Patchistory, Codenames and Arctic Scavangers

The quiz picture this time is a little different but quite easy.

There were 2 quiz photos last week the first was The Gothic Game where players enter a large mansion and explore its environs whilst avoiding the vampire. The idea is to outlast the other players, to do this you need special weapons from the different rooms which also contain a myriad of horrors and traps.

The second photo was of Dvonn one of a series of excellent 2 player abstract strategy games in the Gipf project by Kris Burm , Dvonn, Yinsh and Tamsk are my favourites.

The warm up game was 6 nimmt!, the big losers of this last week once again battled hard for the  wooden spoon but with my adversary’ scores of 29, 27 and 37 I was beaten and only took 6th place. A quick mention to the late arrival (who technically was not late we just started very early) who would have won had he not arrived after the first round and so joined with a score equal to that of the losing player.

With 11 attendees we split into 3 tables, table 1 started with Codenames a very nice team game where a grid of cards is laid on the table upon each of which is written a single word, the players are split into 2 teams (so even numbers of players is ideal). Each team has a team-leader they both can see a special card showing the grid but which also indicates words within the grid that belong to each team, which ones are neutral and where the assassin is hidden. In turn the team leader gives a one word clue and a number, the other team members then can choose a number of cards up to the number given which they think fits their leaders’ clue. The aim of the game is to find all of one our own teams words before the other team finds theirs – revealing the assassin is an instant loss. There are a couple of threads on the geek that indicate that this can be played with dixit cards, something to perhaps experiment with, there is also apparently an app for creating random grid set-ups.

Table 3 started the evening with a quick game of Sushi Go! this has been a firm favourite at the club being played almost every time it is taken and now leads the “games played” table being the most frequently played game, as a warm-up or chill out game it is ideal, fast, simple rules and with a level of tactics that keeps you thinking just above tick-over point.

Table 3 quickly moved on to Arctic Scavengers: Base Game+HQ+Recon, the set that was brought to the club is the latest release which has the base game with HQ and Recon expansions, it is a deck-building game with the theme being set in the future and the idea is to survive an arctic wasteland environment. I only have the base game myself having picked it up cheap at The Works my one play of it I did not enjoy at all however as I am not a fan of deck-building games my view should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Table 2 went with the thinker of the evening, Patchistory. I had played this only once before and I thank the other players for their patience with my lack of knowledge of the rules, there were parts I had not covered in my previous play and it was a steep learning curve for all. Patchistory is a civilization game in which you expand your own empire, set up trade routes and slowly increase your population all under the threat of war with the sole purpose of collecting victory points.

Some of the cards in the game from the first era

The main mechanism of the game is the three decks of double sided cards which provide expanded territory, monuments and heroes; at the start of each round the players bid for the cards with cash and once everyone has acquired a card they add it to their own display with the rule that it must overlap or underlap at least one quarter of their existing empire, these new cards provide various extra commodities or abilities which are tallied on the players personal record board. The players can now take actions based on their empires abilities after which they can move traders on trade routes for extra commodities and workers within their empires to trigger extra benefits from bonuses in gold boxes. Workers must then be fed.

The lands showing basic income, the extra income shown in the gold boxes is only triggered by the presence of a worker

Each 5th round an era ends, there is an upkeep phase for monuments and heroes in addition a vote is taken on victory point cards for additional scoring. There are three eras in total and the winner is the player with the most victory points at the end of the game. So far I have kept things simple here, there are many complications within the game, for starters the income from your empire is barely enough to keep you going every turn, the trade routes are a useful top-up so resources are very tight, secondly the cards you patch to your empire need to be placed all the same way up and within a 5x5 grid and with a scattering of seas and double squared buildings there is often very difficult decisions to be made on placement and you can easily be in a bidding war with another player over the best cards. When a trade route is completed there are several choices to be made including going to war; a successful well organised war can reap high rewards however equally beneficial is the forming of an alliance and creating an allied trade route.

My position after a few turns, their are a total of eight factors to keep track of and the book-keeping in the first few games is not as straight-forward as you think

The true depth of the game can perhaps be illustrated by the fact that it took about 40 minutes to explain most (but not all) of the rules and that in our 3 hours playing we managed to get as far as the second round of the second era slightly under half way through the game, however some of this time was spent searching the rules for various clarifications or explanations.

