Ticket To Ride - 22 December 2007

In what may possibly be the last games night of the year, we gathered with guest gamer Russell to try James' Christmas present from Adrian - Ticket To Ride. This is a card collecting game where sets of cards allow you to place railway carriages to connect towns (and earn points) on a map of North America. Points are also earned by connecting pairs of towns indicated on secret Destination Tickets held by each player, and by owning the longest continuous path of routes.

Players tried different tactics - trying to connect their Destinations first, or accruing points early by building the longest routes - but the scores were pretty close. James just managed to add to his track in the last couple of turns to get the same length route as Adrian, preventing the 10 point bonus taking Adrian past him. So the final scores were James (Red) 112, Adrian (Blue) 105, Kieron (Yellow) 94, Andy (Green) 82 and Russell (Black) 68 - unusually not winning this visit.


There was some discussion about whether the "longest continuous path of routes" meant the most trains of one colour which were connected, or the longest path traced by those trains without branching. Posts on the Board Game Geek forum here and here say the latter, so that's what we'll play. It didn't affect the final player order in this game, but would have brought Andy's score to just a scrape behind Kieron.

Since it wasn't a school night, we brought Medici back out for another outing. Adrian was alone in remembering exactly how he'd creamed us last time we played this, and so he thrashed us again. Adrian 129, Russell 100, James 98, Kieron 96 and Andy 65.

A fun games night punctuated by hacking coughs from most of the participants.

Train Robbery - 12 December 2007

At long last, James' 2006 birthday present from the boys of a Wild West train finally made it on to the gaming table. Using the Warhammer "Legends of the Old West" ruleset, the boys played four train robbers with James defending the train. The rules worked well and the motion of the train was nicely simulated by sliding the scenery down the table. Adrian, David and Kieron got stuck in and attacked the train, with Kieron drawing fire from the defenders. He failed to make the jump onto the train but a discretionary hero point allowed him to find a handhold and he managed to cling to the side. Andy took a rather longer route to the train, weaving in and out of cacti and cattle, and just made it to the action at the end of the game. The defenders were gradually overcome, and the cowboys escaped with the safe. Lots of fun.

To watch video on full screen, view it here on You Tube.

Edison & Ra - 28 November 2007

Edison was the other game that James picked up at Colours (Newbury). A strange little game - presents itself as a racing/influencing game but there's little incentive to get the racers around the track once they're sat on a position that could give them high points when scoring happens. Nice figures but dull to play. One for eBay. James won, then Adrian followed by Kieron (it might have been the other way round but we'd lost the will to add up the final scores).

Cheered ourselves up with another cracking game of Ra. This game has never failed us. Even worked well with just three despite the reduction in Derren-ing opportunities. James got off to a good strong start and held on to the lead even though he was ending up with the low value Suns. Kieron did the equivalent of Formula Motor Racing's Charge move at the end of the game, trying to fill up a good auction track he alone could bid on. Sadly, but hilariously, he pulled out the final Ra card to finish the game before he could collect. Engine blows.

Final scores: James 46, Adrian 27, Kieron 26

Medici - 31 October 2007

Another game bought at Colours earlier this year, Medici is another cracking game from Reiner Knizia. Players are medieval merchants bidding on a range of commodities. Points are accrued by collecting the most of a particular commodity with extra points for getting the maximum number. Quite simple to understand but with the usual complexities involved in a bidding game. Adrian came out top in both games - the scores on the doors were Adrian 95 Andy 84 Kieron 80 David 75 James 61, and then Adrian 117 David 102 James 91 Andy 90 Kieron 77

Power Grid - 12 September 2007

After watching Michael Owen put two goals past the Russians, we stopped watching the England game at half-time reasonably confident of a home win (final score 3-0, Owen 7', 31', Ferdinand 84') and turned to the Italy expansion of Power Grid, one of our favourite games.

Andy and James started next to each other in Tuscany whilst Kieron established a base in Sicily, figuring that the expensive connections would be offset by not having to fight over the towns. With three players however, there was plenty of lebensraum for everyone, and very few towns had more than player connected even at the end.

The game played out very differently to previous times. The expansions were steady and measured, several turns had players not bidding for power plants, or not building to any new cities, and this allowed us to play out different strategies rather than chase the person expanding the most.

