Via Nebula, Potion Explosion and Landgang

The quiz picture this time is an oldie but not from my collection, I was lucky enough to see this last week and took a picture of the board.

The last quiz photo was guessed as Tier auf Tier which is almost correct except that the butterflies mark this as Tier auf Tier: Klein, aber oho!.

I missed the club two weeks ago so here is a list of what was played Zombie Dice, World's Fair 1893, Tiny Epic Galaxies, Captain Sonar and Scythe. I have changed the format for reporting slightly as I do not have much spare time in the build up to Essen.

Potion Explosion is definitely at the lighter end of the gaming spectrum, the idea is to complete potions using coloured marbles (elements), they are placed onto potion boards which when completed score points and give a one-off benefit. The mechanic is to remove a marble from the dispenser, this causes marbles to roll down the ramps and should two marbles collide you remove all adjacent marbles of that colour, this is repeated for every matching collision.

Flasks - the one on the left is completed giving 10 points, the right 2 flasks show what marbles are required.

It is a fairly light pattern recognition game and mainly about making the most of what you see on your turn. There is a small amount of strategy in picking your future potion flasks (you are only permitted 2 at a time) and in using the one-off benefits to best effect, there is also an element of set collecting too as you get bonus points from sets of flasks. If you like light games this is quite a good one to pick.

Via Nebula is a game in true Euro style, the board shows a hex grid where each hex is either a cloud, building site, blocking site or a resource site, the idea is to develop the board collecting victory points as you do so. On a turn a player gets 2 actions from a selection which may be repeated. The options are 1) Open a resource site, the player takes a token from the board (which has 1 or 2 victory points marked on it) and replaces it with resources. 2) Move a resource from an open resource site to one of your building sites along a clear path.

A player board at the game start with the actions listed in the middle of the board

3) Clear a cloud space to create a clear path.  4) Place a building site token on a building site hex. 5) Claim a building (victory point) card, to do this you remove matching resources from one of your building sites and replace it with a building, an excess resources you have go into your penalty box and score -1VP each, the buildings when built give a one off bonus. The game is nicely balanced with a pleasant mix of construction, route laying and resource management.

World's Fair 1893 I have not played yet but I have had it described to me as a nice light game.

The board and some of the cards in Worlds Fair 1893

Landgang  is a great little game from Reinhold Wittig, the theme is that players have a team of pawns which they move round a board trying to get into public houses, the timer for the game is a policeman who walks around the pubs and ends the game when he reaches the last space at that time players score up. You get 6 points for being alone in a pub then 2,3,4, points for 2,3,4 pawns in a pub but any pub with 5 or more scores nothing, the policeman moves by expending wasted pips on the dice and every time a pawn jumps another pawn.

The Policeman

This is a nice filler game playing in about 20 minutes, it is a “dice roll fest” but can be tactical as you can deprive someone of points just by joining them or suddenly run the clock down by not moving at all.

Colt Express is a game that has been covered before. Our game was interesting, I lost my bag of loot in the first turn and played most of the game without any loot at all, the suitcase grabber held onto it until near the end of the game where it was nabbed from him in the last 2 rounds. I have since found out that the Stagecoach expansion does add an extra bit of fun so I will be trying that next time I bring this game to the club.

Three gunmen on the roof, which one will get the gem

The Marshal near the front of the train guards a gem and some cash bags

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a little outside my comfort zone this game having elements of role-play, I think I have covered it before but basically it is a game of exploration until a trigger point is reached then one of the players is declared the “traitor” at which point the traitor plays out a scenario in one booklet whilst the rest of the players seek their goals in their book. All I can say is that it is surprising how mean people can be to a character just because they are the traitor, and there were signs of “mob mentality”. The game works well but it will never be a one I would choose to play.

The exploring has stopped and the traitor discovered

Near the end of the game this character took careful aim and repeatedly shot the little 8 year old girl

Deep Sea Adventure and World's Fair 1893

This sweet game I picked up last year although it has been around a bit longer.