A players position after the first era

As already mentioned there is a very steep learning curve with this game, the rules seem simple but there are a lot of them, all dealing with different aspects which fit together well but the links are not always immediately intuitive. With regards to strategy nothing obvious has sprung to mind and with a limited number of actions a turn it is usually a couple of rounds before you see the benefit of a specific play by which time it is hard to say if your choices were good or not. No doubt repeated plays will make the game flow faster and strategies will become apparent, I certainly want to play again as I think there is a very good game here.

Table 1 next played Viceroy, I know nothing about this game however I have been given a very brief overview which is players have gems which are used to obtain cards through an auction process (which is not an ordinary auction), the cards you obtain go into a personal display which costs more gems dependent on where you place it, the card and its position determine what bonuses you get. The aim is to get the most victory points at the games end.

Table 3 next played Splendor a very nice game of collecting cards with Victory points marked on them by spending the different coloured gem markers shown on the card.

This player has 5 points

Simply put a player on their turn can take three coloured gem markers or purchase a card, collected cards add to your future purchasing power, it is always worth checking out the bonus tiles and the higher value cards in the display t the beginning of the game as what is there should determine most of your game strategy.  

The final game on Table 1 was  Complots which reminds me a bit of the old Eon game Hoax. In Coup you have two cards from a deck of 15 each of which will be one of 5 characters. On a turn you can take any character action or take one or two coin from the treasury, however if you have 10 or more coins you must instead launch a coup against another player who will lose a character. Character actions can be challenged which will result in one of the two players in the challenge losing a character, lose 2 characters and you are out, the game ends when one player (the winner) is left.

The last game on Table 3 was more Sushi Go!

Waterloo bridge looking East

Just to mention here that we had our first Saturday gaming session this weekend just past, sadly I was unable to attend so no photos from there – however here are a couple from London where I had been diverted to.

Waterloo Bridge, London looking South-West

Batman, Settlers and Rattus

Quiz picture 1 - for "roll the dice and move the dobber" this is a great game

This time the quiz picture is of an old British born game, it plays excellently and is quite thematic, ideal for Halloween, its only drawback is that it is a knockout game. If one quiz picture was not enough I have slotted another in below last weeks answer as I had a spare photo slot.

The last quiz picture was Bauernschlau. It is one of many superb German games that have never reached the UK shores for sale. visiting the flea market at Spiel in Essen was a good (and the only) way to pick up gems like these.

Quiz picture 2 - a 2 player game is your only clue

Before I start the rundown of games played at the club this week I wish to say that I have posted a list on the geek of games that I think are good multiplayer but which I also consider to play very well 2 player, so if you are thinking of starting or expanding a games collection mainly for 2 players but with some versatility for multi-player play you may find it helpful. It is at :- https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/196499/2-player-games-work-well-multiplayer

The club was a little low on numbers this week but we still had 2 tables running. We started with a warm-up game of Love Letter: Batman, although played before at the club it was my first time and I found it to be a good fun game of deduction where coincidentally I deduced nothing. With a round lasting about 3-5 minutes it is an excellent filler game.

The Joker, the top ranked card

Our next game was another recent club favourite BANG! The Dice Game. A change of character for me, no longer was I Rose Doolan, I also had a change of role, my two deaths as Deputy had not gone un-noticed and I was promoted to Sheriff. The odds were against me though as there were 3 Outlaws and a Renegade against myself and my Deputy.

My new character and role as Sheriff

My Deputy and the Renegade were the first 2 to be eliminated which left me against 3 Outlaws, with malicious intent my nemesis from the previous 2 games peppered me with bullets and the Outlaws won.

We split into 2 tables, my table opted for a game of Pergamon  which is not a complex game but does carry a bit of weight. The game consists of 12 rounds of which only 4 are scoring. Each round is split into 3 different phases the first of which is placing a meeple on the funding track, this will not only dictate how much cash you are likely to get but how deep in the catacombs you may dig, cash cards are then revealed (the only luck element of the game) and funds taken, careful calculations will limit risk here.

The Catacombs showing the 5 levels of artifacts

These funds are then used in the second stage of the game which is digging in the catacombs, each turn 5 new tiles are placed on the board and players may dig as deep as they have permission for in that turn, they choose what level to dig at and are not compelled to dig to the deepest level they are allowed, pay the cost and remove all tiles from that level, the deeper you dig the better/older the treasures are but the more it costs.

