Fiese Kuhe, Portal and Suburbia

No one took a guess at what was possibly one of the easiest quizzes I have set to date so that will ride for another week with the addition of this weeks’ picture quiz which is possibly the second easiest.

This week we launched straight into 6 nimmt! (aka take 6) where only 2 of the players had no idea of the rules thus they had a steep learning curve of “Play a card and see what happens” – actually the mechanics are a lot easier to see in action as opposed to just explaining them so this was not as harsh as it sounds. Our winner beat me by 3 points to set up a 3 in a row winning streak for the night, the two players at the back of the field appeared to be trying to gather every card that was out there for as many penalties as possible beating all previous club records for worst one round score.

We split into 3 tables – Table 1 went for Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game, this game is (world) widely enjoyed and has been printed in 8 different languages, it currently sits in 18th place on the geek list of all board games placing it above other excellent games such as Dominant Species, Keyflower, Caylus and 7 Wonders however this is a game I am unlikely to play and although the concept is interesting it really does not call to me.

It is a co-operative game but only to a limited extent, in addition to the joint goals everyone also has a secret objective which sometimes will result in a lot less cooperation than the other players may expect, I am not comfortable with “secret” stitch-up games, but this should not deter others from playing who enjoy this sort of game.

Table 2 went with Suburbia a game I have put off purchasing for several years however I played it earlier this year whereupon it got bumped onto my “to buy” list. Suburbia has a simple mechanism but which creates quite a bit of a book-keeping which can become a nightmare for those of us with disordered minds. Players each build their own suburb within a great Metropolis on a turn purchasing a tile from those on offer and adding it to their domain, all parts of a suburb must have contact with at least one other tile. The tiles are of four colours depicting heavy industry, business, housing or municipal and usually confer a benefit which normally comes from tiles in your own suburb but may also include those of other suburbs, the benefits are cash income and prosperity, the prosperity is your turnover of victory points each turn.

My suburb early in the game (after my 2nd turn)

The benefits conferred may take effect on any players turn depending on what tiles they place, benefits also multiply up when you start grouping buildings, towards the end of the game I was placing a tile then calculating the costs, new income and prosperity bonus by which time two others had also bought and placed a tile so I was catching up on what they had bought in case it also affected me. The score track is interesting in that there are barriers to cross, each barrier decreases your prosperity and cash income by 1 point and as these barriers occur closer together the more points you get it is possible to reach a stage where you are losing points each turn, so timing your end push can be crucial. Despite the book-keeping aspect, it is a very nice game.

The following observation from another player was

Glad to have finally played Suburbia. I didn't want to be short on money but it meant that I had to sacrifice not having a good reputation for the most part of the early game. The big turning point was the doubling of a key tile that increased my ability to get victory points every turn.

Table 3 in the meantime were playing Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game a game about cakes. Apparently the game is based on a computer game which I have never played or even heard of but the anticipation of this game amongst others has caused some excitement.

I know nothing about it but BQ has kindly given some feedback.

Portal was fun and intriguing, but short, because one of the game-end triggers is any player not having any people on the board, and when one's playing for the first time there's a lot to keep track of, so it's easy to miss the fact that you're about to lose your last person :) . I really enjoyed the jeopardy elements, and was sad we didn't manage to incinerate any cake :p . Next time!

My table had agreed to try a game that I have had for several years but never played before this week Fiese Kühe, I tried it out two player before the club and found it a bit bland, however I could see that it probably played best with four and thankfully I had three willing volunteers. It is a race game with the goal being to get your four cows from one end of the playing area to the other, however with four players there are sixteen cows all trying to rush down a gap five lanes wide. Players have a hand of five cards and on a turn you play a card and then draw a new one.

Each has their own deck which is identical to the other players. There are restrictions which are no diagonal or backwards movement, your whole move must be in a straight line and unhindered by obstacles (other cows or cow pats). Fortunately the cards all have a special ability as well as the movement, for instance a Stoss card allows you to push other cows, a Muh card allows you to make all cows adjacent to you move 1 space (this may be backwards) Platsch allows you to wade through cow pats, Huh allows you to choose how far you move, Zig-zag allows you to change direction during your move and Grrr allows you to swap places with a anothers cow. There is a lot of swapping and being moved around that you feel that you are never really in control which makes this game a little frustrating but also generates quite a bit of fun for instance one of my cows started the race at least three times as he kept being frightened back off the board by more aggressive cows and at the end when I thought everyone was moving off the board I cleared a lane to get one of my cows off with a Huh card just to have my way blocked by someone else who took advantage of my clearway.