The last picture quiz was of Armchair Cricket, a British game from 1981 and i quote here from the geek page on the designer Don Arnold – “Ex-professional County Cricket player. In the 80's, I first met him and he was selling his game by going from shop-to-shop, all over England. That is a very hard way to distribute a game but he had a passion for it and I admire that.”

I was not around last week but here is a list of the games played at the club :- Table 1 - Lords of Waterdeep (with Scoundrels of Skullport expansion), The Bloody Inn, Kakerlakentanz.  Table 2 - Turn the Tide, Ra, Traders of Osaka.  Table 3 - Carcassonne, Dice City, Dungeon Roll

This week Table 3 started the evening with a couple of card games that I have not come across before namely TotAN and Council of Verona.

Table 1 started with a very recent release World's Fair 1893 BQ gives us an in depth view. Some thoughts on World's Fair 1893: This is a strategy game at the lighter end of the complexity spectrum (around the Carcassonne/Ticket to Ride/Kingsburg level), with a nice and well integrated theme - take a wild guess as to what it's about! - and gameplay is based around a combination of set-collecting and winning the majority in areas around the board.

The board itself is modular, consisting of a number of segments which, when arranged around a central section depicting the original Ferris Wheel from the World's Fair, form a hexagon shape. Each of the segments represents one of the areas of human endeavour from which exhibits were drawn for the Fair, such as Fine Arts, Electricity or Transportation - this modular design means a slightly different game each time. There are a number of spaces around the Ferris Wheel (varying according to player count), and a marker showing a Ferris Wheel car is placed on the lowest space. This marker is the “clock” of the game – it is moved around the spaces on the Wheel, and each time it returns to the bottom space, a scoring of the exhibit areas takes place. After the 3rd scoring, the game is over.

To set up, each player places one “supporter” cube of their chosen colour on each of the exhibit areas, plus an additional supporter or supporters, based on player order. A couple of cards from a deck of 91 (from which some are removed at the start, again depending on player count) are placed next to each segment, and these cards are of three kinds: Midway Tickets (which score 1 point each, and move the Ferris Wheel car 1 space); Exhibits (which can be collected, and turned into tokens for scoring at game-end); and Influential Persons (who give the ability to add or move additional supporters on the board). Player turns are simple: place one supporter on one of the exhibit areas, play (or just discard) any Influential Persons cards you acquired on your last turn, take all the cards from the area where you just placed your supporter, move the Ferris Wheel car one space clockwise for each Midway Ticket you took (if any), and finally replenish three cards on to the board – one in the area from which you took cards, and then one each in the next two available areas clockwise (areas are “available” if they have fewer cards than the number indicated on the exhibit area, either 3 or 4). If the Ferris Wheel car is now back at the bottom (and it always stops there, even if the number of Midway Tickets taken should have moved it further), a scoring takes place.

The scorings are also pretty simple: one point per Midway Ticket you acquired, and two bonus points for the person (or people, in the event of a tie) who had the most Tickets, then discard all Midway Tickets. Next, the exhibit areas are scored: in a 4 player game, the person with the most supporters gets 2 or 4 points, and second place gets 2 points. Crucially, the first and second place also get to “Approve” a certain number of the Exhibit cards they’ve collected so far – remember those Exhibit cards? smile emoticon:) Well, when you first collect them, they are only “proposed” Exhibits, and can’t be used to score at the end of the game. By getting a majority in an area, you can convert some of them into “Approved” Exhibit tokens, by discarding each card you are entitled to convert, and taking the corresponding token. After each scoring (except, of course, the last one) each player “recalls” half of their supporters, rounded down, from each area, and – if that wasn’t the end of the third round - the next round starts. If it *was* the end of the third round, after the above scoring actions have taken place, players also then receive points for their Approved Exhibits, by grouping their tokens into sets of different kinds, and scoring them. Each set of all 5 different kinds gets you 15 points, 4 different gets 10 points, 3/6, 2/3, and finally 1 point per approved exhibit not in a set. Add up all your points, and the person with the most points is the winner