Three exhibitions valued at 19, 18 and 1

The last stage of a round is exhibiting in the museum, each tile shows 2 halves of different artifacts and tiles are matched to make complete artifacts, a string of these tiles create an exhibit which is then displayed for victory points. The game is quite dry and would probably get little play except that the superb mechanics which mesh well together and the tightness of cash flow make it quite a compelling game.

Table 2 started with Catan: Junior, this is a simpler form of Settlers of Catan, only 1 die is rolled for resources, Villages are replaced by lairs, roads by ships and chance cards are replaced by parrot tokens. The rules are much simplified in that lairs can be built at every tile intersection, the pirate who moves on a 6 does not steal from players just from the bank, and trading is with the board or bank not with other players (unless you use advanced rules). The game is playable, works well and is an excellent choice for the younger gamer.

The junior version does not have tiles but a preset player board.

Table 2 next played Phantoms of the Ice  originally this was called Slapshot and is an excellent card game, it has had several incarnations but Phantoms of the Ice is the one I prefer. The game is fairly straightforward each player is dealt 3 attackers 2 defenders and a goalkeeper from the respective decks, the cards show a character whose strength ranges from 0 to 10. On a turn a player can do one of three things, they can exchange a card with the relevant deck, they may steal from an opponent or they can challenge another player to a game.

A players hand consisting of a goalkeeper, 2 defenders (1 a bruiser) and 3 attackers. This is an above average team likely to win its next match but then liable to thievery from the other players

When you steal from an opponent you take a card at random from your nominated player and then you MUST give them back a different character card but of the SAME role, for example if you steal a goalkeeper you must give the victim of the theft your goalkeeper. If you challenge someone in a match then in turn you each reveal a card from your deck and compare them, a goalkeeper always blocks a goal unless both players play a goalkeeper in which case the higher value goalkeeper scores, if neither card is a goalkeeper the highest value card scores a goal. The winner of the match is the team that scored the most goals, in the case of a draw there is a sudden death where goalkeepers are very useful. There are a few more rules but that is the general gist of the game.

1/3 of one of the matches, 1 goal each is shown in the 2 shots above

There is plenty of player interaction throughout the game and there is a good fun element to it too, however it works best with 4 or more players. Judging from the laughter from the table 2 everyone had an enjoyable game and was won by “Maidstone Marauders” who beat “Death to Kevin” in the final match. One has to question the naming of one of the teams “Death to Kevin” as poor old Kevin was playing peacefully at another table blissfully unaware that he was already the target in the next game of Bang!.

Table 1 moved on to Rattus, lighter in play to Pergamon though perhaps not in theme which is the Black Death running across Europe.  It is actually quite light hearted the idea being to end the game with the most population counters on the board. A turn consists of 3 parts 1) taking a character card (non-mandatory) either from a display or from another player, 2) placing some population cubes of your colour on the board and using the abilities of any character cards you have and 3) moving the plague activation counter which reveals rat counters possibly causing the removal of population from the board and placing new rat tokens in neighbouring areas.

Three of the characters, the Merchant, Witch and King

The Iberian Peninsular was the safe place for most of the pieces

I think this game plays best with 4 players, less than that and there is not a proper circulation of the character cards, our game was quite tight with the winner also being the victor in Pergamon.

Last game of the evening was 6 nimmt! for which both tables got together for a 6 player game, despite my previous theories on this game which has stood me in good stead in the past I suffered badly and crashed out very quickly managing to achieve -70 points in just three rounds (usually a game will last 4 rounds or more) and taking the wooden spoon.

Fische, fun and frolics

Sheep and fences playing 2-6 players.

The quiz picture this time is my first ever purchase at Spiel in Essen where it was a nominee for the Spiel des Jahres.

Last weeks quiz was Advance to Marble Arch by parker quite an enjoyable game and can be picked up quite cheap at the odd boot sale.  

The warm up game was once again BANG! The Dice Game (I did put in a request for it) which for me was full of coincidences, not only did I end up with the same character and the same role (Deputy Sheriff) as last week but later in the game I found out that my colleague Deputy was the same player as last time as well, with seven players and random dealing quite improbable. Fortunately unlike last week she did not fill me full of lead though this did not stop me being the first one out. Last week the Outlaws won, this week it was the turn of the Sheriff who at one point counted at least five players all claiming to be his deputy.

