Bohemian Villages, Imhotep, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kingdom Builder and Cacao - The Chocolate Expansion

The quiz picture this time is a bit of a rarity now but is certainly a lot of fun to play and has been down the club at least once and after taking it to Beer & Pretzels more than one person was on the internet trying to track down a copy.

The last quiz picture was of Verzauberte Eulen a nice low level game where the owls swap heads, this will come to the club at some point when I am looking for a light evening of gaming, my version is the Haba edition it is part of their green box range aimed at older children and therefore highly suitable for adults.

I have tried to catch-up by doing weekly reports but this has failed due to very busy weekends so this is a double report and I will start with the session 2 weeks ago. Table 1 started the evening with Imhotep which BQ explains :-

BQ > A nice design from Phil Walker-Harding, creator of Archaeology, Cacao and (whisper it!) Sushi Go! As a builder of ancient Egyptian monuments, you get a bunch of chunky wood cubes in your colour, representing stone construction blocks, and you have to ship them to one of five construction sites, using four ships taken from a group of eight. The ships have from 1-4 spaces on them (there's 2x4 space ships, 3x3, 2x2 and 1x1). Each space can hold one stone block. The subset of ships you will use in each round is determined by means of a "round card" which is revealed at the start of the round. When a ship sails, the blocks are offloaded in order from the front to the back of the ship, and placed on the site according to certain placement rules. Each site has a different benefit: most score points in different ways - the Temple has a line of five spaces which are filled from front to back, and once all are filled, a second storey is built on top of the first. At the end of each round players get a point for each block of their colour that can be seen from above - so blocks on the bottom storey, once covered, don't score any more, etc. The Pyramid scores points printed on a small grid corresponding to the spaces where the blocks can be placed, fills from top left to bottom right in columns, and scores immediately (and only when) the blocks are placed.

The Obelisks have a stack of blocks per player, and score only at game end, points being allocated based on tallest to shortest tower. The Burial Chamber is a grid of spaces, with three rows and many columns. It too is filled left to right in columns, and scores - again at game end only - for orthogonally connected groups of blocks. Finally, the market allows you to take special cards, 1 per block you deliver: the blue ones I mentioned above, red ones that give you an immediate bonus block placement, green ones that give end of game scoring bonuses, and purple ones that are set-collecting cards, with game end points for your set. Once all the ships have docked, the round is over, Temple scoring happens, a new round card is revealed, the Market cards are refreshed, and the next round starts...unless there's no more round cards, in which case you're done, so you score the game-end stuff, and see who's won.

It's deceptively simple, but with many interesting decisions. There's LOTS of player interaction - sailing a ship with all the other players blocks somewhere you KNOW they don't want to go is mean, but rather satisfying smile emoticon . Since there's four ships, but five sites, one site ends up with no ship in each round, so focusing on one site may risk you being cut out by the other players when they realise what you're doing. The blue cards can give you a little edge when you need it, but they need to be timed carefully. It's all a bit of a balancing act, and a rather enjoyable one, for me.

Table 2 started with Condottiere an interesting game that now comes in a much smaller box than the original and the cards are now normal sized. The game has a small board showing areas of Italy, a player wins if they control 5 areas or 3 adjacent areas (in a 4+ player game). A hand of cards is dealt out to all players and in a turn they play a single card or pass, once passed a player is out of that round, a round is a battle for a single nominated area and a round ends when all players have passed.

The board at the end of the game where the Red player was dealt a hand of 10's, 2 players could not compete so dropped out leaving 1 player to try and stop the onslaught, he failed and Red won.

Most of the cards are mercenary cards of various strengths, however there are power cards which can be used for various effects (generally affecting the strengths of card already played) whoever has the highest strength showing at the end of a round wins the area. The nice twist is that no-one replenishes their hand and the cards that players are left with they use for the next round, this continues until at the end of a round all but 1 player has zero cards at which point new cards are dealt out. There is a lot of trying to achieve the most with the minimal, the power cards create interesting battles, you also have to make decisions on when to commit to a battle, waste your cards too early and you will not be able to play in future battles, save them and you may not get to play them before the next batch are dealt out.

Table 1 moved on to Histrio  which BQ describes :-

BQ > Histrio's got a rather odd theme, I think. In a strange, cartoonish fantasy land inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, you are trying to put on two plays for the King's annual drama festival. To do that, over the course of two "seasons" you'll need to send emissaries to the eight cities of the land, where they will try to recruit actors and acrobats, and solicit money from patrons of the arts, so you can put on a play at the end of the season. Trouble is, if two players visit a city at the same time, things go a bit wrong. And to complicate things further, at the end of the season, the king will either be in the mood for tragedy or comedy. Your play will be mostly one or the other. Woe betide you if you misjudge what he's feeling...

