Jazz, Artifacts and Modern Art

This weeks quiz is a doddle if you have been following the blogs.

The last quiz was Dino Race a nice simple race game with a medium slice of luck thrown in, playing in 20 minutes it is great fun for younger gamers as well as adults.

The warm up was a new one on me, normally I steer clear of memory style games but this was a lot of fun. Jazz: The Singing Card Game  consists of a deck of cards with mixed Jazz sounds written thereon such as “Bop”, “At” and “Scoodily” to name a few there are also blank cards to make up your own jazz noises. On a turn you name every card in the sequence already played and then add your own card, if no-one spots a mistake then play passes to the next person, a player making a mistake takes the cards played so far into their forfeit pile, they start a new round. It was an excellent warm-up with quite a few people getting into the rhythm of it. I won but only by dint of collecting 90% of the extended solo cards which allowed me to bow-out without penalty which I did almost every other turn.

We split into 2 tables, table 1 went with a brand new game hot off the press Artifacts, Inc.. In this game players roll dice to collect various artifacts which they sell to dealers and museums for cash, this in turn is then used to finance expeditions and purchase items of use, all of which give victory points.

The start cards for each player which begins their personal display

The driving mechanism behind the game is a set of dice which you roll on your turn, these are used to activate cards in your personal display which generally give you artifacts but also allow you to make purchases of cards which you add to your display. The game is played to a fixed number of victory points, these points are earned from cards you have bought or upgraded in your display (all cards are 2-sided and by having donated the most exhibits to each of the 4 museums in play.

There are many different cards available depicted here are Treasure from a dive, 2 items (boat and diving suit) and an expedition.

The game plays smoothly although the first few turns are preset and there is a quick grab of extra dice cards to gain the best chances in the game, die rolling can go against a player though this is not a huge problem as you can always use the dice you roll to get something but too many bad rolls (low numbers) will limit flexibility and will not help your game.

The Museums, Private Collector and Guide card

The only other drawback in the game is downtime, although it is not a huge factor there is nothing to do during other players turns except read the cards available for purchase, you cannot plan anything until you have rolled your dice and seen what numbers you have to play with. I remedied this in a 2 player game by adding an extra set of dice so that we could roll and plan whilst the other was activating their turn.

Our table went with Glory to Rome this game has been around for a few years now, ten to be exact, and is rather nice and brightly coloured card game, however it took me about half the game to wrap my head around what are essentially quite simple rules. The game consists of a large deck of cards and each card has multiple functions; depending on what is happening in the round dictates what function each card has. A card can by one of 6 Characters (Patron, Soldier, Craftsmen, Architect, Merchant or Labourer), it will also be one of 6 different building materials (Rubble, Wood, Brick, Stone, Marble or Concrete), it will also have a cash rating for game end scoring (1, 2 or 3) and it will also have a building described on it. Cards can have one of 6 locations, in the hand, in the pool (all players have access to it), in your stockpile as a material, in your vault as victory points, as a material under a building you are constructing or as a character added to your client list.

Each players has a player mat to assist with the roles of the characters.

On a turn a player chooses a character from his hand to action or just refills their hand. If they play a character every other player has a chance to follow and play the same character or refill their hand. It is the play of these cards together with the powers given bybuildings that you have completed that are the guts of the game, the early interactions are easy to predict but the buildings make safe plays more in doubt as the game develops.

My display early in the game, I have 2 Labourer clients to the left of my board and plenty of materials at the bottom. The Stone (blue) could have been played as a Merchant (left of card) or the building (centre - a Colloseum I believe) depending on the circumstances of when it was played. 

It is an interesting game and is well liked lying 67th in the strategy Game Ranking on the geek, it is not my preferred style of game essentially being a deck building game but I hope to play it again so that I can play it without struggling with the game mechanism as I did on this occasion and I thank my opponents for their patience as I struggled with the mechanisms.