I really liked this game. It’s got simple rules, but quite a lot of interesting choices, and the fluffy exterior conceals a design that forces some actually rather tough decisions on you: I want the cards *there*, but I need a majority *there*…but I also don’t want player 2 to get that set of cards *there* because she’ll then have a full set of exhibits *and* be able to end the round before I’m ready for it...aargh! That tension between collecting the right exhibits, but needing to have the majorities to actually make use of them is intriguing, and not a game mechanism I’ve come across in quite this way before. The theme is very appealing to me (I love fairs and theme parks!), and the graphic design is both very pretty and highly evocative of the era and of the theme. The exhibit and Midway Ticket cards are all unique, depicting genuine exhibits and Midway carnival attractions from the 1893 fair, along with a little bit of text telling you about the thing they show – not necessary for the game at all, but charming and immersive. In terms of length, we took about 40 minutes to play our first 4 player game, but I suspect that would come down to around 30 minutes once players knew the game a bit, so it’s easily one you can fit in to a short playing session. I reckon this’d be a good one to play with non-gaming family and friends, but it also has enough depth to satisfy regular board-gamers. Good stuff!

Table 1 next played Madame Ching, a good light game of exploration which I have covered before, I am still not sure about the luck element provided by the “chance” cards but overall most games reward the explorer rather than the power card collector.

My table played began the evening with Takenoko which I have covered before. I had not realised how different 4-player games can be from one another, the dynamics change between games depending on what victory point cards players have and how they play towards those goals, in our game the green bamboo (the commonest available) hardly got a look in until towards the end whilst at the start over half the board was a mass of yellow tiles, in addition Bamboo was getting eaten as fast as it was growing making the “growth” victory point cards very difficult to achieve. This game does reward forward planning, however other than in a 2 player game the activities of the other players can influence your fortune towards obtaining the goals on your cards.

We didn't Playtest This

There was a table 4 for a short period which played a couple of 2 player games neither of which I know, namely Timeline and We Didn't Playtest This At All: Chaos Pack This, both games seemed interesting and can be played multiplayer.

Timeline

Our next game was Deep Sea Adventure one of several excellent games from “Oink”, despite its past appearances at the club I have always missed playing it before. The game is a little bit of push your luck and a little bit of “chicken”, players become deep sea divers and the winner is decided by who collects the most points of treasure from three separate dives. On their turn a player rolls the dice and moves that number of spaces down the line of treasure tiles, when they stop they may take the tile and replace it with a “blank” tile, on the following turn they may continue downwards or return towards the surface however once you decide to surface you cannot change your mind again. On each turn you may decide to take the treasure tile you land on however each treasure you take reduces your future movements by one, fortunately when you move over spaces occupied by other players they do not count towards your movement allocation. The timer for each round is Oxygen on the ship, before each players turn they reduce the oxygen level on the ship by one for every treasure they have, all players who are not back on board before the oxygen runs out lose all the treasure they are carrying and it drops to the bottom. After each round the “emptied” treasure spaces are removed bringing the bigger treasures (and in some games the piles dropped by failed dives in the first round) into temptation range. I think this is an excellent fun filler game that everyone should try, there is some decision making behind turning round, dropping treasures to move faster and greed in what to grab and a little luck in the die rolling.

Love Letter was the penultimate game on my table, while Polterfass was the penultimate on Table 1, both of which have been covered before. Love Letter is one of those games where I think I have all the dynamics sorted in my head and then I get it horribly wrong, the score on our table reflected my ability very accurately.

The last game on my table was Dragonwood, fast becoming one of the clubs most regularly played games, time to bring Sushi Go! back I feel and see how they compete head-to-head.