the cities with cards waiting to be taken

The bits in this game are very pretty: There's a little theatre stage with a rotating backdrop, plastic miniature fantasy airships (called "Caravels") which represent your emissaries, tiny cockerels as theatre managers, and nice plastic coins. Each player gets a set of eight "travel cards" numbered 1 - 8, one for each of the cities, a set of the Caravels and three of the cockerel "managers" in their colour. There's a long, thin mini-board representing the eight cities, again numbered 1 - 8, and a deck of "encounter" cards, which are shuffled and one card placed beneath each of the cities. There are three kinds of these cards: actors, acrobats, and patrons of the theatre. Each player starts with 3 coins - and coins are the victory points in this game. There's also a deck of "secret request" cards which can give you points at the end of each "season". In each turn, each player selects one of the travel cards they have left in their hand and plays that card face down on the table. When all have chosen, the cards are revealed, and each player places a caravel underneath the city they chose. The cities are then resolved from left to right, and players gain all cards and their benefits from the city they chose, if, and only if, they're alone there. The three kinds of card that players can get have different effects: Patron cards just yield the coins printed on them. Acrobats are placed in front of the player and have special powers (like like enabling you to block other players from a specific city for one turn; or take the cards from a city where you're not alone) that can be used once per season. Finally, Actors have experience values of 1 - 5, and enable the players to put on their plays for the season. They're either comedians (gold) or tragedians (red), and each may give a special benefit - less-experienced actors give better benefits. The player may choose send one of the actor cards just acquired to the discard pile to influence the king's mood, and all other actors are placed in front of the player as part of their "troupe" for this season's play. If more than one player chose the same city, it's bad news: all the encounter cards are discarded, and any actors in the pile influence the kings mood according to their experience and type. In compensation the affected players get a "secret request" card each. The king's mood is very important, and, sadly, he's a right moody old blighter: his mood changes like the wind, because actor cards get discarded quite a bit. When this happens, the needle above the king's mood dial on top of the theatre moves, one segment per experience level of the actor discarded, in the direction of the actor's speciality, comedy or tragedy - thus, if a combination of tragedians and comedians is discarded the needle moves the net amount in favour of the higher total minus the lower - so, if there's a 3 tragedian and a 1 comedian being discarded, say, the needle moves 2 points towards the tragedy side. The mood indicator has two halves, one for each mood, and if the needle traverses from one half to the other, another fun thing happens. The back of the theatre has a backdrop on a spindle, showing a comedy or tragedy performance. At the start of the game when you flip the coin to show which mood the king is initially in, you spin the backdrop to the appropriate performance. If the king's mood changes to the other kind during the game, the backdrop is spun round, knocking off any managers present on the stage, which return to their owners.

One players acting line

Once all cities are resolved, a new turn begins. A card is added to each city from the encounter deck (in this way, cities can build up a few cards, making them more appealing), and it's the next turn, unless the encounter deck's run out, in which case it's the end of the season, and a scoring takes place, based on the king's mood: if your troupe of actors better matches how he's feeling you get many more coins. You can also then play one special request card at this time, which gives bonus coins based on a condition (like "10 coins if your troupe doesn't match the kings mood", or "5 coins if you only have actors of 4 or 5 value"). If it's the end of the first season, you set up for the second season similar to at the start and do it all again. If it's the end of the second season, you see who has the most coins, and they win. Histrio is light and for a family game, there's a fair amount to think about. Second guessing other players is never easy, but you've got to try, because you REALLY don't want to be in the same city as someone else too often. It also goes way quicker than I thought it would, partly, I think, because of the simultaneous card-play.

Part of the board showing a 3 point citadel with crags, flowers and a forest nearby

Table 2 next played Kingdom Builder quite a quick route-laying game. The board depicts various areas of land (flowers, woods, plains, desert, crags, mountains and water) in patches of hexagons of various sizes there is also a deck of cards and each card will show one of the terrains (except mountain and water). At the start of the game three game-end scoring criteria are revealed from another deck of cards and then play begins. On a turn a player turns over a card from the top of the deck and then places 3 of their pieces in the terrain revealed, there are additional rules governing placement but on the whole you are trying to achieve points based on the victory point cards, there are also cities dotted around the board which either provide 3 points for reaching them or bonus action chits.

Players houses/settlements on part of the board at the end of the game.

The game is about deciding which victory points to chase and picking up the correct bonus tokens to help you achieve them. There is (to my mind) a large luck element in the card drawing, not wishing to take away from the tactical aspect of placement and early decision making but to have your plans scuppered by a random card draw puts a dampener on an otherwise fine game, you could argue that you should plan for the bad draws but the game does not last that long and it is possible to play a game drawing lots of a particular terrain and not see one card of another (for me it was 5 or more flower cards and only 1 crags card for the whole game), however other than this it is a good quick game and one I will happily play.

Table 3 started with Traders of Osaka, however the game was not completed as they were only 2 players and we split and had a mix-up of players.

Table 1 finished with Archaeology: The New Expedition

Hyperborea being played 3-player

Table 2 played Hyperborea, not a game I have played yet and so have no information on. They then finished with Cockroach Poker.