We had a late arrival at the club and went for a 5 player game of Modern Art, this Reiner bidding game can be a lot of fun and is as much about judging what your opponents are likely to do as it is about playing the game itself. In short you play a card which is a painting by one of 5 artists, a bidding icon in the corner of the card shows how the bidding is to take place, such as closed bid or once round the table etcetera.

Four of the five artists in Modern Art - Yoko showing a "Once round the table" bid

The bid winner gets the painting and the seller gets the cash, this play continues round the table each auctioning a painting in turn until one of the artists is represented by 5 paintings. At this point the artists are rated by how many paintings of theirs have been bought (the more purchases the more valuable each painting is), this is converted to cash and the paintings are sold at the rated price. There are 4 rounds and the ratings are cumulative so in the last round paintings can attract a very high price, it was a relaxed game with no clues as what was a fair price at any one time and with some interesting bidding tactics which led to much confusion and fun.

In the meantime table 1 played Cacao  which I have described in a couple of previous writings. It is a gentle tile laying game with players collecting points from undertaking various actions depending on where they lay their tribe tiles.

The last game played was Sauerbaum, this excellent co-operative game I will cover in a write up in the future, to pique your interest I will just say that this is an excellent game played with a box of smarties (4 tubes of smarties do equally well), as the smarties double as victory points it is important not to nibble mid game.

Aquasphere, Discoveries and Kashgar

These guys are doing their best to escape the lava that is slowly creeping up behind them.

For the quiz photo this time I have gone for something relatively new game released in 2014 and a little cute.

The last quiz was correctly identified by several people with BQ coming up with a cryptic clue that had me searching the internet and reading up on the actress Natalie Wood. The game of course was Splendor, the picture a crop of the box lid.

We started off this week with Martian Dice, a nice warm-up that can take as many players as you like though down time increases with player numbers but as you only have to concentrate on your turn it allows you to chat & chew the fat or even watch the special dice juggling show that one of us spontaneously provided.

Special dice tray made available to us after the second dice juggling show.

I managed to put my months luck of die rolling into one round and won the game, I despair of any other die rolling games I may have to play this month.

Table 1 began with Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraße this (as far as I am aware) has not been released in an English version and requires vast amount of paste-ups, however there is a nice game awaiting those with the patience. The aim is to gain points by trading in various goods coming over the Silk Road.

Three separate camel trains, only the bottom card of each train is available for use

It is best described (by the geek) as an open deck building game, each player has 3 caravans initially of 3 cards which you build upon, when you use a cards action it goes to the back of the caravan and cannot be used again until all the other cards have been used. The game was well received by those playing it.

Table 2 went with Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia which for a second week in a row got a very favourable response. I was fortunate this week to take a time-out and left the rules explanation to another player whilst I wandered around looking at the other games tables.

Three of the several Markets that are available. Each game uses only 6 of those available making each game a little different.

Euphoria is an excellent game and very well themed, the background fluff (which I erronously left out of last weeks explanation) helps explain the rules and brings the game to life. An excellent overview can be found on the comments link of the game above by Keith Jones (on the first page) which is so much better than I can put here but mirrors my views. Our game went well, I had a plan and worked towards it; most achievements take several actions/turns to achieve, however I found myself always 1 step behind the others who got to key points before me.

Artifact cards and dice used in Euphoria

This left me a few points behind, and even my lucky roll of a triple 3 allowing me an extra 2 actions in one turn failed to get me back in the game which was won by a first time player in a very tight finish.

Table 3 played AquaSphere, I like Stefan Feld games and this is another that leaves you struggling against each other to collect small batches of points from various parts of the board, it is important to be scoring just one or two points more than your opponents each turn if you can but there is also game-end scoring for various goals which if ignored will leave you behind in the points at the games end.

The Aquasphere in the middle with 3 player programming boards and central control board (left)

The theme is that the Aquasphere is a research facility in the ocean depths and each player has a reserve of robots within the facility which he programs from the control room to carry out various actions within the facility, the actions are not only goverened by what has been programmed by the player but also by time tokens.