Aerial view of the cows, please note that red only has 3 on the board as his fourth one keeps getting sent backwards!!!

There are some tactics (which I totally failed to grasp) for instance cow pats although blocking can be defensive spaces against the Grrr card and one of our number won convincingly despite being the last in the round. The feedback I got was that it was not a bad little game, crib cards would have been very handy though, ironically I had them at home but did not think they would be needed – I was wrong.

Table 3 next went for Vault Wars – why are there so many games I know nothing about? This was described to me as being very close to the TV programme storage wars, players outbid each other for the contents of various vaults hoping to find treasures to sell at a profit, there are hidden roles and everyone only gets to see a small part of each vault.

There is quite a bit of bluff and lots of player interaction and those that played seemed to enjoy it, the only caveat seems to be it really needs 4 or more players.

BQ fortunately gives some feedback

Vault Wars was a very enjoyable bit of fantasy-themed, auction-based game, with a good amount of bluffing and player interaction . The various powers of the "vaults" you auction off (yes, it IS a high fantasy version of those "Storage Wars" TV shows) add a nice bit of variation, and the multi-use item cards (that one can keep for victory points, sell for cash or "equip" for their special ability) mean there's a surprising amount of interesting decisions for a game whose mechanisms are, on the face of it, quite simple. We didn't use the "workers" expansion this time, so I'd been keen to try it again with that in play: it too adds additional ability options.

Table 1 had moved on to Sheriff of Nottingham, this is a revamp of the 1950’s game Contraband by Pepys and introduces pouches and extra bits, the aim of the game is to make the most cash. Players place items in their pouch to take into the thriving market town of Nottingham however the Sheriff (the role of which moves on a player each round)gets to speak to each player and demand to know what is in the pouch, players can bribe the sheriff to let them into Town with the bag unopened and if accepted they get all the goods in their bag.

If challenged by the Sheriff the bag is opened and penalties applied for contraband, however if the player was honest about the contents the player gets bonus money for having their character maligned. I personally am not sure all the extra bits are necessary – Contraband (later Smuggle) was a solid card and cash game that played 3-6 players in about 20 minutes, Sheriff of Nottingham is fiddlier, plays 3-5 players in 60 minutes, however it is certainly more tactile with nice bits and colourful graphics drawing the players into the game, the earlier versions were not as “nice”.

Table 2 next played Zooloretto: The Dice Game, this is a simple dice game where a player on their turn can take a truck with at least 1 dice played upon it or roll 2 die which they must then add to one or two trucks in play, each truck has a limit of 3 die. Each dice has a different animal on each of five faces and a coin on the last. When a truck is selected the player takes the die and ticks off boxes on their display sheet, if they are the first to complete an animal row they get a bonus point (2 points in the case of the lion).

They now take no further actions in that round. Once everyone has taken a truck the round is over and the start player moves on. The game plays smoothly and has a stitch up factor, tactical play is possible and there is a fair amount of decision making to be done, however this is not a game I rate highly, with only 2 dice to roll each turn there is a fair amount of luck on what you will be providing for your opponents, but as a filler it is ideal and should play in about 15 minutes.

The last game on Table 3 was The Little Prince: Make Me a Planet, this has been covered before.

One of the players worlds for the Little Prince

We finished off the evening with Super Rhino which I covered last week. Three of us played 2 rounds, this is a game firmly on my “to buy“ list and probably fits my intellectual level being aimed at players aged 5 and above.

The cards showing corner symbols and markings for walls

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Shakespeare, Battle Sheep and Super Rhino

This week no clues to the picture – the poser seems to have beat everyone so I will save that for another time.

The last picture was of Turf Horse Racing, this has been played at the club a couple of times the picture was of the Gibsons version. There was one successful answer.