The last game on Table 3 was Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game, I am not normally keen to play this type of game but this one has a nice (although not perfect) balance and plays in about an hour. One player is the side of evil controlling several characters (in our case The Master and his minions) whilst the remaining players control the good guys (Buffy, Willow, Xander and Oz). There are goals for both sides (normally either Killing or siring Buffy for the evil player whilst the good players usually have to defeat the evil leader). 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike is attacking Willow but Oz is on his way.

A round consists of the evil player rolling a die to see how many of their pieces they can move then the good characters each take a turn, on a turn a player moves a piece and can undertake actions which can be power cards and/or collect a power card (provided they ended a turn on a relevant coloured spot) exchange cards with another character (good guys) or attack another character which then ends that characters turn. Attacks are boosted with weapon cards and friend cards (good guys) or power cards in the case of an evil character attacking, dice are rolled and results applied. The cards all add flavour and it is possible for the good guys to be sired into vampires and swap sides, it is a fun game not to be taken too seriously, if you have knowledge and a liking of the series I would say give this game a try it provides an interesting diversion from the worker placement/resource management/deck building style of games.

The last session also had three tables running. Table 1 started the session with Bohemian Villages BQ reports :-

BQ > Bohemian Villages is a dice-based worker placement game: there's a number of large tiles with villages printed on them, consisting of groups of various buildings, with a number shown next to each building. On your turn, you roll four dice and use them to create one or two "totals", with at least two dice per total - so 2 groups of 2 dice, or 1 group of 3 dice (but the spare single die is then unusable) or even 1 group of 4 dice. You *must* use at least one dice "total", but you don't *have* to create/use a second one out of what you rolled. You then place one worker per total used on a building that corresponds to the number rolled, in one of the villages.

Some of the villages in Bohemian Villages

So a 5 and 3 would mean you get to place a worker on an "8" value building, which is a Farm. Depending on the building, when you place workers you may get money immediately as a one-off; or you may get a token (flour from the Flour Mill, for example) which you will cash in for money once all of that building type is occupied (and you get all those workers back if that happens); or you may get a chance for a regular income each turn; or you may get a lot of money at the end of the game if certain conditions are met. You can also kick other players out of some of the buildings under certain circumstances, and there's some re-roll tokens you can buy by sacrificing dice. You do this until someone has no-one left to place at the start of their turn, score the end-game type buildings and the most money wins.

A sample of the cardboard bits you get in the game

I enjoyed the game, but came away with the feeling that I didn't really "get" it, and needed to play a couple more times to make a final verdict. Early on I was placing workers in Farms (which, when you place a worker there, give one coin per worker you already have on a Farm, plus the one you just placed), but I was doing it simply because I was rolling 8's. As I continued to roll dice combos that could be made into *more* 8's, I stuck to farming - it seemed like a good strategy to continue with because that's where I was already invested. No-one else could kick me out - with farms, all of them need to be occupied before you can start dislodging players and my opponents were busy focussing on other buildings - so I ended up doing pretty well. Some of the other buildings, though, seemed harder to get money out of - the token collecting buildings seemed tricky to score well in unless everyone was going for them, for example. I've read on BGG that the strategy does open up after a few plays, so I'll try it again soon...

One of the villages in a 2 player game

Me again (KG), I have since played Bohemian Villages 2 player and yes there does seem to be limited strategy, there is a little risk taking and maybe a level of hoping to get the right dice rolls but there is sufficient manipulation given to dice values that you feel in control. I liked it a lot as a fun filler and found it very playable. Table 2 Started with Splendor possibly one of the nicest warm-up games around, they followed this with Innovation which I have briefly touched on before.

A players collection in Innovation

On table 3 we started with Russian Railroads which is a lovely game however previous experience of play does help quite a bit, for a first time player there is a lot of rules to cope with and it is the game that for me is the longest to explain taking well over 20 minutes. In short it is a worker placement game with resource management (or collecting) in order to achieve an ever increasing number of victory points.  The dynamics of each game change dependent on the number of players and their chosen strategy, in our game Train and Industry tiles were very difficult to get hold of and brought a halt to my railways for a turn (I missed out on a train) and another players Industry build up.

This was the second place board near the end of the game.

The game played well and smoothly and all players did well with only the level of knowledge of the game separating the players end scores, one sad note was that my reign of wins of RR at the club was brought to an end.

Table 1 moved on to Imhotep which is described above in the first report and then finished the evening with Cacao using the Chocolate expansion. Table 2 then played Beasty Bar, currently my favourite 15 minute filler which has been covered before but briefly each player has an identical stack of cards and each turn plays a card from a hand of four to the end of a queue, each card in the queue is then checked to see if it has an effect on the other cards, when there are five cards in the queue the top two cards go into a scoring pile. At the end of the game the player with the most cards in the score pile wins. The artwork is lovely and the gameplay pleasingly simple.