We realised that a sudden late surge to build up to 17 cities, even if you could only fuel a dozen of them, could win you a game. Andy was first to try this and unfortunately, although he could fuel the most cities at the time, he fell just a few Electro (the game's currency) short of building the 17th city he needed to win the game.

The following turn there was lots of costly bidding for final power plants, crucially allowing James to secure 5/6/7-sized power plants against Andy's 5/5/7, and so James was able to fuel 18 cities and win the game. Andy's shortage of money meant he couldn't fuel all of his cities and so Kieron, with less cities than Andy but enough fuel for all of them, pipped him into second place. A really fun evening. Top game.

Emira - 5 September 2007

Emira is one of the second-hand games picked up by James at the Games Expo in Birmingham earlier this year. A gloriously politically incorrect game (for which the rules are rather too apologetic) where sheiks attract princesses to their harems, by making themselves as attractive as possible to match the preferences of the princesses.

The heart of the game is in the bidding for the right to take the next action - when that action (buying a trade caravan, extending the palace) cannot be repeated by another player that turn. Different tactics included earning money through caravans (Andy) and significantly enhancing his sheik's appearance (Adrian), although it was David's enlarged palace that attracted the most princesses - rather too quickly as it turned out as they are costly to keep!

Andy played a masterstroke in the last turn which allowed him to set the preferences of the last princess, and so was able to add her to his harem, and win the game (for the first time this year I think). By the suggested points system counting princesses and other status items, the rest of the order was probably something like David, Adrian, Kieron and James.

A fun game with a neat mechanism. Definitely worth another play soon to try some different strategies.

Pirates CCG - 24 July 2007

A big four-player game with almost 30 ships on the board. We put together four fleets (Pirates, English, two Spanish) of 100 points each, and played on four of the fold-out seamaps that Andy had taped together. We randomly placed eight islands with two of them actually being fog banks, and put five treasure pieces on each of the six real islands plus the three on the map. The peaceful starting position looked like this...


Andy, David and James set out for the nearby islands to start collecting gold. Kieron's tactic was to sail an armada towards James' nearest ships. James defended with his largest ships whilst his small, swift ships continued to explore islands and collect gold. Kieron and James sea battle continued all game, leaving them both with just a couple of ships - and a lot of flotsam and jetsam...

Andy had a small battle with Kieron and held on to the far eastern island, and also briefly visited the Kieron/James naval warfare to take out James' well-placed fort before it could do to much damage to Kieron. David had a quiet but effective early game, eventually succumbing and attacking Andy in order to see a bit of action. The end result looked like this...

The final tally of treasure saw David win with 50 gold pieces, James second with 39, Andy third with 29, and Kieron last with none!

We talked about the following amendments for next time we play:

• simultaneous firing
• nine treasures per island (as the rules indicate, not the five we used)
• a scoring system to include enemy ships destroyed and own ships lost, as well as treasure

A great looking game that is a lot of fun to play. A few Rival tweaks and we'll have a cracking game here. Played at Andy's before he and Kieron set off for their Bulgarian adventure.

Power Grid - 27 June 2007

With most of the rivals away and some AWOL, Russell was drafted in to join Stuart and Kieron for another cracking game of Power Grid. We played the Benelux countries which have the interesting rule that any ecological power stations immediately become available if they are turned up. The 33 'green for 4' station appeared very early and Russell immediately snatched it for face value as Stu and Kieron had already bought their stations. Stuart's power stations were resource dependent and Kieron had a mixture including a trash burning station that he only used once. Building was fairly rapid in an open board and Stu soon started phase 2 after about 30 minutes. Kieron and Russell had a moment of madness when the 50 'blue for 6' turned up. Kieron eventually won it for 141 Elektro and was cleaned up for the rest of the evening! The game ended before the third phase even began when Kieron helpfully pointed out to Russell that with the money he had left over from not buying the 50 point station he had enough funds to build to 17 cities, end the game and claim victory for being able to power just 10 cities!! Stuart was left being able to power 9 of his 13 and Kieron, although he had stations totalling 14, could only power 9 as he ran out of money to build any cities or buy resources to power the stations! Thus is was 1st Russell (again)10 powered cities, 2nd Stuart (more money than Kieron) 9 powered cities, 3rd Kieron 9 powered cities
What a great game this is.