Player board and personal lab of the yellow player

The Robots can be programmed to equip minisubs, expand the players laboratory, undertake research, collect crystals (required to enter the next scoring zone) and to collect Octopods which infest different areas of the Aquasphere. If you get the correct balance of actions and time tokens you will do well, finding that balance is difficult.

Kashgar finished first and the players moved on to a game of Discoveries. This game is by the same author as Lewis & Clark and uses the same theme.

Players holding of dice and helpers

The turn mechanism is as that in Euphoria, on your turn you either play dice to take exploration actions or you recover your dice, the explore actions allow you to gain tribe/discovery cards which assist in play and score points at the games end.  I have yet to play this one but it has entered my “to play” list and hope to give it a bash next week.

Aquasphere, Discoveries and Euphoria ending at the same time gave us the opportunity to swap among the tables, Tables 2 and 3 combined to play a couple of lighter more fun games, starting with Skull & Roses.

There is nothing I can add to last weeks report of the game, however it was very interesting to note that with different players the group dynamics changed. This week there were distinct styles of play and with open analysis of those styles over the table there was created yet another dynamic as players bluffed on their style as well as the discs they had played.

In the meantime Table 1 with additions played Montego Bay where the aim is to score points by loading your barrels onto waiting ships, however collecting your barrels is not straight-forward.

View of the board early in the game, a few deliveries have been made to ships (cubes on boats)

In turn order players pieces move clockwise around the board dependent on what cards they have played which shows how far they move, no two pieces can end on the same space so if a piece lands on another with its last move it pushes the occupant across the board unless that space is also occupied in which case the moving piece drops back to the first empty space.

Three of the Warehouses available which can be played either way round thus making every game a little different

Once all pieces have been moved the players collect or lose barrels dependent on which warehouses their pieces are next to, this is also done in order. It is a nice game with a bit of double thinking dependent on what you think your opponents may be up to.

The final game of the evening was Om Nom Nom another game of bluff and trying to deduce the plays of others around the table. I once again proved that I am totally incapable of reading what others are thinking and should never play Poker by coming last by quite a few points.

Food dice in Om Nom Nom

For those who cannot remember this game 15 dice are rolled which represent 2 layers of food on 3 separate food chains (boards) ie 6 different types, the players each have 6 cards and each round all players select and play a card together, these are revealed and everyone splits the food equally dependent upon which card they played.

Skull, Euphoria and Fresco

This quiz picture is something which may be familiar to some of you.

The last quiz was correctly identified by BQ as 13 Dead End Drive which can be a lot of fun if you are in a frivolous mood which oft-times I am.

This weeks gaming extravaganza started with 6 nimmt!. This card game has been around for a while and has had a couple of spin-offs such as Hornochsen. It is a light game and requires only a little thought and an ability to read the furrowed brows around you. On a turn everyone selects a card from their hand and these are revealed simultaneously, all the cards are then played to a grid tableau on the table in numerical order. The Golden rule is that a card is always placed against a row where it is higher than the previous card in that row and where the numerical difference is least. When the sixth card is placed in a row it takes all the others and scores penalty points for that player. A round ends when everyone has played all their cards.

We then split into 3 tables of 3. Our table played Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia, this is an excellent worker placement game where the workers are dice and the aim is to lose your stars before the other players by achieving various aims. There is no way I can do this game justice in the few paragraphs I have here so I will only do a very brief overview and say that if you enjoy resource management games you must play this game at least once. The board is of a futuristic city which is split into 4 major zones.

A view of the board, there is often a lot going on at any one time, but turns are usually very quick as players work to preset goals.

The three ground based zones produce 3 commodities namely energy, water and food, these can be traded in for Resources namely Stone, Gold or Clay these three ground zones also each contain a pair of markets which need to be opened during the game for which the Resources are required. The basic rule is that on your turn you either place a worker or you retrieve workers from the board. Depending on where you place your worker, you will receive resources or trade them for commodities or help open up a market.