Two in the queue at Heavens Gate

The last game on Table 2 was Bohnanza, this interesting card game has been around for a few years and had quite a few spin offs and expansions including “Space Beans” and “La Isla Bohnita”. It is a trading game where you have a hand of cards and each turn you must “plant” one or two cards from the front of your hand into new sets or sets that have already been started in front of you – however you are limited to only 3 sets at a time, you then have 2 cards turned over from the deck to trade – it is this free trading which is the backbone of the game, after the trading session players refill their hand however cards in the hand must always stay in the same order they were picked up thus creating some interesting trading situations as players try to empty their hand of useless cards

Table 3 finished with Machi Koro a nice card and dice game, there is a little strategy to the game but in the end it is the die rolling that will decide the winner and there is not quite enough die rolling to even out periods of good or bad luck, you can manage your luck to a certain degree by the cards you choose to purchase but bad luck is still bad luck. I am happy to say that the player in our game who did not purchase the aggressive cards but stuck to a peaceful expansion of his card deck did win but only thanks to some fortunate die rolling by himself and another player.

The deluxe version of Machi Koro comes with 2 expansions and a player mat

Table 1 moved onto Cacao with the Chocolatl expansion:

BQ > There's four modules in the new expansion for this game (which we've covered on the "What We've Played" blog in the past if you're not familiar - go look it up, I'll wait...   ). We used two of them: the Chocolate Kitchen/ Chocolate Market tiles, and the Huts. The former give opportunities to convert cocoa into chocolate (Kitchen tiles), and sell the chocolate for high prices (Market tiles). The latter are a bunch of hut tiles that you have to pay coins for (but don't worry, they're worth the same towards your end-game score as you paid for them) and they all have special powers (like giving more coins at "2" cocoa markets, or adding an extra worker to a 3-worker tile when it's played, or additional . I felt they both added an extra dimension to a game I've played quite a lot, and although I hadn't got bored of it, the new elements certainly add some interesting twists.

Lords of Scotland, Fearsome Floors and Celeste

Are the Owls a clue?

This quiz picture is a game I played years ago, the board shown is of a different edition to my version.

The last quiz picture was Forbidden Island which does contain some rather nice chunky minis and is a nice co-operative game.

This Blog is the last of the catch-ups, I will hopefully now be back on schedule, this contains the session on 11th May and I am looking to put the next report out on Tuesday and then we will be back to Mondays. Table 1 started with Lords of Waterdeep an adventure game which has a strong following. I have played it once before but it is not for me.

Table 2 started with Lords of Scotland which BQ explains.

BQ > Lords of Scotland - A card game in which you are trying to build up a set of "Followers" to fight the other Lords. You start with a hand of five cards showing "recruits" from various Scottish clans. Each card has a strength from 1 to 12. One card per player is also dealt face-up to the table at the start of each round: these are the "Supporters" which may be claimed at the end of the round, for points. On your turn, you take a card from a central pool of five, some of which are face-up, others of which may be face-down OR you play a card in front of you, either face-up or face-down - these are your Followers for this skirmish. If you choose to play the Follower face-up, and no one has a card of the same clan with the same or lower value (in a 4-5 player game - in 2-3 player, the trigger is that no other card of any clan with a lower value is face-up), then you can trigger a special power shown on the card (all the clans have their own unique power). Once five rounds of this have happened, any face down Followers are turned face-up, and everyone checks to see how strong their army is by comparing with the other players' armies total strength - armies of 2 or more cards, and from only one clan double their strength. Then, in order of highest to lowest strength, each player may have the opportunity to take one of the "Supporter" cards and add it to their score pile - here the strength on the card represents Victory Points. If no-one is at 40 or more VPs, you do it all again, otherwise the person with the most VPs wins. This is a game that will appeal to people who like player interaction, I think: there is a LOT of scope for "take that!" play - some of the powers (swap your Follower with another players, for example, or simply kill another player's Follower) can really ruin your day smile emoticon . It takes a little while to grasp some of the interactions of the card powers (and to remember the rule about how they're triggered) but once you've got that, it plays quite smoothly, I liked it quite a bit.

Drunter & Druber towards game end

My table went for light and fun, the first game was Drunter & Druber a fun game where you can win by scoring just 1 point, the board consists of a grid of squares some of which contain coloured buildings (secretly belonging to the players) and some contain toilets. At the start of the game you get dealt some tiles and on a turn you place a tile which is either length 1, 2 or 3 on to the board however you can only place where there is a builder and he moves on each turn, you can place over buildings with impunity however should you crush a toilet the inhabitants are outraged and the players vote to see if the build goes ahead. This is a fun short game that keeps you guessing especially with some of the curious voting that takes place.

The next for us was Fearsome Floors, a game where you just need to get your pieces from one corner of the board to the diagonally opposite corner however a rampaging monster does his best to prevent anyone doing this. There is a level of manipulation within the game and opportunities can arise to guide the monster on to your opponents pieces but it is equally easy to miss something and the monster suddenly turns in an unexpected direction with catastrophic results – for someone. The game is interesting in that you can calculate every move the monster makes and take evasive action only to see another player make a move that undoes all your careful planning, the extra fun in our game was provided by “G” who created a horrible creature for our game that would have given Frakenstein kittens.