Table 3 in the meantime were playing Tales of the Arabian Nights a lovely story-telling game with great depth, on a turn a player makes a move which will result in a paragraph being read from a storybook which will leave the player with a decision to make, that decision may lead to another paragraph in the book which is actioned, then it is the next players turn. The fun part of the game is that as it progresses your character will begin to reflect your decision making and experiences, there are a large number of attributes which can be affected leaving you with a lot more problems than you started the game with and which may affect future paragraphs. This is a good game but not a short one the three players had been playing for about 3 hours and still going strong when we left. 

Elysium and Kraftwagen

This picture quiz is from my personal library archives and has not been to the club.

The last picture quiz was of Garbage Day! a balancing card game about collecting rubbish in your room, when it gets too full you have to clear it out to the Garbage Can, the neat idea behind this game is that you have to balance the card so that you can see the tabletop through 2 holes marked in the card, any that fall become penalties and 5 penalties and you are out.

The Table 1 set itself up for a game of Captain Sonar a submarine v submarine hunt game playable in either real-time or turn based, this account is based solely on what I observed of a 4 player real time game at the end of the evening. The players split into 2 groups, each group has a set of boards and each set depicts that sides own submarine, its various abilities, a map over which the captain plots his submarines course, another map which the plotter plots their opponents course and some acetate overlays. When each captain moves their submarine they state clearly (and correctly) the direction in which they have just travelled, in the meantime the plotter on the opposing side plots that course on their acetate trying to ascertain where the opponent is. As each team works out where the other teams submarine is through deduction and using the onboard components, they fire torpedoes to hit the other, the winning team is the one that survives. With more players different roles are dished out so that each player has specific responsibilities within their sub. It looked fun to play and apparently plays 2 player turn-based.

My first game was Kraftwagen played 2 player, I would love to play this in its full mode with 4 players as some of the dynamics in the game will become more interesting needing some heavy thinking to make the correct choices. The game is about the early days of vehicle manufacture in Germany, each player has a workshop with 3 spaces, each space can take a car body (chassis) or an engine, the player board also has a canteen for the workers and a garage containing their racing car. The aim of the game is to collect points which are obtained from racing their racing car, selling cars and being the first to achieve certain in-game milestones.

A selection of various chassis'

On a turn a player moves their piece clockwise around an action track taking a token, doing the actions on that token (in any order) then placing it at the head of the track, however it is always the player whose token is in last place that becomes the active player, so if I am in last place and there are 2 action tokens between me and the next players piece I get to take both of those actions (as I will still be in last place after taking each of those rearmost actions) then I get another go where I will jump ahead, then after that turn, the new rearmost opponent gets their turn. The game is a balance of taking the actions you want in order to achieve certain goals against giving too many actions away to your opponent. The actions you can take are movement on the race track (based on the engine size in your race car), get an engine, get a chassis, move a buyer (a car purchaser) to the market and take a research card. The research cards come in 3 different types, and are the only way to improve your engine size and modernize your chassis.

A selection of the research cards.

After any action you take if you have a chassis and an engine in your workshops you can put a car up for sale hopefully matching the criteria of a buyer better than any opponents cars on the market however as well as setting a price for it you have to send at least 1 worker to provide a servicing team. With only spaces for 6 cars to sell (4 in a 2 player game) and only 4 buyers (3 in a 2 player game) it is important to get good cars up for sale matching the buyers as best as possible, however if you wait too long before selling the market may close although you may have the best car for it. The game is full of pre-planning, decision making and timing, the theme fits the game well and I have enjoyed the challenge raised in the two games I have played. If you like a good brain work-out in a game then I strongly advise that you give this one a go.

Table 2 started with Zendo a deduction game played with Icehouse pieces and released as a stand-alone game in 2003. One player thinks of a rule, they demonstrate this rule with the icehouse pieces the other players try to work out what the rule is from how the Icehouse pieces are placed by the first player by creating an arrangement themselves, if it does not fit the rule the first player creates another set-up demonstrating their rule. Play continues until the rule is correctly guessed.