For the main session we had three tables running, table 2 started with Stone Age probably one of the most balanced resource management games around, players start the game with 5 workers with which they gather 5 types of resources which are used to purchase cards which give abilities and victory points, they can also build huts with the resources which just give victory points.

Player board with huts (bottom left) and bonus cards also tools (upper left on board) obtained from a special space on the main board

In addition to the resource collection points there are 3 special sites where players can get in-game bonuses of tools, farming ability or an extra worker. At the end of each round players must feed their workers or lose victory points.

Workers at the wood pile

There is a lot of die rolling and although a bad roll or two can irritate it is not game destroying, in addition with the amount of die rolling the luck does tend to even out over the course of the game.

Table 3 started with Cosmic Encounter an interesting area conquest/control game, each player starts with 4 counters on each of the 5 planets in their home system and to win all they have to do is get some of their counters onto 5 planets in the other players’ home systems. On a turn a player turns over a card from a destiny deck which indicates which players system a worm hole opens up in, they then attack any planet in that system. Combat is undertaken by comparing combat strengths (number of ships + strength on a single combat card played) with the loser losing all their pieces to “The Warp” however there are a number of complications to add to this, first off both the attacker and defender can ask for assistance from the other players, then the players alien abilities may have an effect, lastly players may play compromise cards instead of a combat card which if played by both players sends all allies home and the players must reach a deal.

The chunkier components of FFG version of Cosmic Encounter

I have an Eon edition which is all cardboard, Games Workshop released a version with plastic pawns, the newer (FFG edition) has chunky plastic pieces. From experience of the older game it plays best with four or more players and is even more fun if you can inject role-play into it.

My brain was half fried this week so I went for fun silly games on table 1 and we started the evening with Family Business. In this card game each player has a gang of mobsters and a hand of 5 cards, on a players turn they play a card from their hand, generally these will be “contract” cards which places another players gangster against the wall, whenever the wall reaches 6 or more gangsters “Mob war” starts and at the start of each players subsequent turn the gangster nearest the wall is killed and removed from the game.

Two of Capones mob against the wall

There are a number of defence cards which stop contracts or rescue players’ mobsters from the wall. It is a cutthroat game with a nice mix of cards which creates a lot of interaction and although I took an early lead I became a target which eliminated me from the game first.

The next one we played was Bluff, based on a traditional dice rolling game believed from the 16th century it has more recently been converted into a boardgame format, the version we played was by MB Games – check out those hairstyles. There are quite a few variants of Bluff, better known as Liars Dice and it is prudent to check which rules you are playing to before you start. In our version each player has 5 dice which they roll under a cup then secretly look at, on your turn you make a bid based on the dice you can see and deduce are under the other players cups.

The bidding track

The next player can then either call that person out by saying that the bid is not in play or they can raise the bid by either increasing the value on the bid die and/or increasing the number of dice in the bid. Bids continue until someone is called on their bid at which point a check is made to see how accurate the bid is. The loser of the call loses dice and thereby loses flexibility in future rounds.

The third in our series of light games was Kleine Fische, this is a “push your luck” card game. The deck consists of 10 types of fish in four different sizes and an Octopus, on a turn you go fishing by turning over the top card of the deck.

Some of the fish and an octopus

You keep turning over cards until one of three things happen:- 1) the player decides to stop in which case they take all the fish cards turned over in that turn; 2) a duplicate (type not size of) fish is turned face up in which case the player discards all the cards between the duplicates as well as the duplicates themselves and collects what is left; or 3) an octopus is turned over in which case all fish are lost but the player has an opportunity to steal fish from another players pile.

My score (1) for one of the rounds . . . . .

and one of my opponents scores in the same round (23)

The round ends when the deck runs out at which point everyone counts up the shells on the biggest fish of each type in their catch. I did not do well in this game my second round score compared to another players is shown below.

As all games seemed to end on the different tables at this point we had a general swap round to play with other people. Table 2 went with Love Letter: Batman. This is a game I ought to play at some point as whenever this game gets played there is a lot of laughter from that table. I want to know what I am missing out on.