Two left feet would have been an improvement for this concoction from the depths of the darkest mind

Table 2 in the meantime moved on to Archaeology: The New Expedition  which has been covered before. They followed this with Celesta which is a re-themed favourite of mine, Cloud 9 which BQ covers it below.

BQ > Celestia is a sweet little push-your-luck game with beautiful design and artwork (and a groovy cardboard steampunk/fantasy airship). A series of ovals depicting fantasy cities are laid out in a line with little decks of face-down treasure card next to them - these cards have victory point values which increase the further along the line of cities you get. Each player gets a hand of equipment cards: some are basic equipment in four kinds, some are special power cards. The airship starts at the first city and one player will be Captain. He/she rolls 2-4 dice (the number rolled depend on how far towards the last city the airship is), and the dice faces will either show a symbol corresponding to one of the four basic equipment types, or a blank face. Blank is good - that means no event to be dealt with for that die. A symbol, though, means a bad event is imminent, and the Captain must deal with it by discarding one equipment card of the relevant type, or the airship will crash! However, *before* the Captain reveals whether they can deal with all the events using the cards in their hand, each player in turn must say whether they are going to stay on the airship or leave. If they leave, they get a card from the treasure deck next to the current city. If at least one player stays (or if the Captain's alone and is able to continue), the Captain then reveals whether they can overcome the events. If they can, the airship moves on to the next city. If they can't, the airship crashes, moves back to the first city, everyone gets back on (including those who bailed out before), and all take one equipment card from the deck. In either case, the next player clockwise becomes Captain. This continues until at least one player gets 50 VPs, and the person with the most VPs at that time is the winner.

The bits for Cloud 9 - the Celeste bits were out of focus (sorry)

BQ (cont) > There are some power cards in the equipment deck: one is a wild card for any basic equipment type, one lets you chuck someone off the airship after they've decided to stay (rude!), one lets you escape a crashing airship with a treasure card, one enables the captain to re-roll dice, one forces him to re-roll blanks (usually played by someone who's already left. There's a also a treasure card which, while worth points, can be discarded to let the captain deal with any and all events being faced - it's only found in the first four cities, though. There's scope for bluff and persuasion here ("Can you deal with these events?" "Maybe, what's it to you?"), but in both the games of this I've played we've not been terribly devious. It's as light and fluffy as a cloud, but fun while it lasts, which is not very long...

Me (KG) again, there are two main difference between this and cloud 9 the first is the addition of some (and there are not many) extra “power cards” (the wild card is in the original game) which to my mind does not really affect they play positively or negatively and in fact may spice it up a little but there are too few to affect serious game play. The second change is the points scoring - in cloud 9 they are set for the point that you jump out whereas in Celeste you take a points card which for some spaces are at great variance e.g. the 6 spot could be 6 points, 9 points or 12 points, this turns a game which for me had some interesting end game calculations to be made into a complete game of chance, the power cards I can live with but the points cards from my point of view ruin it.

Our third game was the Das Faultier which is a race game with a difference, the players are sloths and in true sloth fashion it is the last one to the end that is the winner.  On a turn the player rolls a die and then moves ANY players piece forward the number rolled, pieces stack and only the top piece of a stack can ever move, there are sleepy tokens where you can put yourself asleep and thereby not be moved and chance spots where a deck of cards influences a pieces movement. There is very little control and a lot of “take that” but it all works to make a fun little game playing in about 30 minutes.

Table 2 played Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension, I know nothing about this game at all but it seemed to go down well.

SR > I really enjoyed Gravwell, quick, easy to grasp the basics and then get stuck into guessing who would go where before/after me. It seemed to work very well with three, just the right balance of control and confusion.

Table 2 finished with Cockroach Poker – covered before. I am not sure how well balanced it was 3 player but I can imagine it being quite a tense and calculating game.

Table 1 had moved onto Traders of Osaka which has also been covered before.

Our last game was a 3 player game of Yspahan it was quite close and it was not until the last round when I played my bonus cards that I secured the win but not by a large margin.

Warhammer Quest The Adventure Card Game, Medina, Archaeology (The New Expedition)

The quiz picture this week is not a game I would normally play but I have enjoyed it when I have played it.

The last quiz picture was Food Chain Magnate rapidly spotted by one of our readers. I am still doing catch-up but I am getting closer to getting up to date. This post covers 3 weeks of games at the club and our second anniversary statistics. As with the other catch-up there are no links to BGG but they will be back soon.

TTR - India at games end, check out Greens lovely big loop and how Red (me) was hemmed into the North West.