There was no warm-up this week we just launched straight into the nights gaming, table 1 started with Mysterium which I briefly touched on last week, I have little extra to say at this time except that it is a very atmospheric game and has become very popular selling out in the UK outlets I am aware of.

Mysterium "vision" cards (quite "dixit" like in my opinion).

BQ commented thus :-

I was the Mysterium ghost, and I must admit I was impressed with the perspicacity of the psychics - they managed to get the clues I presented with a minimum of wrong turns, though a couple of times I had to bite my tongue as the timer was on the last few seconds and they discussed moving a guessing token away from the correct card to the wrong one, I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the last few grains trickled through the timer (in one case, the player's hand was on the token, literally about to pick it up, when I called "time up". Phew! :) ).

My table played Shakespeare, the theme is that the players are each in charge of putting on a play and have six days (rounds) to hire all the actors and helpers they need, they must also furnish the set and clothe the actors in this time enabling them to earn victory points.

An empty player board near the start of the game.

Each player starts the game with 2 actors an empty stage and 2 helpers, the round starts with players bidding for the number of actions (1-5) that they wish to make, the more actions you bid the later in the round order you will go and thereby are likely to miss out on key items, once player order is decided players take turns to take an action, an action could be hiring a character (can only be done once a turn by each player) or to activate one of the personnel in your display (actor or helper).

The three act tracks with blue reaching the end in all three (nicely calculated), score track top right shows red ahead by 1 point at the end but a top score of 21 shows how hard it is to obtain victory points.

All characters give benefits of some sort, the actors generally give a boost to scoring tracks labelled as the 3 acts of the play. The helpers are slightly different, a set dresser allows you to purchase tiles from a limited selection replenished each round, these tiles are placed on your own display in the stage section and give small bonuses, the costume dresser allows you to take costume tokens (also from a limited supply) these are placed on the actors, 3 tokens completing a costume, the value of the costume if high enough will give an immediate bonus and in dress rehearsals fully dressed actors give further boosts to the various act tracks, victory points or money.

A completed board at the games end, note the dressed stage and the costumed actors (left with discs)

The victory points come from 3 main sources, high costume values, set dressing and position on the three act tracks and they are not easy to earn, lastly at the games end you have to pay for all your characters, money is not difficult to come by but is easily missed, unpaid characters give minus points at the end of the game. The other key factor in the game is “sleepy tokens” each round most of the characters you use will sit the next round out, thereby only being capable of being activated every other round, quite limiting. In all an interesting, neat well balanced game but did take 2 ½ hours to play.

The first game on Table 3 was Mission: Red Planet this is a re-release of a 2005 game with a few new bits and sadly I know nothing about it, however others have been kind enough to provide me with the following comments :-

Red Planet was a lot of fun, I would describe it as Citadels with area control. Not to be taken too seriously, as there are plenty of opportunities to totally ruin other players moves each turn. Great looking components too.
I really enjoyed Mission: Red Planet, it felt plenty tactical without being too taxing and looks pretty good too.

Table 3 next played Dice Town again one I have not played so I may get a couple of bits wrong here, in short all the players roll poker dice showing them one at a time and re-rolling the rest, when all dice have been rolled and played players make poker hands and depending on what hand they have it may allow them to control a building which will confer a benefit on them.

The aim is to gain the most points when all the gold nuggets have run out, points being mainly awarded for nuggets and money. It was enjoyed by the players.

Dice Town was a new kind of dice game to me, but I enjoyed the theme and we had a runaway winner.

Table 3 played Dixit, this game has lovely art work which is also the driving force behind the game and best played with 5 or more players however it will play with fewer but for a good game the more the merrier. Each player has a hand of cards and chooses a phrase or word that he thinks will suit his card, everyone else now searches for a card in their hand which matches which is placed face down into a pile, all picked cards are collected and shuffled and played face up in a row and given a number all the players now vote for the card they think was the active players card.

Dixit cards - apparently these can be used in Codenames for a slightly more complicated version and I wonder could they be used in Mysterium?

If all or none get the active players card then the active player scores nothing and everyone else gets 2, for anything else the active player scores 3 as does everyone else who guessed correctly, any wrong guesses gets the player whose card was chosen 1 point for each guess. This game can be tailored to themes which players all agree on or it can just be a free-for-all depending on the group.