The Wasteland sector showing a clay mine (bottom left), 2 revealed markets (centre) and food commodities

Dice remain on the board until you retrieve them or someone knocks them off a single worker space, any time those dice come off the board you roll them and must total the pips of ALL your offboard dice with your knowledge level and if the sum is 16 or over then you lose a worker. Health allows you to collect artefact cards which can be used in certain places to gain a foothold on a market. There is more but I suggest you play it to get the full impact of the game.

 Table 1 started with Kingsburg, this is its 4th appearance at the club and is solid worker placement game which sits 28th in the Family Game geek listing, under-placed in my opinion as it is also an excellent post-introductory game for those new to gaming.

Table 3 started with Fresco, this is one of the nicer games out of the Queen stable and on release was nominated for 10 awards winning 4 of them. On a turn players initially choose turn order, going earlier means you will get more choice, but it costs more and your happiness goes down (no-one likes getting up early).

Fresco board at games end with Red winning and all bar 2 of the centre tiles "painted"

Each player then in secret posts their workers to various jobs which include buying paints, mixing paints for more colours, paint a fresco, collecting cash and  go to the theatre increasing your happiness rating,  all with the aim of gaining the tiles (paint fresco action) in the centre of the board for victory points and extra in game benefits. All enjoyed the game which is placed 9 places above Kingsburg.

Table 3 followed Fresco with San Juan a card game using the theme and job roles from Puerto Rico. Cards have 3 roles, the first as money, the second as various buildings depicted on them and the third as goods. As in the parent game a player on their turn chooses a job role and performs its action as do the other players in turn, the job role chooser gets a bonus, the next player then chooses a job role from those that are left e.t.c.

This player has 3 fields with goods and 3 other buildings - score shown by cost (ie a total of 16 so far)

The idea is to build buildings which give victory points however to do well you need to build buildings that work well together as well as give the points.

Table 1 went on to play Hanabi and from the laughter emanating from the table I am under the impression that the players at our club have rewritten the rules to allow a large level of latitude in their guesswork and play.

This firework display is going well - I wonder how many unofficial hints have been given so far.

If you have not come across this one yet it is a deductive game where only you CANNOT see your own cards, you have to make a choice of play based upon the specific information given to you by the other players though that information is scarce and never enough to make completely safe plays.

At this point there was a mixing of the tables and 6 of us sat down to play The Princess Bride: A Battle of Wits, with more players this was a lot better and although I know it will not be a winner at the club, it is a game that I know will work well with certain groups. There are a group of cups in the centre of the table, one for each player, on a turn a player can either play a card face down at the top of a cup or the bottom of a cup. Cards at the top will either be wine or a dose of poison, cards at the bottom are bids for that cup.

5 player game - Swords dominating the centre cup

When all cards are played (eight rounds) then the bids are sorted to see who each cup, should a player win 2 cups they choose which to have with second place then winning the cup. This continues until each player has won a cup at which point the contents for each are revealed. Every other round some cards at the top of cups are revealed to allow some information to flow into the game.  For our games (we played 2) there were multiple winners whereas the rules seem to indicate that it will usually be one or none, perhaps the playtesters were more aggressive in play than we were.

The last game of the evening was Skull, another shortish fun game where the aim is to win any 2 rounds before any of the other players. All players start the game with 4 discs, one of which has a skull on it, the other three have roses.

One win so far for this player and 2 tiles put into play - is one a skull? Of course it is

Everyone chooses one of these and places it face down in front of them, then going round the table players bid for how many roses are in play, once everyone has passed the winning bid reveals the discs one at a time starting with their own, this stops as soon as they reach the number of roses called in which case they win the round or reveal a skull in which case they randomly lose one of their discs.

Someone I met at Chester Zoo and the reason I missed MAB a couple of weeks back.