The games played on 20 April were Love Letter – Batman, Mombasa, Ticket to Ride India, Die Holde Isolde, Family Business, Beasty Bar, Saint Malo, Yspahan, Bonn, Skull and Poison. Although Ticket to Ride is not a favourite of mine I found the India map quite interesting as it got very tight very quickly and there was a lot of decision making to be done, I did not play Mombasa at the club but I have played it since and I do not think I have become so frustrated with a game for a large number of years, it is yet another very “bitty” game, I will give it another try but at the moment there are so many other games I would rather play.

BQ > I'd like to give Mombasa another go, as I think - more than this is true usually - it really does pay to know what you're doing, and now I have a bit better idea I'd also be able to assist any newbies I played with. It is long, though. Maybe next time with 3 . . .

GM > Lessons learned from Mombasa: When the game is named after one of the factions in it, back those guys.

SR > Yes to Agricola, no thanks to Mombasa; it's not a bad game, but it's definitely not one for me. I think new players should know that they can't do everything and need to focus on a few scoring tracks to really score big. I also think Mombasa (black) are likely to be an easier company to score big on because of the synergy between playing expansion cards and the bonus to move up the mombasa track.

The club had its 2nd anniversary on 23rd April and in our 2 years we have played a total of 698 games with a steady increase of 1.5 games per month, this figure is not wholly accurate as I only record a game once for a session no matter how many times it gets played, so something like Secret Hitler which always gets multiple plays will only be recorded the once thus I am 100% certain we have played over 700 games.

A players hand mid-game in Port Royal

The most popular game so far is Sushi Go! with 17 plays followed by Port Royal with 12, however these are filler games and the most popular non-fillers are Splendor with 9 plays, Machi Koro and Nations the Dice Game with 7 a piece although these are still fairly lightweight games playing in about 20-30 minutes; of the games that play in the hour + category Abyss, Russian Railroads and Traders of Osaka share the popularity contest with 6 plays each. Since the club started we have played 339 different titles with 137 being played more than once, sadly that is still 202 lonely games (59%) looking to be played a second time, only 81 titles (24%) have been played 3 or more times. Surprisingly there are very few donkeys (in my opinion) among the "single" play games and there are even some great games such as Terra Mystica and Caverna (ranked 3 & 4 on the geek respectively). Moving onto the geek briefly we have managed to play 30 games out of their top 100 and 122 in the top 500.

The games played on 27th April were Warhammer Quest Card Game, Medina, Family Business, Forbidden Island, Die Holde Isolde, Agricola and Archaeology New Expedition. Agricola we played 4 player with one newcomer who had a crash course in the rules and was assisted by us all at one point or another so when he won convincingly I think we all shared a little in the glory. Warhammer Quest card game was well outside my sphere of usual game being a dungeon–bash with power cards, however I enjoyed it immensely, each player has 4 power-cards but can only action one in a turn and all cards need to be reset before they can be used again. It is a co-operative game and we came close to losing with one member down to one lifepoint. The fame system creates a good atmosphere and there was plenty of banter across the table, I enjoyed it so much that I bought a copy.

BQ > Medina I last played about 12 years ago. This time we played the 2nd edition version, which adds in a few neat new rules that definitely improve it, I think. You're collectively re-building the Medina city, using rather pretty wooden pieces (palaces, city walls, stables, merchants), which you place on a rectangular grid representing the desert sands. You get a bunch of these bits at the start, and on your turn you place two of them on the board. That's it. smile emoticon There's four palace colours, but those colours don't belong to the players, instead once a palace of a given colour is started, anyone who wants to add a piece of that palace colour must add to the existing palace.

The new Medina with nice chunky blocks

BQ (cont) > However, at some point, a player can place one of their roof pieces on the palace to claim it - they will score for it at the end, based on its size (and some other things). Another of the same colour can then be started. But players can only acquire one palace of each colour during the game, so when to claim is a tricky question - you want the palace to be as big as possible before you claim, but of course if you leave it too long, someone else can grab it! More palace pieces can't be added to a completed (roofed) palace, but stables can, which means more points. City walls add bonus points to palaces adjacent to them, as do merchants (representing the market(s) of the city). Completing a palace can get you a bonus point tile for that colour, but it can be stolen from you if another player claims a bigger palace later (or uses stables to expand their existing palace in that colour, so it's bigger). Completing a palace next to a wall section can get you a bonus point tile for the tower at the corner of that wall, but, again, it can be taken off you, this time by whoever next completes a palace adjacent to a wall section leading to the same tower. Finally, a well, randomly placed at the start, gives bonus points to palaces near it. It's fascinating to watch the city grow, and I found a lot of enjoyable tension coming from the angst over when to claim a palace, how to block other's from expanding. I inwardly (and outwardly) groaned several times as people blocked me from expanding, or led the merchant line away from my palace. Good stuff, and it looks dead pretty when you're done...

The games on 4th May were Snowdonia, Archaeology New Expedition, Celestia, Android, Cockroach Poker, Onitama and Bonn.