Zendo using Icehouse pieces

Table 3 played Smash Up a card driven game where players try to overcome “bases” in the centre of the play area with their cards and having the strongest force when the base is overpowered. Bases bring points. Cards belong to factions and each card has its own ability based upon the faction, these powers can cause opponents cards to move, allow you to manipulate your cards or creates special power-ups in your strength as well as many other abilities. The game has a certain ebb and flow to it and is at the lighter end of gaming but for me has no special draw, it does have quite a following and there are a number of faction expansions for the game.

Dungeon Roll character and crib sheet

Table 3 went on to Dungeon Roll, this is a nice little game whereby players venture into a dungeon three times with their character, on each venture they try to explore down to as low a level as possible collecting treasure and gaining points for the depth they attain. It is a dice rolling game and each player has a character which will have an ability to assist the them, however luck of the dice will dictate how well you do although calculated decision making can help mitigate unfortunate rolling.

The Thing - print and play version

Table 2 next played Celestia whilst Table 1 played Condottiere, both these games I have covered before, Table 1 had also played The Thing a print and play card game of which I know nothing.  

Elysium was my last game of the evening it is essentially a card collecting game where players score points for sets they have collected also if you are the first to collect a particular run (e.g. 1,2,3 purple) you get a bonus. Each round a number of cards are laid out and on a turn a player gets to take one, however first they must match the requirements of the card which is depicted by one or more coloured circles that must be matched with a players coloured pillars (each player has four Red, Green, Blue, yellow). These pillars act as action tokens and after taking a card they must spend one of their pillars thus each round every player gets 4 actions and as they are spent the options become more limited in matching requirements. Each round one action must be spent on taking a turn order tile which also dictates a cash income and how many cards you may use in set creation in the round (sets are laid below the player’s board whilst collected cards not yet in sets are laid above – there are no cards held in hand). Each card costs cash equal to its number to move from above the board into a set below.

The cards for taking in the central area

Overall I liked these mechanisms they are clear and you can do a fair amount of planning to get the best from what cards are on display however another layer has been placed on the game and that is giving every card a “power” with its own special effects on the game, for instance it may help you place another card into a set or it may take victory points from other player e.t.c. , thematically they fit and if you like power card games you will thoroughly enjoy Elysium.

Each player starts each round with their four coloured totems

Sadly my tastes do not run that way, I generally do not enjoy power-card games and added to this is that the explanation on the cards was in a small font this meant that each round (and sometimes each turn) I had to pick up every card to be able to read them to decide which card I was to take. This added to the down-time between turns as I and others read cards, I can see how others would enjoy this game but for me it was slow and over-messy but I can also see that without the powers on the cards it could appear a very dry game.

Deep Sea Adventure

Table 3 then played Deep Sea Adventure a simplish game from Oink of pushing your luck, they followed this with another Oink game A Fake Artist Goes to New York a wonderful little deduction game where an item is chosen to be drawn (ie with pens) – however one of those taking part will not know what that item is, a piece of paper is then passed round with each player adding something to the drawing. After it has done the rounds players then try to deduce who was not adding correctly to the picture.

The artists drew this impression of a submarine

Spooky Manor, Rette Sich Wer Kann (aka Lifeboats), Water Lily

The picture this week is on my “to buy” list and is a nice variation on balancing games.

The last quiz picture was of Railways of the World one of many railway games in the route building genre, and is (to my mind) a simplified version of Age of Steam which for me is a nicer, if slightly longer,  game.

I have been away so this post is a list of games played on 17th August (at the bottom) with a full post of what happened on 10th August and which I have only just had time to complete with the break and the Olympic Games to watch. Talking of the Olympic Games if I was in charge I would be replacing Handball with Kabaddi and how come Sumo is not one of the new sports in Tokyo?

Scythe part-way into the game (early stages) the stars (bottom right) mark achievements attained by the players.

Table 1 played Scythe, I still have not played this one yet, but at least my copy is out of shrinkwrap now and I should be giving it a play soon and unlike a few other games I have yet to play at least I have begun to read the rules, implementing them in play is a different matter.