The Princess Bride, Circuses and Canterbury

Apologies for missing a couple of weeks, but I am back now. The quiz is a bit trickier this week, I have again gone for one of the older games in my collection, it is a lot of fun and like Pingvinas takes more time to set up than to play but I usually play 3 games in a row so it is worth the time setting up.

The answer to the last quiz is Carson City, a popular western themed game that I can never get to grips with, it is about gaining influence in a growing town where the shootouts can be catastrophic.

Three tables were at play this week but operation stack, several road accidents on the motorways and roadworks near to our venue all went to delay several arrivals which led to staggered game starts. Table 1 was up and running with Cockroach Poker one of three games by “Drie Magier Spiele” with a cockroach theme. In this one the deck is dealt out to all the players and on a turn a player selects a card and passes it to another player claiming it to be one of 8 creatures, the recipient either takes the card and states they agree or disagree with the claim or they choose to pass it on making their own claim (after peeking at it). If the first option is taken one of the 2 players will end up with the card. The whole idea is to avoid losing which is achieved through ending up with a set of four cards or not having any cards to play. The game is all about bluffing others and is at the “party” end of the gaming spectrum and lots of fun.

In search of a 15 minute game Table 2 started with a 3 player game of The Princess Bride: A Battle of Wits , although a clever little game of bluff it was not good with 3 players and needed (I would say) a minimum of 5 to make it play properly, however I needed a run through to see how the it worked and I appreciate the volunteers who assisted me seeing the mechanics in motion.

As Cockroach Poker was still running we went for another quick game, this time Labyrinth: The Card Game. The box contains a deck of cards each with one or more pathways and 2 treasure tokens upon it, on a turn a player plays a card to the tableau and if they link any treasure on their card to a like treasure elsewhere in the labyrinth they take that card as a victory point. Complications are added in that all tiles have to tessellate (path to path and blank wall to blank wall) and no cards may be left as an “island”.

The Labyrinth layout 2/3 of the way through the game.

There is preplanning but as the playing area changes as other players add and remove cards more often than not you are left with a lot of thinking to be done on your turn which leads to a bit of unused downtime.

The tables then split into 3 for the main attractions of the evening. Table 1 went with Canterbury which I believe is a very cut-throat game judging by the odd remonstration coming from that table. The game is about the construction of Canterbury by the Saxons and the winner is the player with the most prosperity which is gained by building various structures of the three different sizes available.

A section of the Canterbury board showing development in 6 areas, the markers at the bottom of each area show what services are being provided by various buildings. Larger buildings can influence adjacent areas.

Buildings provide services and each district must be given services in a specific order with water being the basic need, you may demolish small buildings to build bigger ones but services must still be provided. There is a lot to the game and is one of those on my “To play” list.

Table 2 went with Russian Railroads an excellent worker placement game whereby you construct 3 different railroads, the skill in the game lies in collecting the in-game bonuses, I have played this a lot 2 player but the dynamics are quite different 3 player. One of our number took an early lead by rapidly achieving the high scoring goals a turn before the rest of us really got going.

Part way through the game the leaders home board showing a completed bottom rail and a strong Industrial position.

I took the first Engineer and tailored my initial play to him however by halfway through the game the leader was doing my strategy and a lot better than I was, the third player went for the extra manpower but at the cost of Industry expansion. Entering the last round the leader was 100 points in the lead and although I had collected several game end bonuses I was never going to make up that sort of gap, it was a well deserved win and a good game with all three players well matched.

Table 3 went with Drum Roll an interesting action and resource management game. I love Drum Roll and along with Russian Railroads and Through the Ages is one of my favourites, the theme is that you are running a circus and touring Europe putting on a show in each of 3 cities, the player at the end of the game with the most points wins.

One of the players performers showing the cubes required to fully equip them, the third card has been equipped.