Pirates CCG - 20 June

The first outing of the Pirates collectable card game which both James and Adrian had bought in the last few weeks - part of a series starting with Pirates of the Spanish Main, and most recently (to tie in the latest Pirates film) Pirates at Ocean's Edge. Wonderfully illustrated pirate ships are pressed out of the cards, and constructed in 3D to make really nice-looking models. Players control a group of ships to explore islands, discover treasure and fight each other.



The rules are quite simple but have some neat mechanisms, with all the info you need about your ship on its card. Notable exceptions in the rules are Wind (ships move the same distance in any direction), moving or shooting each turn (and not both) and initiative (which we introduced as rolls at the beginning of each turn). So further rules tweaking is needed or we might try using versions of Wooden Ships & Iron Men or similar rulesets which have been adapted for use with these ships.



The game started with mad rushes towards islands and we all starting stocking up with gold to return to our home bases. When the gold was more scarce, battles commenced - and masts were rapidly blasted off many of the ships - see devastation above. The number of treasures collected were roughly the same but their values meant Adrian was well ahead, with James second and Kieron cursing his paltry collection of 1 and 2 gold pieces.


A fun, good-looking game... but one not to be taken too seriously.

DBM 5 June Alexander v Asoka

Another practice game for Anderida, this time allowing Andy and James' Macedonians to have a go against a Classical Indian army from 270BC (the Mauryas under Asoka). The Macedonians had thinned out their cavalry command a bit, and had massed their light troops on their right and left flanks respectively. Phalanx and Artillery held the centre. The Indians had a soft centre of cavalry, chariots, light horse and expendables (which was pretty much impervious to pike). Each flank had superior bow, war wagons, elephants and some light troops.

The battle opened with the expendables destructing on the phalanx and James' knights setting off abortively towards the centre, only to retreat from bow fire and the elephant threat. That flank put the Macedonian horse under heavy pressure - they retreated throughout the game and were one element from breaking at 11pm when we stopped. In the centre, the phalanx advanced but found it hard to get to grips with the Indian cavalry. On our right, the Macedonian auxilia cheerfully presented themselves to be shot at by our bow for most of the game, never daring to attack. Throughout all this Alexander and his companion cavalry sat at the back. Perhaps things would have been different had he been true to his historical nature.
;-)

So, a 5 - 5 draw when we stopped. Another fun game.

UK Games Expo - 2 June 2007

Our first visit to the UK Games Expo in Birmingham. Kieron and I drove up and met Adrian, Fred & Felix. First set of advantages over Salute - entry half the price (£3.95), free parking and less than an hour's drive.

The Expo was held in the Clarendon Suites, a typically charmless sixties carbuncle, but with several large conference rooms and places to get a drink and bite to eat. With our goody bag collected, we started exploring. Perhaps half the size of Salute and with the balance more towards board games than miniatures, but the latter still well represented despite the lack of Salute stalwarts like Essex. A small number of computer games stands as well, giving Kieron and I the opportunity to try ten-pin bowling on the Nintendo Wii (which was surprisingly fun).

As well as game shops, there were also several stands of entrepreneurs with their board game inventions, and it was interesting to see those and chat with them. There was a big stall of second-hand games which provided most of my and Kieron's purchases, but I also succumbed to a Pirates of the Spanish Main pack and some female gunslingers for my Wild West scenarios.

There was a really nice atmosphere at the show. No pushing and shoving around the stalls, much easier to see what you wanted and talk to sellers. The now seemingly obligatory Star Wars re-enactors were wandering about which the boys enjoyed. Weather was wonderful too which helped, as we had a lovely drive up and had a lunch break outside on the grass.

There were lots of (mainly board) games to join in with (plus competitions in a couple of the halls) but none of the big set-piece demonstrations that you find at Salute (the only downside). On balance, I enjoyed the Expo more than Salute this year (the miniatures at Salute seem to have been mostly Sci-Fi and Fantasy in the last couple of years), and so I hope we can have a bigger Rivals trip to Birmingham next June.