The Colt Express, the Marshall (yellow piece) is guarding the $1000 loot bag

Table 3 established itself as the light table and went with Colt Express which has been covered before, an excellent game which is well deserving of its 2015 Spiel des Jahres award. In brief players play action cards to a common deck which at the end of the round is played out, players are trying to collect all the loot on a train which is something I have given up trying to do as my best plans are always shot to bits (literally) by the other players so I just go for emptying my pistol as fast as possible which brings its own rewards.

My table started with a gentle warm up game Water Lily, players are a team of frogs trying to get across the lily pond, when they exit the board they slide down one of several hidden chutes, the first that enters a given chute will score1 point, the next, 2 then 3 and 4, but the fifth and later score nothing. The board shows lily pads (movement spaces), stacks of frogs in various colours are stacked at one end and the players take a token which tells only them what colour they are for the game.

The green bits in photo-centre are the chutes covered by the right hand board

On a turn a player chooses the top frog token on any stack and moves that piece up to as many lily pads as there were frogs in the stack, the game ends when one colour is no longer represented on the board at which point the lid is removed from the chutes to reveal the scores. This is fun family entertainment, the box fits together nicely to create the board and an additional nice touch is that the game name is only on one side so that it is hidden during play and players just see nice a nicely decorated box.

The board is this players holds in their ship, each hold can only contain one typr of good and must be all picked up at the same time.

Table 3 had moved on to Jamaica an interesting pirate game where players race around the board in their ship gaining extra points the closer they are to the finish when the lead ship crosses the line, however more rewards can be gained for pirating along the way, visiting hidden caves or attacking other players all of which slows you down in the overall race. The movement mechanism is interesting in that players select a card from a hand of three which has 2 parts which a morning action and an afternoon action playing them at the right time can bring great rewards.

My table next played Rette Sich Wer Kann aka Lifeboats this lovely back-stabbing game first appeared in 1993 and for a number of years was played quite frequently at conventions. The theme is that a boat has sunk and the crew are trying to reach any island they can using the lifeboats, each player has 2 Steersmen and 4 Sailors and there are 3 islands which score slightly different points for Steersmen and Sailors, the turn-start marker is the Captains log (a nicely polished piece of dowelling) and is used to make tie-break decisions. A turn consists of three phases 1) springing a leak, 2) changing boats and 3) moving a boat forward, a voting wheel is used for phases 1 and 3. Each lifeboat has space for exactly 6 player pawns, however as they are not watertight they spring leaks and if a boat gets a leak a water token will replace one of the pawns causing that piece to be “lost at sea” and out of the game.  The choice of which boat gets a leak is done through voting, each player has a wheel which has a segment showing each of the colour boats and a captains hat, so at vote time everyone secretly chooses a colour on their wheel, then all are revealed simultaneously and the boat with the majority colour gets a leak with the Captains Log player breaking the tie.

The purple boat heading for safety although it already has one leak, orange boat is looking desperate with 2 leaks and still at the start

The game revolves around the negotiations at the table before a vote is made and woe betide anyone who leaves the gaming table no matter how briefly because you can bet that they will find one of their pieces will end up without a boat. The voting wheel is central to the game, players may debate whatever they like and make all sorts of promises, but it is what appears on the wheel that counts even a mistake is binding, some later editions have a set of cards as opposed to a voting wheel. Getting back to the boat with a leak, if there is an empty slot the leak goes there, however if there is no place to put the leak the players in the boat pick a volunteer to jump out, this is also done by voting but only by those with present in the boat and each Steersman provides 2 votes to a sailors single vote. The losing player colour then chooses one of their pieces to swim for help (and is lost out of the game).

The lead boat, in a vote for ejection to make way for a leak Green has 2 votes, whilst yellow and White both have 3 votes each

Players then in turn order take one piece out of a boat that has not already had a pawn jump out, they then in reverse order jump into a different boat, this can lead to a pawn not being able to find an empty space and ending up out of the game. Finally everyone votes to advance one boat one space and should a boat reach an island the pawns get out and score however if at the end of any phase a boat has more leaks in it than sailors to do the bailing, that boat sinks and all the pawns in it are removed from play.