Our table played 6 nimmt!, an excellent card game playing best with 4 or more players, we had 8. The deck consists of cards numbered 1 to 104, ten cards are dealt to each player then 4 are set up to start 4 columns (or lines). Each turn everyone selects a card to play, all cards are revealed simultaneously then played in increasing numerical order onto the columns, each card must be played onto the stack where the last card is nearest in value but lower than the card played.

The four columns cards are played to

When a 6th card is played to a column the whole pile is taken as penalties. The idea is to avoid penalties, this is one of the few games of this nature that I seem to do well at and fortune was with me again and I won though interesting to note were the two “random card” players who also did well.  

The last game on my table was Pit  – the original game was called Gavitt’s Stock Exchange Game and was designed in 1903 by Harry Gavitt, this was adapted by Edgar Cayce and released by Parker Brothers in 1933. Pit consists of a deck of cards with various 9 card sets of cards representing commodities, myversion has 7 such sets plus a Bull card and Bear card. We played 5 player and I would suggest that this is the minimum number you would play with, at the start of the game a “suit” is selected for each player, all these cards are shuffled together then dealt out (we played without the Bull & Bear which adds a bit more to the game once you know what you are doing). The idea of the game is to collect a full set of 9 cards of the same commodity before any other player does and shouting “corner” when you do so.

Examples of some of the suits (points shown in centre for a full set)

There are no turns, a round starts when someone says “Market Open” at which point everyone starts trading cards from their hand with the other players, when you trade you just shout out the number of cards which you wish to trade with the restriction that they must all be of the same suit, anyone can trade with anyone else, a round in full swing is a very noisy affair and replicates a stock exchange trading pit only noisier. Our game went very well however I feel the seating arrangement may have advantaged the three who were sitting at one end of the table, although not a large table the other two players always seemed to be a trade short of completing a hand, otherwise the game was close and could have gone to any one of the three other players but in the end a tactical masterstroke was pulled and a winner found.

The last game of the evening was Hanabi, this is a co-operative deduction game, players have a hand of 4 cards which only you cannot see, all the other players can see your handand they try to give you clues about what it contains, but they can only mention a colour or a number. The idea is for each player to play their cards to a central display in numerical order for each colour. The deluxe version (played on the night) replaces the cards with some very nice tiles.

The (rather small at this stage) firework display

On the whole I had a great fun evening with lots of light games, next week a return to the brain burners for me.

The discards

Isle of Skye, Caverna and Bang!

The quiz this week is from my personal archives. Over 25 years old and like many of that time it lacks the complexities of the modern game, however behind the simplicity of its rules lies a nifty little game, playing in an hour it is a game worthy of being in any collection.

Last weeks quiz was Ballast by Gigamic, they have some lovely 2 player games Pylos, Quarto and Batik to name a few. When I selected the picture I was actually after Hamsterrolle by Zoch but I have mislaid it for the moment.

The summer is nearly over and numbers increased at the club sufficiently to have 3 tables running, the warm up game was BANG! The Dice Game, I last played the card version when it was first released, I enjoyed it but ended up with a German edition which other people shied away from so never got to play it again. The dice version was a pleasant revisit and I enjoyed the game so much that it is now on my wish list.

My character card, role playing your character is great fun and adds greatly to the game.

There are 3 teams, The first A Sheriff with some deputies, the second some outlaws and the last is the renegades, however with the exception of the Sheriff all other players roles are secret. Depending on your team there are different aims, the outlaws win if they kill the sheriff, the renegades win if they are the last survivors, the sheriff and deputies win if the sheriff is the last one alive(the deputies do not have to survive but it helps if the deputies do not end up shooting one another). On a turn you roll the dice which have various faces, with arrows you take potential hits from Indians, gunfire you get to shoot neighbouring players, gatling gun you get to shoot everyone, explosives you take a hit and with a beer you can heal anyone 1 point. This is a game where it is very hard to stay alive and as roles are secret you have to deduce players roles on how they interact with the sheriff and each other.

My card indicating I was assisting the Sheriff, if you look carefully you can see all the holes the other Deputy Sheriff put in me, finishing me off.