Archaeology I purchased many years ago and thought it a very nice set collecting game, the new expedition varies little from the original but whether it was because we played with 5 players or because of the extra bits but I felt very little control over what was happening and I think luck was too much of a factor, it is still a nice game but I think fewer players may make it better. Snowdonia I undersold when I explained about it to the volunteers who wanted to play, I have played it 2 player a couple of times and solo a good half a dozen times, it was (to me) a dull game however with 4 players it took on a new life and there was some serious decision making to be done and I found it very enjoyable and I am looking forward to play it again, as long as it is 4 or more players.

BQ > Archeology - The New Expedition (I think the subtitle is there to differentiate it from the earlier edition of the same game) was a fun card game on the less complex end of the spectrum, but I felt it had enough meat to make it rather interesting. In summary, you collect sets of treasure cards in order to sell them to museums. The more of a type of treasure you sell, the more money you get, and some treasure types are worth almost nothing unless you have several to sell. There are also map treasures which have an additional power - more on that later. To help with getting the right cards, there's a market of five cards on the table at the start of the game, and you can trade cards in and out of the market, priced according to trading values printed on them. On your turn, without revealing it to the others, you take (dig! smile emoticon ) a card from the deck and look at it. If it's a treasure, you add it to your hand. If it's a thief, you show it, and steal a random card from someone else. If it's a sandstorm...bad news: you show it, and then everyone discards to the market half their hand, rounded down. You can - only once during the game - discard a special tent card you receive at the start, to protect your hand. After the digging, you may trade with the market, sell cards to the museum (place them in a set in front of you for scoring at the end), or explore one of the hidden chambers of the monument, one of six possible special buildings that is randomly selected during setup. To explore it, you surrender a certain number of map cards, and receive treasure cards from one of the chambers. The monuments are all different. With a couple, you just take a pile of cards dealt at the start. A couple have a push-your-luck element, one accrues cards as the game goes on, one lets you peek at its chambers when you sell to a museum....it all depends, but you'll only have one per game. It chugged along nicely, each player's turn is quick but involves some fun decisions: I've got a few pot shards, I should keep collecting for a big score...but what if there's a sandstorm? I have a pharaoh's mask, but I need another, and I only have a couple of cards...should I wait to see if I can get it from the market...but what if someone thieves it from me...? I enjoyed it a lot, and I have a feeling this'll be one I bring as a regular filler.

Munchkin, Kodama, Sushi Go Cake

The above quiz picture is one of my newer games for which there has been a lot of interest.

First off apologies for lack of posts – I currently have ocular problems and cannot work at a computer screen for more than about 10 minutes at a time, things will improve but this may take months. In the meantime I have a lot of catching up to do, so I am doing an interim post of 2 mid-week and a Saturday session, next post will also just be a catch-up with a few comments then hopefully back to normal, due to the number of games no geek-links are provided for which further apologies are tendered.

The last picture quiz was Dungeonquest by Games workshop.

Players Trees in Kodama

At the session three weeks ago we played Kodama a nice card game that is generally well balanced but a lucky set of victory point cards can make things easy for you; Love Letter – Batman which has been talked about before; How to Serve Man a new game which is more about the humour on the cards while playing than a well-balanced game but recommended for its fun factor; Die Holde Isolde a game I am liking more each time I play it;

Sheriff of Nottingham a revision and upgrade on Contraband;  Mexica probably the heaviest game of the evening but still a mid-weight game; Carcassonne South Seas which is Carcassonne with a couple of twists one of which is limited meeples but a move can be to take a meeple back without scoring it;

Dragons of Kir another I know nothing about but seemed to finish after a few moves and with very few pieces on the board; Munchkin a fun card game but one I am not happy to play due to lack of control and finally Skull to finish the evening.

Skull discs - NOT Beer mats.

At the session two weeks ago we played Luxor a fun game from Ravensburger; Innovation a card game where you build up sets; Parade a strange card game where you are trying to avoid collecting penalty points; Scoville a current favourite of mine and has been covered before; St Petersburg what I would consider a classic and which I was surprised no-one had heard of and what I would call card collecting at its best;

Small World and some of the bits

Small World a fantasy version of Vinci which has a huge following despite (to me) its fiddley nature; Beasty Bar covered in the last post and my favourite to challenge Sushi Go on the leader board; Artificium a game currently available in the works but which I know nothing about; Splendor another old favourite at the club and Munchkin.

Some of the many many cards in Munchkin

J > I decided to play Small World as I hadn't played it before. This wasn't my favourite of the night. I started off by breaking an coop pact with the youngest player on the table by attacking him. My flying humans fought hard to survive 1 round too long.  The forest trolls suffered the same fate. In hindsight, I could've squeezes another race in the 8 rounds.Innovation was my favourite of the night. I must've come in last but I enjoyed the complexity that I was learning as I played. I can see why Chudyk fans are so loyal. I would love to play this again and I might have to actively seek out a copy.

We then had a Saturday session in which we had 15 players attending through an 11 hour period during which there was plenty to eat including the Sushi Go cake above, the extensive play list was  as follows :-

Sushi Go! cake - and it went :).

