canals over important structures. Each player owns a different structure and does their best to defend their buildings by guiding the “routes” in different directions. As the building ownership is secret to the other players, half the fun is guessing what the others own and trying to mislead others in identifying your buildings.

Towards game end in Drunter and Druber, The Blue Clocktowers and Red Fire Towers remain unscathed and become targets.

As always a mix of light fun and medium weight games, an enjoyable evening. To date 52 different games have been played at the club with New Amsterdam– what has been played can be found HERE

Acid Rainfall, Recycling and Panda's

2nd July 2014 saw 2 new visitors to the club, bringing the numbers to 8 for the evening,  You were both welcome and I hope you enjoyed yourselves.

Pick A Dilly - The Egg collecting filler - but no omlettes

We warmed up with  Pick A Dilly, a simple game where your selection on a dial affects how many eggs (points) players get, out guessing your opponents is the key to success.

What is in the box

We then split up into 2 tables, the first group selecting Takenoko a lovely family game where you grow bamboo for the Panda and get rewarded for your efforts.

The Panda examines new bamboo growth whilst the Gardener looks on

Takenoko - mid game showing three different land types and plenty of Green Bamboo growth

Table 2 took on the more complex 20th Century where each player bids against one another for tiles which they then use to grow their own economic empire, there is quite a lot of mental arithmetic to be done and you need a keen eye for spotting key tiles.

20th Century - You need to recycle to win

20th Century Gameboard and my start tiles (bottom left hand corner)

I tried the tactic of overspending in the first turn to get an early lead which would then keep me ahead, this worked well until the last turn where game-end scoring doubled one players score and left the rest of us well behind.

Eight Minute Empire midgame with the card row at the top.

In the meantime Table 1 had moved on to Eight Minute Empire a “Kickstarter” purchase which turned out to be a best buy, players on their turn select a card from 6 on offer and use it to place or move cubes on a board. At games’ end players earn points for commodities on the cards they chose and for majorities on the board. Despite its title it plays in 15 minutes but crams a lot of depth into what is really a filler game.

Sauerbaum - Early stages with the rain starting to eat away at the top of the tree ( Board is side on )

Table 1 then moved on to Sauerbaum, a co-operative game which should really be played with a box of smarties in place of the rain counters, on a turn players roll dice and place “acid rain” counters on the tree, players then use other dice to manoeuvre their playing piece to remove those counters. On this occasion the players beat the game.

Tongiaki - Very early days

Table 2 finished off with Tongiaki a game where I feel I have a complete lack of control, this game was no different as my boats were rapidly manoeuvred onto the Ocean floor along with those of my well-meaning competitors, I was not the only one to suffer though as we slowly got split up.

Tongiaki - Towards the end with both orange and blue sailing off into oblivion, leaving yellow to defend the home islands with a little help from green (I tried - I really tried but my boats kept sinking)

 It was a good evening with a nice mix of games.

Donkeys, Firemen and Tents

25th June 2014. Last night saw numbers slightly down on last week.

We started with  Esels Rennen  a Doris and Frank game that I had not aired for a while. It is a nice 15 minute filler game with a unique movement system where you move a single donkey which then sets off a chain of other donkey movement. 

The red donkey advances

This was followed by some fierce fire fighting in a game of Flash Point, a co-operative game where each player takes on the role of a Fire Fighter each with their unique skills, we played with the Rescue Dog which unfortunately got itself trapped. We lost badly, the building rapidly collapsing around us with only one poor soul being rescued - the goal is to save 7.

The "CAFS Firefighter" leads the way into the burning building followed by the "Veteran Firefighter"

The last game of the evening was Livingstone. An interesting mix of mechanisms where 8 dice are rolled and you each take a die to use the pips to obtain cash, collect gems, buy power cards and place tents, all to gain victory points. The mechanisms in the game were quite interesting and despite the point in the game where odds of 30:1 appeared to be a certainty there were enough opportunities for the luck element of the game to balance out. One I will be adding to my "To buy" list.