On a turn a player can collect cash, hire a circus act, hire a helper, collect equipment or take an Investment card. The game revolves around the circus acts you hire, they need equipment to perform and after each show you have to pay them, in return the acts provide extra resources and funds. Once a performer has been provided with all the equipment (represented by colour cubes) they need you can get victory points from them at which point their wages are reduced however they no longer provide any form of provision.

Drum roll board season 1 turn 3, no score yet, showing placement options, blue has gone for a helper (bottom left)

At the games end there are extra bonuses for various achievements such as largest troupe and most helpers however the majority of the points come from the performers themselves. It is certainly one of the most colourful games I have, the artwork on the cards is vibrant and adds to the feel of running a circus, there is a bit of mental maths as cash flow is important (your performers require wages after each show) and unpaid acts leave taking victory points with them, a costly loss.

Table 2 managed to fit in a quick game of Pandemic: Contagion unlike the other games of the Pandemic theme this is not a co-operative game and the players play various diseases doing their best to spread and cause mass infection in various cities of the world. Players play cards to increase their card draw rate, infection rate or defence against the W.H.O., each turn an event card is revealed which affects all players prior to them playing their 2 actions. Points are earned by being the earliest and biggest infection in the various cities when they reach infection capacity. It was a close game won by Mr Infection himself.

As there was still a little time left I wanted to cram in one of my other new games and rapidly rushed through the rules. The Princess Bride: Miracle Pill is the second of three games released by Game Salute with the Princess Bride theme. The game consists of 3 decks of cards each deck is slightly more powerful than the previous deck (not dissimilar in notion to 7 Wonders). Each deck consist of cards of 5 different suits (ingredients) which go to score players points in various ways, yellow suns are just victory points, orange fairies are multipliers for the yellows, red peppers score negatively for opponent, blue ribbons give discount on potions and the more green snails you have the more each individual green card scores you.

Level 1 cards - Ingredients

You are dealt 4 cards one of which you play simultaneously with all the other players, the other three get passed to the neighbour on your left, this happens twice more with the last card being discarded. A card may be played face up for its benefits and ingredient or face-down in order to become a joker ingredient. In decks 2 and 3 potions are introduced, in deck 2 each potion has 2 ingredients only 1 of which the player MUST discard from their display in order to play the potion (in deck 3 it is 2 ingredients from 3 that MUST be discarded).

Level 2 cards - contains some potions (needing 1 ingredient discarded) others are ingredients slightly better than the level 1 ones.

I had hoped that like the points scoring the potion cards would be self-explanatory – I was wrong and much confusion reigned as players tried to work out first the effects of the potion and that they had discarded the correct card(s) and for potions affecting other players – the timing of them. It was my fault for 1. Picking a game I had never played before, 2. Choosing the end of a gaming session where brains had already done the evenings exercise and 3. Rushing through the rules instead of reading them out slowly (I had missed the playing a card face down rule because it was only written in italics) that perhaps caused the game to fall a bit flat.

Level 3 cards - most are powerful potions requiring the discarding of 2 ingredients

Having now played it and seen how everything fits together I am hoping for a neater game next time and I have high hopes of this being quite popular in the future as the mechanism once understood is quite nice and as a game sits happily between 7 Wonders and Sushi Go! In complexity.

Lumberjacks, Explorers and Merchants

The quiz picture this week is a game with quite a following, with over 4700 ratings averaging 7.32.

Last week was Lucky Ducks a game aimed at 3-5 year olds, battery driven the blue “river” rotates around the central island slowly gyrating 12 large plastic ducks, underneath the ducks are the colours of the players, the idea is on your turn select a duck hoping to find one of your own, if it is not, put it back, play continues until someone has found all their ducks. Oh yes, the main complaint from hardened gamers – “it is too noisy”.

The game does continually make a large mechanical quacking noise, but it is in theme and if you are playing the game with your kids then you will not notice it, If you have left the game with the kids whilst you watch TV then I can see it being a distraction but there again why watch TV when you can be having fun with your children.