Table 1 had moved onto Traders of Osaka of which I believe is a re-theme of Traders of Carthage and although I have the game I have only played it twice back in 2006 and can remember next to nothing of it other than it is a trading game where you are collecting goods to purchase cards, on a turn you can do one of three actions, buy goods, reserve a card, or take money by taking a card from the market. BQ has provided a short comment on the game (below picture) :-

Traders of Osaka was a cracker: it is a lot of game in a small box. Some folks on BGG have stated that it's really only good for 2 players, and that with 3 or 4 it's too chaotic. I disagree: whilst game state can change quite a bit by the time your turn comes around, everyone's in the same boat (forgive the pun), and it's sometimes just about maximising what you see in front of you. It's not (and doesn't pretend to be) a game of huge long-term strategies that you have to plan carefully, but if you can predict what the others might do before it's your turn again, you'll improve your chances - I'd also say you can use reservation markers, and judicious grabbing of particular cards to get on board (there's the puns again) a ship that is likely to sell before your next turn.

Table 3 was running through the games at an alarming rate and next was Battle Sheep which is an abstract strategy game but nicely themed and has great looking pieces. Each player has a stack of pieces (sheep) which they place on the board next to the edge, then on a turn you split one of your stacks of 2 or more sheep (only 1 choice with the first turn) and move your chosen portion off in a single direction which continues to move as a new stack until it hits another sheep (of any player) or the side of the board in which case the stack stops in the last empty spot. Players each take turns splitting stacks until no-one can move a stack, the winner is the player who distributed the most sheep (has the most stacks).

Some of the pieces on nice chunky plastic

It is a good abstract strategy game that can be won or lost in the initial set-up. It is quite quick and has a modular board so you can create lots of different shaped playing areas.

Somewhere along the line they also fitted in Love Letter: Batman this has been covered several times before and was over before I realised it had been played.

My table had finished its marathon game of Shakespeare and next went with Monza which was flyweight in comparison and is a car racing game by Haba. Now please bear in mind that Haba games (in the yellow boxes) are aimed at small children aged 4/5 plus and generally have little appeal beyond the age of 7/8, there are a few exceptions such as Karambolage and I advise anyone to play at least once any Haba game you come across, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Sadly Monza did not do it for me, the game consists of a three laned track with coloured spaces, on a turn a player rolls some dice with coloured spots on and moves their car as far along the track as possible, bumping other cars can knock them back but other than that there is little interaction and it is purely the luck of the dice, you feel that there is a more complex game hiding but in the game as presented it will only appeal to the little ones who will find their planning skills honed to perfection.

Rhino Hero also by Haba was the next game and a complete contrast to Monza, I like dexterity games and this was a nice take on tower building, each player is dealt a hand of “roof” cards, each card will have one or two right angles drawn and possibly a number of emblems also marked on them. On a players turn they must obey any emblems on the current roof tile then play walls as close as possible to the right angle marks shown then finally place one of their own roof tiles on top, then providing the tower has not collapsed it becomes the next players turn, the winner is the player with the fewest cards when the tower collapses.

This is a nice game but it is pot luck who wins, several card powers cause players to miss a turn or place 2 cards so it really becomes luck of the cards dealt as opposed to the skill of the individual builders however the fun of the game is in constructing and watching others precariously perch bits of card atop one another and manoeuvre the Rhino piece between floors, one player said that he had more fun here than playing Monza despite the fact that he did not even get a turn to build.

Lastly when I got home after games I thought I would get a copy of Super Rhino from Amazon looked it up but was too tired to round the order up for free postage, however when I went back the following morning they had all sold out - co-incidence? I do not think so - who is going to own up to buying my copy of Super Rhino?

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Mysterium, Skye and Nations Dice game

The picture this week is fairly simple. The poser has still not been answered so this weeks clue is last weeks picture clue, together with last weeks double clue it should not take you that long to reach the answer.

Last week was Kingsburg, well done to the several gamers who successfully identified that it was a crop of one of the buildings.

The warm up this week was eight player Tsuro a route laying game which I described last week. With eight players it was a lot of fun but I knew I was doomed when the player before me was choosing a tile for both our routes and in all likelihood I was to be sent off the edge of the board.