The game end - 3 boats failed to find safety (3 got home).

This game can be brutal and it is possible to end the game with no points, the end score is never known until the last boat is safe or sunk, an early lead can make you a target whilst leaving it too late to come from behind may well leave you in a sinking boat. For me the game has some nice mechanisms which are not found in many other games and they mesh well together here, if you can cope with the back stabbing and play it with 5+ players I highly recommend it.

Table 1 next played Why First? a card race game where players pawns are manipulated on the race track by the cards played, the winner of the game is the player whose pawn is in second place after five rounds.  

The players introduction to Spooky Manor,

The last game on my table was Spooky Manor which is not your typical board game, in fact there is no board, no dice, no dobbers and no cards and is really what I would describe as a narrative game bearing vague similarities to the fighting fantasy books of old. The players play as a co-operative group except one who is the narrative reader (NR), the group play a single character deciding how he/she deals with the various problems set in the scenario, on a turn you get a single action (move, examine etc) and the action is interpreted by the NR to fit one of the permissible actions then the NR reads the result, play continues until the group character dies (they may continue from a last "save" spot which is also an action) or solve the problem/story. 

An alternative scenario from the same publisher

This sort of game is completely outside my comfort zone by several yards (if not miles) and it took me a while to get into the whole thing, I did feel that I was playing an old spectrum narrative adventure game with more freedom in actions but inevitably tied in to the scripted “play”. Saying that though there was a lot of fun had by the group especially as the multiple-personalities all tried to control the direction of the character, retracing steps as one player wanted to open a door in one room whilst another wanted to read a book in another, as movement was an action you generally moved to where you wanted an action to take place hoping to persuade the next player to take that action.  

There is no BGG entry for this game, further info can be gained as above

As with most RPG’s (role-playing games) I take part in, the “Barbarian” within me came to the fore much to the growing consternation of all, my attitude in most RPG’s is if moves – kill it, if it does not move, kick it until it does move then kill it, this includes furniture, doors and even walls (I hope this did not spoil it for others). I am glad I played, even happier that I was able to relax enough to enjoy it and pleased to try something so far outside my normal gaming pleasures, and although I enjoyed the experience I am unlikely to repeat it but for those of you who do enjoy this type of game it is well worth trying out.

The last games on Table 3 were Dragonwood and Water Lily whilst the last game on table 1 was Cockroach Soup , all three have been covered.

Leek, Carrot, Mushroom, Pepper - but no Slurp or Mmmmm.

Table 1: Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game, Cockroach Soup ; Table 2: El Grande, Flick 'em Up!; Table 3: The Red Dragon Inn, Gloom, Zombie Dice, Roll For It! Deluxe Edition; Table 4: Ticket to Ride, Dixit, Beasty Bar

Secret Hitler, Carcassonne and Stones of Fate

This is very early in a 2 player game

There are a lot of route laying games around - which one is this?

Last weeks quiz picture was London by Martin Wallace, a solid game which sits in my top 100 games.

Yellow attempts to create confusion at game start with some wafer planets

A new record for the club with 19 players turning up, really nice to see so many people, I hope everyone had a great time. Fortunately most of the games I have covered before so on the whole I will be giving most just a brief mention. Table 1 was playing 5-player Cosmic Encounter, certainly a game which is “the more the merrier” and should be played as a role playing game rather than a war game to get the most from it, players try to get bases on other players planets through diplomacy, war or use of their races special powers.

The green player (R) wins while red has suffered badly losing many units to the void

Table 2 played Carcassonne a game I see as ideal for newcomers to the hobby, the rules are fairly straight-forward and each turn comes with limited decision making that gently exercises the brain and although there is an element of luck on the tile draw this generally evens out over the length of a game.