Beasty Bar; Origin; Tsuro; Welcome to the Dunegon; Sushi Go!; Super Rhino; Zombies!!!; Luxor; Hyperborea; Scoville; Secret Hitler; Colt Express; Traders of Osaka; Zooloretto; Fury of Dracula; Skull; 7 Wonders; Bruxelles 1893; Die Holde Isolde; Savannah; Batman Loveletter; Raptor

One of the battle boards in Die Holde Isolde

Last week I will do in the next post with this weeks games yet to be played (if that makes sense) as there are a couple I would like to comment on a little more fully. Finally as in most games it must be my turn (or in this case my picture of a common tern) terrible joke but not a bad piccy.

Common Tern taken at Elmley on Saturday

Beasty Bar, Blue Moon City and Skyway Robbery

This quiz picture is another blast from the past.

Last weeks picture was of Niki Lauda's Formel 1, there are several versions of Formel 1 – this is my favourite.

Only a quick summary this week due to my other commitments. There were three tables this week, on Table 1 they started with Skyway Robbery a game from Philip duBarry who designed Spirits of the Paddy Field a favourite of mine, sadly though I know nothing of this game (photos to follow later).

Table 2 played Scoville which I described last week and which I have played a couple of times since. It is at its best with more than 2 players but an excellent game design is let down badly by component design specifically the board with the punch out holes for the chilli’s which has been commented on in several differing groups.

All the chilli's

The play area in Scoville with chilli's being planted

B > I enjoyed Scoville, even if I was very slow at working out which peppers were generated when you crossed other peppers, and how i could move my playing piece when harvesting to get the best result. It requires some fore thought. I did exactly what I was told not to, and went for the smaller order fills, to no avail. The winner had a good blend of filled orders, planting bonuses and money. Would definitely like to play again to try some different strategies and just become more familiar with the game as a whole.

S > I meant to write on last week's how much I'd enjoyed Scoville and Cockroach Poker. I was very glad to get to play both again this week. Scoville is more tactical than it first appears and was over very quickly with three.

Table 3 played Suburbia another that has been dealt with before, in simple terms it is a tile purchasing game and each you purchase goes into your own display which may trigger bonuses from adjacent tiles. Knowledge of the tiles and the effects is useful so new players are always at a slight disadvantage but other than that it is an engaging game.

The purchase row

The score chart at the end, yellow (J) won. Every time your marker crosses a red line you suffer a penalty.

Table 3 the played Beasty Bar which for me was the game of the night, it was a lot of fun. In a lot of these small card games I feel control is lacking and choices too limited however in Beasty Bar this is not the case. Each player has 12 cards and each players deck is identical, everyone draws a hand of 4 cards and then in turn plays a card to the back of a line, the cards depict an animal which has a ranking and a special power, when you play a card you enact its power and then any power of a card in the line which has a repeating effect. You are trying to get your animals to the front of the line as the line scores once the line is five cards long and the leading cards go into a score pile whilst the tail card is removed from play. Play continues until all cards are played. It is fun and the cards cause all sorts of weird stuff to happen, this has immediately gone on my “to purchase” list.

3 of the cards from my deck, the seal swaps the front of the queue for the back

J > I was the worst player with Beasty Bar. Lovely art and excellent gotcha mechanics. Just when I thought that I'd have people in the bar my beasts get kicked off the queue (or worse, the door moves). I'm not sure whether this has anything to do with me winning Suburbia beforehand.

Table 2 next played Blue Moon City an interesting game from Reiner Knizia of which I have played once but all I can remember is that I enjoyed it.

B > My favourite of the night was blue moon city. A simple mechanic and easy to learn card powers combined to make the game very accessible and fun to play.

Part of the Blue Moon City play area

Table 2 then moved on to Clans a light area control game in you rarely have as much control as you may wish, each player has a secret colour which they are trying to promote for victory points however once your colour is discovered it is easy to get nobbled, it is also very difficult to set yourself up for a later turn as the board changes so rapidly and therefore planning ahead (for me) other than in general terms does not work and I see the art of the game as making plays which induce the next player to make a move that promotes your colour along with anything else they do. I see this game as a quick filler as opposed to a thinky game. This was played by Table 2 as a 3 player game then a 2 player game.

Part of the Clans board, players are a hut colour looking to get dominance in groups of huts as they are brought together

B > As for clans, I can honestly say I'm not a fan. It requires too much awareness of where things are and what certain moves will trigger, for me. I'd be happy never to play it again! I certainly really struggled with it.

Table 3 played a 3 player game of Stoplights which is a line forming game with cards, you have to be on your toes all the time to avoid traps.

Table 1 in the meantime had played A Fistful of Penguins a nice dice rolling game with some lovely pieces.

One of the Penguins

The last game on the table was Cockroach Poker played 6 player and it was a fight, I am happy to have survived, just.

S > Cockroach Poker is just a brilliant way to end the evening. Love the art and the fact everyone is involved for so much of the game, I've ordered a copy of my own for playing outside the club.