Two players already out, my red stone is in the bottom right corner where its fate is about to be decided by the green player.

However luck was with me and I survived only to have my fate once again chosen by another player, cashing in another huge bucket of luck and against all odds the tile he played, no matter what orientation, allowed me to continue and I again survived to win. For a ten minute warm-up game Tsuro is perfect.

Table 1 took on Mysterium, this is not my type of game but it has received a lot of rave reviews and judging by the ghostly noises coming from that table everyone was enjoying the roleplay aspect. In short one player is a ghost whilst the other players act as mediums trying to guess the room, weapon and culprit of the ghosts’ murderer, information which only the ghost is privy to.

The player acting as the ghost assists the mediums by providing clues, the other players not only have a guess at what they believe may be the suspect but can also guess the truth of others players visions. In this way they hope through successful deductions to get to the truth. The players only have seven turns to deduce the truth, failure results in everyone losing the game and the ghost dissipating forever. This time it was not solved, only time will tell if the ghostly apparition making strange “whooo” noises at one end of the room has vanished forever or whether the fates will allow us to draw her forth again.

“it was fun and compares favourably to the original.”

Table 2 played Jamaica, a race game where actions and movement are decided by cards played from a restricted hand of 3. Each card has 2 symbols on it one on either end which can be movement or collecting goods of various sorts, each round 2 dice are rolled and a player chooses which die will relate to which (left or right) symbol.

The holds of the purple boat showing a mix of food, canons and gold

The cards are then auctioned in turn, to move to a space you need the right goods on your ship, failure to calculate correctly results in backwards movement, you may also attack other players if you land on their space, combat can be devastating with treasures stolen. It is a good race game but I think a second play is necessary to get to really see the scope of it, getting to grips with the rules is made unnecessarily complicated as the layout of them is in the form of a of a treasure map which thematically is very nice but for actually finding specific rules is an absolute nightmare.

I went for light games on table 3 and we started with Nations: The Dice Game. This simple dice and tile game has a lot of decision making for a light game and usually plays in about 30 minutes, for me it is an excellent game and is in my top 10 games of last year.

My position showing my dice holding, territories and monuments

I covered this game last week, and from 2 weeks of playing it has received favourable comments.

“I really enjoyed the Nations Dice Game and would like to play again.”
“I think it's a neat little game, and am looking forward to the rumoured expansion.”
“The "I wanna play it again " game for the night for me was Nations the Dice game.”

Next for us was Incan Gold probably the best push your luck game that there is, on a turn a card is turned over from a common deck which either will show a number of gems or a catastrophe. If gems they are shared out equally and the remainder go on the card, after this everyone chooses to either carry on or chicken out, those that flee split any gems left on the path equally then bank their loot, those that go on will get a bigger share of any gem cards revealed however should a second catastrophe card of the same type as already showing be revealed all those that chose to go on lose all they have collected that round. The game ends after 5 rounds.

This was followed by Family Business, this game has been around since 1982 and is still available in its latest edition. Players have a gang and then through the play of an action deck place contracts on other players gang members, the aimbeing to eliminate all the other players gangsters and be the last man standing.

An unfair situation with three of my gangsters lined up waiting for Mob War to start at which point my gangsters will start to leave the game.

Although an elimination game its mechanism is such that the game tends to finish quite quickly after a player is knocked out so there is not much hanging around and in fact usually results in that player egging the others to destroy the eliminator. This game also received favourable comments from those who played it and in this session we gave it two plays in a row.

“For me, the best bit of the evening was Family Business - a short, simple, fun game that made me giggle.”

Table 1 had moved onto Tiny Epic Galaxies, a big game in a little box with the theme of space exploration. Although I have my own copy I do not know the rules yet so cannot say much about it here, however everyone seemed to enjoy the game.

“I also enjoyed Tiny Epic Galaxies, it had a surprising amount depth for such a seemingly simple game.”
“I really liked Tiny Epic Galaxies - nice streamlined ruleset, quick to learn, but a good amount of interesting decisions and depth, and some fun player interaction.”