The penultimate turn, Yellows extensive lead was reduced - but not by much

A good evening of games.

The First 9 Weeks

As this is a catch up entry to cover everything played so far at the club it will be just be bare bones and a simple summary list, I will do my best to flesh out further entries with any thoughts voiced either about the games played or possible games for the future. The entry is a bit wordy, photos and links will follow in due course once I understand how things work here.

The first meeting got underway  on 23rd April 2014 with a quick game of Pickomino (aka Heck Meck) normally a 20 minute filler game it lasted well beyond its normal playing time to the point where questions were being asked of me whether I was sure it was a quick filler game. With 5 attendees for the first meeting we moved on to Kingsburg (basic game) which played through quite. I am sure that we ended the evening with another filler but no-one I have asked recalls what (if anything) it was.

30th April 2014 had 6 attendees starting with a game of Incan Gold, splitting into two threes playing Santiago de Cuba, Taj Mahal, 8 Minute Empire, Rattus (base game) and Unexpected Treasures.

On 7th May 2014 there were 6 attendees with the warm-up games being Buccaneer Bones followed by Tongiaki, we then split into two threes to play Tobago and Twin Tin Bots.

On 14th May 2014 had 6 attendees who split into two threes without a warm-up – memories of Pickomino still being mentioned 4 weeks on may have been a factor. Table 1 played Santiago de Cuba, Tsuro of the Seas and the Alhambra Dice Game. Table 2 played Wongar, Claim it and Land Unter (aka Turn the Tide). The variety of games gave a nice mix of game mechanics including Area Control, Resource Management, Route Laying and dice rolling among others.

On 21st May 2014 7 players attended and the warm-up game was Camel Up, one of the three games currently on the Spiel des Jahres nomination list, a lovely game of chance which has gone on to my “To Buy” list.  We then went onto split 4 and 3 with Table 1 playing Felina and then Roll for it whilst table 2 played New Amsterdam (another on to the “To buy” list) and Unexpected Treasures.

On 28 May 2015 7 people attended and the warm up games were Fluxx (basic but latest edition) and Roll for it. The first game we played was a 7 player game of 7 Wonders (without expansions). The split after that was a little different in that Table 1 played a 2 player game of Memoir ’44, a close fought battle but at a basic level as I was still learning the rules. Table 2 played a 5 player game of Darjeeling (one of the games currently under offer in The Works).

On 4th June 2014 there were 5 attendees, Table 1 had 3 players playing Glass Road (plays1-4 only) followed by No Thanks and then Unspeakable Words, Table 2 played Maori followed by Samurai – the card game. The last game of the evening was Tranamerica. It was the first night I had remembered to take some pictures of what we were playing however when I looked at them later except for the Transamerica board, all I had were photos of card and tile games.

On 11th June 2014 there were 5 attendees who played Martian Dice, Ivor the Engine (a 2014 release), Great Wall of China and Spin Monkeys (on sale in The Works).  Spin Monkeys I have to comment on – the amount of control you have in the game is limited but for this it is a nice game to end the evening with, it is light, easy to learn and full of chaos.

Finally for this entry are last weeks games on 18 June 2014. Our first evening of 8 attendees and we quickly split into 2 sets of 4. Table 1 played Strozzi, followed by Taluva (2 games I have yet to play) and finished off with Midnight Party. Table 2 played Compounded a Kickstarter game, a nicely balanced resource management game. This was followed by Transamerica and Spin Monkeys.

Welcome to the MAB What We've Played Blog

The Blog will be maintained by our designated, much respected "Official Chronicler of Games Played at MAB" also known as the O.C.o.G.P.a.M.  (He used to be the "Official Facebook Chronicler of Games Played At MAB", but we're not just on Facebook now :-) ).  So check in here to see what we've been up to...