Our game was a lot of fun, most injuries were caused by the Indians, something I managed to avoid by limiting my re-rolls, however one of the outlaws was so full of arrows he resembled a porcupine and was then finished off by the sheriff, in the meantime I suddenly found myself being peppered with bullets by anyone who could reach me and was eventually finished off by my fellow deputy! By this point most players were at only 1 or 2 life including the sheriff who was finished off in a hail of bullets by the remaining outlaw. A great fun game and the elimination factor was not too great an issue.

Splitting into three groups my table chose Caverna: The Cave Farmers. There were mixed views when it was initially released, was it an Agricola variant or something completely different? The odd thing was that initial players of the game gave both opinions as feedback. It certainly draws on some of the mechanisms from Agricola but there is also much to recognise from another Uwe Rosenburg game All Creatures Great and Small, nevertheless it is sufficiently different from both to be a great game and is well deserving of its 3rd place ranking of all boardgames on the geek.

The gameboard showing some of the animals used in the game and some worker placement spaces

There is not enough room here to explain the game in any depth, it took half an hour to explain the rules over the table, but I will say it is a worker placement resource gathering game. You start off with a cave, 2 workers and plenty of room to spread, you use the workers to gather food, farm animals, and basic resources to expand your farming area or expand your cave by mining for ore or rubies or chiselling out caverns to expand into various types of chambers or rooms which enhance your basic abilities.

Player board in early stages of game, with some sheep in a pasture, 2 pigs in a cave and wheat and vegetables planted in fields

The game is smooth and resources are tight, but you are never squeezed (unlike Agricola) and there is always something you can do. Victory points mainly come from large quantities of animals and the rooms you have in your cave complex. One of our number took an early lead in development of her farm and then proceeded to give the rest of us a masterclass on how to play, everyone enjoyed it and I look forward to playing it again.

Table 2 started the evening with Alien Frontiers, this worker placement game is based around colonising areas of a planet, the winner is the player who has the most victory points at the point when any player places their last colony. Control of planetary areas gains small advantages (as well as the majority of the victory points) as does collecting alien artifacts.

The game board showing previous ship (dice) placements

The game revolves around rolling dice (spaceships) and placing them in various areas of space to undertake actions, lucky rolling does help but is no guarantee of a win. Placement of the dice does depend on what numbers you roll and there is always something you can do although it may not be the area you really want, in addition other players ships (dice) already on the board may block what you want to do as there are a limited number of berths (spaces) for the ships.

Alien artefact cards

The game is smooth and everything fits together nicely and although I am not a fan of area control games this is one of the nicer ones.

Table 2 next played Keyflower a British game by designers Richard Breese and Sebastian Bleasedale, this is another worker placement game, however the players workers are obtained from a common pool. The idea of the game is to have the most points by the end of the game, these are obtained from tiles gathered during the game and become part of your own village.

Player 4's village slowly expands

Players start the game with a random selection of workers of 3 different colours and these are used for bidding or for activating a tile for its benefits. The twist in this game is that once a colour is used on a tile for bidding or use, all future bids or use of the tile must be made with the same colour workers.

From the left :- Stacks of cards for later in the game, Turn order cards (SE player has bid 1 red for first place next turn), incoming boats with more citizens, tiles out for bidding for this turn.

The game plays very well but close management of your worker pool is important; workers used for successful bids are lost but workers used in your own village (no matter who placed them) become your workers for the next round.

Table 3 started the evening with Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King, a very new tile laying game with plenty of player interaction (unless you play it 2 player). The game revolves around four scoring tiles which are drawn from a pool at the games start, these set the goals for the whole game, after each round a different selection of these tiles are scored (e.g. round 1 tile A is scored whereas round 5 tiles A,C & D are scored).

The scoreboard with the scoring tiles displayed for this game

A Tile may have many features, including mountains, pastures, sea and roads traversing it, other icons may also be present, highland cattle, sheep, boats, lighthouses, farmsteads, brochs and barrels of whiskey. Each player has their own island which they try to expand with the best tiles for scoring.

The middle tile is to be discarded, 8 cash is required for another player to buy the tile on the left

On a turn all the players take 3 random tiles which are displayed in front of a screen, then behind the screen they choose one to discard and set a price for the other two, all screens are lifted simultaneously and once round the table only each player gets to purchase a tile from another player at the set price or pass, once everyone has had an option to purchase or pass, players must buy any tiles they have still in front of them for the price they set paying the money to the bank.