Table 2 had moved on to Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King an auction game with tile tessellation. I like the mechanics of the game and especially the scoring system (explained some weeks ago in isle-of-skye-caverna-and-bang) however I do feel the catch-up mechanism of giving cash to the back markers although an equalizer in the early stages unbalances the game in the latter stages.

Those on table 2 all seemed to enjoy it and I heard no complaints, perhaps I need to give it more plays.

Our table had plenty of games left and the next one was Unexpected Treasures, a simple game of out-thinking your opponents. Each turn a number of items are laid on the table and players bid for how many items they want, then starting with the lowest bidder each takes a number of items equal to their bid, however if 2 people bid the same number only one of them can take items the loser gets priority on another turn. After collecting goods players can trade them in for victory point cards, mix in the ability to steal from people and you get a nice little game.

Staying light my table played Kleine Fische a very simple push your luck game where my luck ran out very quickly, my score across three rounds was less than that of the winners score in each of his three rounds.

The last game of the evening was Fluxx, I am never comfortable with games where I have little or no control and Fluxx is the ultimate in lack of control but this does not stop it being a fun game with a high chaos factor, my advice though is play it for the journey and not to win, that particular aspect is in the hands of fates, deities and everyone else.

Three of my keepers (cards you need to make goals)

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Gunfighting, Glass and Guillotine

The picture quiz has been at the club and I am going to let last weeks second poser run until I get a successful guess. It may help if I lend an ear and as a reminder this is how it was written :-, the other is a game I have played in Taunton, Glasgow, Enfield, Southampton and East London but not recently.

Last weeks quiz picture was Civilization – this one is the Gibsons board. Civilization was the ultimate trading game until settlers appeared, however it is an excellent territory control game and it is the fine mix of these two elements that made it the ultimate game for a large number of years, the only down side is its playing time, at about an hour a player the game can easily last from 4-7 hours and I did see a game start playing at 8 in the evening which was still going at 7 the following morningwhen I woke up having been played continually through the night.

An early start this week with the warm up being Guillotine The idea of the game is to collect the highest score of Nobles before the end of three rounds. On a turn you may play an action card after which you must collect the Noble at the head of the queue and then draw a new action card. Some of the action cards move nobles up and down the queue for the guillotine so you can collect the best noble and avoid the negative ones whilst some allow you to affect other players. It is an excellent filler game being light-hearted with a small degree of strategy and playing in about 20 minutes.

Table 1 started with Glass Road by Uwe Rosenberg , the game follows his usual formula of presenting players with lots of options but very few actions, this makes for a very tight game however if you are not on the ball from the start your chances of catching up later are slim. The game revolves around increasing your resources on 2 resource wheels and then using them to purchase tiles for victory points, sounds simple however the driving mechanism is a deck of cards which all players have, you choose 5 action cards then play three of them.

My resource dials, the cards to the left have been actioned by other players, so I played all 5 cards this round, sadly out of order

When you play a card if another player holds that as one of their selected cards they get to do the action also which limits the benefits you get from playing the card. So if you accurately assess (ie guess) what the other players will choose to do, you should get the 3 actions off of your played cards and 2 more off of the actions played by others. However problems arise when someone plays a card which you have and you are forced to play earlier than you intended – you MUST play your card and as it is out of the sequence you were hoping for it is unlikely you will have the resources to action it properly – a wasted action.

The buildings board, the cost of the buildings is shown on the left of each tile

When this happens every turn the game can be very frustrating, I felt I had less control in this game than any other I have played for quite some time, it is a feeling I like to avoid, I know there are a lot of games where player control is limited but at least they are kind enough to give you the illusion that you are in control, in this game I felt I had no control and the game system was happy to let me know that by rubbing my nose in it. I am sure that with replays I will become more familiar with how the interactions work and regain some of that lost control. This has been on my “to play” list for some time and although it does not advance to my “to buy” list I will happily play it again.