Carcassonne - Blue on the road feature looking to on the right while yellow has a stake in several cities at the top

For those who do not know this game on a turn you take a tile which will have a number of features on it and you must place this adjacent to any tile previously played by anyone, the features at your tiles edge must match the tile you place it next to after which you may place one of your meeples on a feature on your tile so long as no-one else has a meeple on that particular feature already. When a feature is completed you score points for it.

Crib card for Batman Loveletter

Table 3 played Dragonwood and then followed this up with Love Letter: Batman and then Stones of Fate a nifty little game where a player obtains cards from a face-down grid. On a turn a player gets two actions and there are 3 possibilities for each action, move one of your five stones adjacent to an edge of a card, peek at a card to see what it is or flip a card. When a card is flipped players compare their stone placements to the requirements of the cards, a cards edges may have different criteria for each edge. When a card is won the special action on it is enacted. Although I am not a fan of powercard games the stone placement and resolving mechanic does appeal to me.

The green is about to make huge leaps with 2 green cubes

The winners card towards the end of the game with 3 green in the discard pile.

Table 4 started with Automobiles  and played a three lap race, covered a couple of weeks ago this is a very nicely rounded game where players plan their play based on the coloured cubes they draw from their own collection. The shorter races are usually an interesting affair as players have a choice of designing a car normally for a longer race by ditching some cubes whilst collecting others which may work or just going for cubes that will get you a large early lead. Our race revolved around the green cubes which gave a players huge jumps around the track and I thought that would dictate the winner, at the end the first 2 cars were less than one space apart with the others not far behind.

A close race on the penultimate lap

With more players turning up I decided to give Secret Hitler an airing as the rules are fairly easy to explain and its flexibility in player numbers allowed for players to choose between this and any other game and in essence this worked well as we played 4 games in a row with players dropping in and out between games – despite this all four games played with the maximum ten slots filled.

Although I am not a fan of deduction games I am intrigued by this one, probably because it lacks the “special powers” that occur in some games (e.g. Werewolf) but mainly because it plays with your neurons rearranging them and twisting the so that your brain feels like mush at the end. The game revolves around who to trust and the early decision making made by players and the reasoning they give for their actions starts to give clues about who to trust and who not to trust however you are always left with the feeling of “I think I trust this person although they also did that which makes me distrust them equally as much”. As the game goes on you gain more information about them and others which then leads you to certainties about the various players based on the different interactions around the table. Towards the end you become very definite about whether you trust any particular player or not, you just do not know which way to swing still but you are certainly more definite about it.

Sheriff of Nottingham - players position mid-game with quite a few goods

In the meantime Table 1 played Sheriff of Nottingham followed by Why First? of which I sadly know nothing, with Beasty Bar being played on Table 3, in relation to the latter I have picked up a copy of Beasty Bar New Beasts in Town which is a stand-alone game but can also be amalgamated with the original version giving a lot more variety in play and an element of “deck building” as you select the 12 beasts you want in your own deck but only 1 of each number..

Why First? - I am not sure if this is the end of the game or mid game.

Beasty Bar - The King of Beasts waiting patiently at the head of the queue

Table 4 played a 2 player game of Roll for the Galaxy, this is a dice collecting game which works equally well 2 player as it does multi player, there is an element of “solo gaming” however you do rely a little on your opponents to give you added flexibility to your game so paying attention to what your opponent is trying to achieve and their current dice deployments is essential to do well, I always lose this when I get wrapped up in my own plans and ignore my opponents which the game can gently lull you into doing.

Roll for the Galaxy - players hand at end of game (library pic)

The last game of the evening was Kakerlakensuppe a sweet card game that trips you up with simple logic. On a turn you turn over a card which will have a vegetable on it all you have to do is say the vegetable, now there are four different vegetables so this is not too hard however if your vegetable has just been played you have to say “slurp”, there are also cards that stop you saying a particular vegetable for the rest of the round in which case you must name another vegetable but not one that has just been played. It is the fun of simple logic and memory and trying to speak contrary to what your eyes see that makes this game a good giggle and ideal for end of the eveningplay.