A players village layout

Any tiles a player sold gets them money from the purchasing player they also get their own money back. Now players attach the tiles to their own village, the land must tessellate but roads do not have to but it helps a lot if they do, finally after everyone has placed their tiles scoring takes place.I am still not sure about this one, playing this two player neither of us were able to buy each others tiles, so it then came down to luck of the draw; multi-player is quite a bit different but if you draw bad tiles I get the feeling that cash-flow may become a problem, more plays are required before I make a decision about this one however because of the trading I am sure this will be a favourite with other players.

Table 3’s next game was Oregon, I have covered this one before and this is its 3rd appearance at the club. I have never really got on with Oregon my feeling is that there is a little too much luck, it is equally likely though that I am not finding the correct tactics. The winner of this game was also the well deserved winner of Skye.

The last game on the table for the evening was Love Letter: Batman, I do not know anything about this one other than it is another version of Love Letter of which there are a lot of different versions now, many of them “fan based”. The batman issue must be a lot of fun because there was a heck of a lot of laughter coming from the table during the game.

The character Poison Ivy as portrayed by Uma Thurman in "Batman and Robin", here with a Love Letter power

Camels, Creepy Creatures and Monsters from the Deep

Rules are simple, take a rod without moving any other rods, however those on the top cannot be taken. For dimensions the Wheel is about 10 inches across (25cm)

For this weeks quiz I have dug out one of my dexterity games, the company responsible for this game also does others with nice wooden pieces although most are 2 player games.

Last weeks quiz was Euphoria which has made a couple of appearances at the club.

The first game on the table this week was Midnight Party, in this game players pieces are partygoers walking clockwise around the ground floor of a country mansion, as they do so Hugo the ghost climbs the stairs from the cellar.

View of the board and rooms

 The idea is to avoid being captured by Hugo, any partygoers captured are sent to the cellar where they attract negative points however players can escape Hugo but only once he has climbed the stairs from the cellar and reached the corridor tat that point he players can move their pieces into the safety of the rooms but only one player per room.

Hugo back in the Cellar after a round and scoring, 3 eaten pieces still to return to the corridor

Hugo on the hunt

All movement is by die rolling and luck plays its part, but there are choices to be made and it is a nice warm-up game with minimal rules.

The second game on the table was Camel Up a betting game where players try to earn the most money. The race is played in a series of legs and in each leg every camel will move once. On a turn a player can move a camel and earn a penny, take a betting token to back one of the camels in the current leg, or place a bet on the outcome of the whole race.

View of board showing camel stack on track and betting chits to the right

The sooner someone commits the better the return but also the riskier the bet is. The game is a nice balance of luck and probability and we had great fun with a huge stack of camels approaching the finish line where any camel could have won.

Close up of the Camels all piled up in the home stretch. Yellow on top is in the lead

It can sometimes be hard to make any money and usually there is at least one person who would have been better off just moving a camel for a penny on their turn however thiswas the first game I had played where someone ended up with less than the 3 cash that they started the game with and (if my memory serves right) a negative score.

With the warm up games completed we split into 2 tables, I had brought a selection of lighter games and my table played Escape from Atlantis. It is perhaps not surprising when I look at my games collection to see so many Waddingtons games, what is surprising perhaps is that there are quite a few good games there which can hold their own against Eurogames and Escape from Atlantis is one of them.

Early in the game and there is a mad scramble for the few boats available

In this game the players set up their population pieces on a central island with a view to getting as many of them as they can to the safety of the four other islands in the corners of the board before the island sinks and the game ends. The island itself is made up of plastic pieces all of which have a symbol underneath, nicely crafted but the symbology on the newer edition is at times awkward to decipher. A players turn consists of 3 parts, first they have 3 movement points with which they can move their pieces across the island, onto boats, between boats or even move a boat that they have control of, the player may also spend all their movement to move a swimmer one sea space.

Not all these brave swimmers will reach safety, Sea Monsters and Sharks soon nibble a few.

After they have made their movement the player sinks an island tile, pieces on that tile get a free movement point to escape the sinkage then the symbol is revealed which could be a whirlpool destroying everything adjacent in the sea, a monster which eats boats and people, a shark which just eats swimmers, an octopus which smashes boats, a boat (oh sweet salvation) or a friendly dolphin which can carry one swimmer to safety.