Table 2 started with Ca$h 'n Gun$, the idea is to accumulate as much cash as you can over six rounds, each player is armed with a gun, a set of cards and a character. Each round a number of cash chits are placed in the centre of the table, each player selects one of their cards and places it face down in front of them, the card is either a single shot (2 cards) , a rapid fire (1 card), or no shot (3 cards), after card selection on a count of 3 players simultaneously point their gun at any other player, guns are then left on the table still pointing at the victims, then again on a count of three, everyone decides whether they will hide behind the table or face whatever comes their way. Those playing chicken under the table collect a cowards chit and do not take part in the loot sharing, then rapid fires are played, those hit receive a wound token and do not take part in the loot sharing, any still standing play their single shot cards, those hit receive a wound counter and do not take part in the loot sharing.

El Toro has been shot, he has taken a wound counter, sadly he will not be able to take any of the loot this round.

Finally any still standing share the loot equally among them, anything left over is added to the available loot on the next round. Although this is not a knock-out game, there is an element ofelimination for if you collect three wounds and you are dead and out, but other than that its whoever collects the most loot in the end is the winner. The game is quick and snappy and plays best with its maximum number of 6. The advanced game brings in extra skills and weapons (I love the shotgun) and the latest edition has played around with the rules a bit adding extra loot tokens but for me not really improving the game.

Table 2 then went on to what can only be described as a marathon session of Port Royal, this simple card game was released last year and has proved to be one of the regular games I play at home. Like a lot of games of recent times it is a card collecting game and dependent on what cards you collect gives you powers for the rest of the game, cards also have a number of victory points marked on them, the idea is to collect 12 victory points triggering the end of the game and at the end of that round the one with the most points is the winner.

On a turn you turn over cards one at a time which may be ships (providing cash), people cards (giving in-game powers), special points or taxation cards. The active player can stop drawing at any time whereupon they may purchase a people card or take cash with a ship card, after that the other players in turn can also take a card from the display but on top of the normal price must pay the active player a coin as well. If at any time a player draws duplicate colour ship cards their turn ends without a chance to purchase.

There is an element of pushing your luck and apparently those at table 2 did this with alarming frequency, so much so that they were playing the game for about 2 hours, this did not detract from their enjoyment and a cheer was given when they moved into the last round. In 2 player games it is easy to collect cards from your opponent, however in a 5 player game this will not happen as frequently as others get to the only cards you can afford first thus lengthening the play time.

In the meantime Table 1 played Alhambra: The Card Game, originally released as Al Capone by db-spiele it is one of the games that I have always rated highly because of its easy playability yet depth of strategy, sadly for me it was unnecessarily tampered with when Queen released the game under the Alhambra title where tiles were added with an element of tessellation, from my point of view they took an uncomplicated but mechanically sound game and added a random element which detracted from the overall quality of it, so I was glad when they eventually released the game in its original format as just a card game which is what we played.

The board shows the currencies, the cards are the buildings, e.g. the White building on the right needs at least 10 yellow to purchase it.

In short there are 4 currencies and 7 types of building cards, on a turn you can either buy a building card with the appropriate currency or collect a new cash card, if you manage to pay for a building card with the exact amount of money you get another turn.

My buildings early in the game before the first scoring

There are 3 scoring rounds in which you collect points for majorities in building types.

Table 1 took a brief look at Port Royal still being played on Table 2 and decided to give Nations: The Dice Game a go, this falls into the light side of gaming being a roll the dice game and use what is shown on the faces to collect tiles, build monuments (also tiles), gain knowledge, feed and battle. It is a mini-civilization game but with a good replayability factor.

The Roman players civilization and accomplishments at the games end

Table 2 had finished their mammoth game of Port Royal and so we thought we would give it a quick bash.

In the meantime Table 2 had not had enough of shooting one another and decided to play Colt Express, last time I played at the club it was with 3 players which although the game works was not really enough to appreciate the mayhem factor that this game creates. This week it was played with 5 players and it was a manic game with a huge fun factor.

The train in Colt Express at the games start

Despite the chaos it is possible to plan your play to a certain degree, that isuntil someone goes out of their way to target you so it is important to hit them before they hit you.

The last game on the table for us was Tsuro, this lovely route-laying game is quick and fun, on your turn you lay a tile in front of your piece which must then follow the line in front of it to its end, any other pieces on routes created must also travel to the end. The idea is to be the last piece on the board so laying the correct tiles can send your opponents off the board while you move into empty territory.