On to the clubs activities – in celebration of “Canada Day” we started the evenings proceedings with Click Clack Lumberjack. In this game each player gets two strikes at the tree with a large plastic axe the aim being to knock pieces of bark off of the tree.

Tok Tok Lumberjack

Points are awarded for bark whilst minus points are given for knocking pieces of trunk off the stack. The game plays quite quickly and is usually over in a 15 minutes.

We split into 3 tables, table 1 playing The Voyages of Marco Polo, this game was reccomnded for the Kennerspiel des jahres, what is interesting is that according to geek is much higher rated than the three that reached the shortlist.

Marco Polo Board

From those that played it I gather it was an interesting game, simpler than the initial complexity of the rules suggested but a good game all the same.

Table 2 decided to have a light evening of fun and frolics and started with Madame Ching which I saw being played last week. In brief players are travelling across the board, each turn the players choose a card from their hand and reveal simultaneously, then starting with the highest played card they add the card to their display of previously played cards which must be numerically larger, if the same suit as played they move straight across the board if a different suit then they move diagonally.

The board

If the card played is lower than their last card the journey stops and a treasure tile taken from the display however the space you end your journey on dictates what treasure tiles are available for you to choose from. In addition some cards have symbols on them and playing sets of symbols will get you a bonus point card.

I had to reach square 38 or beyond to win this tile which gave the gem rewards shown

The game is about hand management and planning a route to get to the best treasure tiles, however if that was all the game was it would lack replayability, to spice things up there is a deck of power cards which can be obtained by travelling a straight route across the board (which means poorer treasure rewards), some treasure tiles permit you to collect some cards as well.

A  short journey with just 3 cards and 3 symbols

The power cards are a bit erratic in their potency but I was left with the feeling that the game cannot be won without them, however with thief cards and “negating” cards among their number they remove some of the control  that the rest of the game gives you, I am not keen on this destructive aspect of some games but I know I am in a minority and some players love the limited chaos factor.

Table 3 started with Switching Tracks, this is a new game from Watsalpoag who have produced a few nice games – A Fistful of Penguins and Jet Set an excellent route laying game to name two.

I know nothing more about Switching Tracks other than it is a pick up and deliver game, I will hopefully be able to play it soon and give you some feedback.

Table 2 had moved on to Augustus. This is effectively a card game, players have 3 cards in front of them which have a number of symbols shown down the left hand side, in order to complete a card and put it into your score pile you need to place a legionnaire on every symbol at which point you select a new card from a display of 5.

The winning hand of cards

There are veracious bonuses to be picked up during the game for completing sets of cards. One player acts as a drawer and one at a time takes chits from a bag, each chit has a different symbol and for each chit drawn all players can cover one symbol on any of their cards with one of their few legionnaires.

A Pile of unhappy Legionnaires

One cannot help but liken it to Bingo, but saying that the bonuses you get from completing certain cards and the limits on the number of legionnaires make this a game of decision making and a good half hours fun.

Table 2 and 3 amalgamated at this point and played Medici, this excellent Reiner Knizia game from 1995 is a set collection game where players collect cards by out bidding one another with a view to collecting exactly 5 cards, the cards have different goods on them and by having the most of a particular good you collect points. 

The end scores with White winning

Other than myself this game was new to everyone round the table and as with a lot of bidding games it is hard to evaluate what an item is worth and initially bids were to my mind quite high, however everything is relative and as everyone (including myself) were bidding high to get the necessary goods our scores were quite close after the first and second rounds.

The dye chart

With only 5 commodities and 6 players fighting for them it was going to be a hard game with some mean bidding, the win went to someone other than me and it was well deserved. I am hoping that this will get played again at some point as it is a very nicely balanced game.

Table 1 had finished their game and moved on to The Little Prince: Make Me a Planet which I briefly covered last time.

The last game of the evening was that popular favourite Sushi Go! which has made 8 appearances at the club so far, 3 more than any other game, I think this justifies me buying a pencil to keep with the game to do the scores.