All that is left is the Citadel surrounded by Sea Monster, Sharks (Black fin shapes) and Octopuses

The last part of the players turn is to spin the whirler to determine the movement of a random sea creature (this has been replaced in later editions by dice) with which the player can cause problems for their opponents. There is a huge fun element in this game from escaping catastrophe to whirling the whirler (to which there is a definite knack) in order to nobble your opponents.

The Island has sunk all that is left are islanders swimming to safety, The Party Island is top left.

I lost this game badly, perhaps by not getting invited to the “Party Island” where everyone else had escaped to, this was due to blockage of the entrance by a boat thus making entry only by way of dolphin, I also had a lot of guys swimming making easy targets for the sharks. We all had fun (the laughter from our table was commented upon) and the other three players were very close at the end.

Cockroach Poker was our next game which calls for a strong bluff element, this hits my weak spot in gaming (my other is trading games) I am very bad at trading and completely useless in bluff games where my reliance on probabilities and my inability to hide my emotions means every other player knows what I have got. In Cockroach Poker there are 8 different animal cards, on a players turn they select a card and pass it to another player naming one of the 8 creatures. The receiving player then has to decide whether to accept the card or not, if they accept the card they then pass the same card to any other player not already having seen this card this turn and they can rename it or keep it the same.

Some of the animal cards in Cockroach Poker

If they choose not to accept it to pass on they then must decide whether the passing player has named the card correctly or not, if they guess correctly the card sits in front of the passing player as a penalty, if they guess incorrectly they get the penalty. A player is out when they have 4 of the same kind of animal face up in front of them. It was a fun game but I did not do well, if one of our number had not kept trying to catch another player out (to his own detriment) I would certainly have lost and it was not until I was on my way home that I started to work out where I was going wrong, it was interesting to note that in the majority of cases players told the truth whereas I assumed they would not be, how this helps me in future games I do not know.

The lighter side of gaming continued as we went on to play Sushi Go! and finished the evening playing two games.

Table 2 played a couple of more serious games, the first was Yspahan a simplish dice rolling game where 9 dice are rolled and laid on a ladder depending on their value, each player then takes a set of dice and actions them either  to collect camels or gold (for the lowest and highest values), place cubes on the board in various souks to earn victory points, take a card or move the Supervisor.

The green players board with 3 bonuses achieved.

At the end of their turn a player may also build a building on their player board to help them gain advantages elsewhere in the game.

Yspahan board, Camel train on left of picture to the right is the dice ladder with 5's and 3's yet to be picked

The cards help greatly in the game and it is possible in a 2 player game to create an engine whereby the cards become more important than the dice set you take however the dynamics are different in a 3 and 4 player game. The idea is to gain points and this can be achieved by owning Souks, building buildings and having camels on the camel train, there are also a few cards that give bonus points. It is usually quite a tight game, though I understand that one of the players took an early lead by grabbing camels at every opportunity and building the bonus buildings early at the sacrifice of not competing for the souks on the board.

Their second game was a Caylus, this is a very nice resource collecting game, however lack of space in this article means I will be brief, I will begin by saying with a geek rating of 7.90 and a Boardgame ranking of 20 and a strategy ranking of 15 this is a very, very good game. It is also worth mentioning that this game has recently been rereleased though I know not what the latest edition has in it or looks like. This is a worker placement game where players place their workers on various buildings along a path to collect cash and various other resources, these resources are then used to build buildings which are placed on the path or to build parts of a castle, both for points, in addition buildings on the path then become available as spaces for workers in subsequent rounds gaining the owner small benefits.

The board in Caylus with the path and a few buildings (coloured houses show player owned buildings), top left Castle and top right "Favour" tracks.

It is about as good as it gets with worker placement with Village and Kingsburg being two close competitors here but the game has extra levels of complexity which places it above the other them both. These are brought about by cash which is needed for placing workers and is hard to replenish, “favours” which are turn bonuses for building the castle and using “timing” in various places in the games mechanisms such as placement at the bridge which moves the provost and dictates which buildings are in play but also times when the castle is scored and the game ends and order of building at the castle. All in all an excellent package for any games collection. Previous experience of the games mechanisms and how they mesh together does help and means new players are at a slight disadvantage but this did not stop everyone enjoying the game.