The paths in Tsuro - the board at the end of the game

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Colt Express, Luna and Ciub

A section of the board in this classic game

TWO POSERS this week but only one of them is the picture (above) the other is a game I have played in Taunton, Glasgow, Enfield, Southampton and East London but not recently.

Last weeks quiz picture was Sushi Go! It was a montage of strips from several of the cards.

A popular choice for a warm-up recently has been BANG! The Dice Game and this week was no different, it contains all the elements needed for a good warm up game as it is quick and fun. It has a good balance of luck and skill and with a huge dollop of back stabbing or should I say front-shooting it is highly recommended.

There were 2 tables playing this week, Table 1 started with The Doom That Came To Atlantic City, it was described to me as having quite a few similarities to Monopoly but instead of building houses you are destroying buildings and replacing the last one on a space with a gate, the first player to build 6 gates wins. That is not all though, Combat can take place between players on the same space or in the same zone the winner gains believers, run out of believers and you are banished.

Another twist is that at the beginning a Doom card is dealt to each player which gives the player an alternative win condition. This is a “roll the dice and move the dobber” game, but has a fun factor and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

My table played Luna, I am a big fan of Stefan Feld games and this is one that I love but rarely get to play. The scene of play is a temple surrounded by islands and players have a set of Acolytes which they use to undertake tasks in order to gain victory points. All the tasks require pairs of Acolytes to complete and when used the Acolytes are placed next to the island and are not available until the following turn. Each island provides special tokens which can be used to either transport the Acolytes around the islands, provide a bag of gold, a visiting Acolyte, permission to build, or herbs.

The "Visiting Acolyte" island, the presence of the builder has allowed several players to build shrines there.

A players turn consists of using a pair of Acolytes at any one location, play then moves to the next player, your pair of Acolytes can go recruiting (get another Acolyte), build a shrine (but only at the island where the builder is present) collect a token from the island they are on or travel to the Temple. Acolytes can also attend the council chamber this provides a tie-break and extra points at the end of the game, points are also gained at the games end from owning shrines. Entering the temple and having a presence at the island where the Priestess is visiting will garner further points each round.

The Temple with some Acolytes inside and others on the path waiting to enter

As with all Stefan Feld games it is all about earning a steady income throughtout the game whilst setting yourself up with game-end bonuses, the in-game play is a balance of recruiting Acolytes, sending them to the Temple for points (the earlier you send them the better the points) or using them to gather tokens and Priestess points. There is always a lot to think about and timing can be critical but because you only do one action at a time turns come round fairly quickly.

Table 1 moved on to Ciúb a dice rolling game. The idea is to roll different combinations of dice in order to collect Victory Point cards, a failed attempt results in collecting more dice and there are different dice to choose from to give you different die rolling options.

The scoring cards, yellow and red have a card reserved

You may reserve a card specifically for your collection and should you be successful you reset to 5 dice again. On the whole it is a fairly basic die rolling game and sits somewhere between “Roll For It” and “Roll For the Galaxy” though for me the latter would be my game of choice from the three.

Our last game was Colt Express, however we were down to 3 players and although playable it is better played with 5 or 6 players. Colt Express is this years’ Spiel des Jahres winner and is well deserving of the award, players are bandits on a train trying to relieve the passengers of their gold, on a turn a player can move along the train or climb to the roof, shoot an opponent, strike an opponent, pick up some booty or move the Sheriff.

The three of us having a party on the caboose.

To do these actions you use cards which are played to a single deck in a “programming” phase, some of the cards are played face up others face down after which the cards are then all revealed in order, the game has a huge fun element especially when shooting your opponents, no-one dies but bullet cards start to clog your draw deck the more hits you take, there is a special $1,000 bonus if you manage to empty your gun.

My character sheet, I have 3 bullets left and my special ability is that my first card is placed face down

I tend to lose this game – a lot I tend to concentrate on emptying my gun which means I lose out on all the bags of loot, but I have fun which is what it is all about and on my one success at emptying my gun I did win but that did not happen in this session.

It was a leisurely evening with some gentle callanetics for the gray matter. Above is one of the many different types of wildfowl that you get on the Serpentine – you don’t get these on other gaming websites.

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Medway Area Boardgamers