Bumper Short Games Night, 30 May 2007 - Niagara, Gladiators and Ra

A fun evening of short games with guest 8 year-old gamer Fred. Two games of Niagara opened up the evening. The first saw James steal victory quickly by the deadly '4 amethyst grab' technique. Wise to this, game 2 was much more tactical. Some shrewd moves by Fred won the admiration of the adults; Kieron and James, both close to victory were swept over the waterfall by the raging torrent; Adrian pipped Fred to the finish and won with a double '4 diamonds' plus '7 any gems'.

We then tried out James' new Gladiator figure game. Quite a nice little system, and perfectly suited to Fred - who systematically murdered all our fighters to be last man standing (having personally wiped out his opponents). Happily for James, his gladiator was spared by the Emperor. Kieron and mine were given the 'pollice inverso' (turned thumb) for being feeble. Finally, we introduced Fred to Ra. A super game as ever, with the usual mix of Derrening, risk taking and entertainment. Kieron stormed to victory with 47 points (having scored big on green tiles each turn); Fred was second with 31, then Adrian with 30 and James last with 21. All in all a great evening, with all the players winning a game - and thus racking up a huge number of points towards the end of year scores.
:-)

Formula De, 23 May 2007

A welcome return to this great old game (almost certainly last played in 2003!). We went for the Spa course and got a 2 lap game in. Weather flipping from sun to rain and back again confounded choice of tyres. Andy's armoured car was most unfortunate to be exploded by Kieron only 5 spaces from the pits. Fate though saw Kieron spinning out on the second lap. Adrian's early lead was eroded by both James and Deej who fought each other to the finish. Good fun.

DBM Aztecs v Anglo-Saxons 16 May

The second practice outing for the Aztecs, this time against another 'extreme' army (and winner of the 'Daftest Army' award at Anderida a couple of years back) - Kieron's Middle Angl0-Saxons. This was perhaps the first DBM game we've played in which no cavalry whatsoever appeared on the battlefield.



For the Aztecs, we fielded a smaller army than for the first outing, keeping the allied Bow command but maximising the Blades and adding the Fast Warband option. We deployed with the Warbands on our left flank, the Blades holding the centre and the allied Bow on the right. Kieron and James' deployment saw TF guarding the flanks, and, err, a big line of Spear across the table.

Both armies advanced. Our Bow shot a fair few enemy dead. The main infantry clash in the centre saw inconclusive pushing between Spear and Blade, but the Warband proved deadly - the Wb(S) (the elite 'Cuachic' warriors, see photo) cutting through the Saxon lines and breaking a command. At the time we opted to stop the Saxons were half an element off a second command breaking (and hence the army) and 3 elements of any command off breaking the army.

So a reasonably conclusive victory for Montezuma. But we won't get used to it - the Saxons are probably the best possible set of match-ups for the Aztecs. And no one would possibly be mad enough to take such an army to Anderida...
:-)

El Grande - 2 May

A four hander with Stu, Kieron, David and James. El Grande is impossible to fault - a simple but clever game with lots of opportunity for Rivalry - and we had a great fun evening full of banter.

David took an early lead with James trailing at the back, despite an effective Crown move on the first turn whereby everyone else had to send their Caballeros back to the starting pool.

The upset was around Portugal which became the Coventry of the game because opponents could be sent there without any risk of their benefiting, as it never got a score counter at any point in the game.

Stu played an enhanced score counter on the Castille and kept it well stocked with Caballeros, managing to win the maximum 8 points on every scoring turn, contributing to his winning score. James had a late surge, cashing in on a "score the five points regions" card, and overtook David, who just kept ahead of Kieron who was spread too thinly across the board. But a very closely fought game.

Final scores: Stu 114, James 107, David 105, Kieron 101

Return to the Temple of Obi Thumpi, 25 April

Having felt it high time to get the Darkest Africa figures out - including the new character figures that I acquired at Salute 06 - I revamped the Obi Thumpi Temple game to bring in 6 players and a slightly different approach.

James' French were allied to Deej's Belgians, at diagonally opposite ends of the table. Their objective was to open the Temple and steal its treasure. Stu and Russell played the natives, but natives led by previously abducted and brainwashed European women (obviously...). Their objective was to protect the Temple by releasing its protector (a T-Rex) from the Land that Time Forgot in the next valley. The third faction was Andy (Brits) and Kieron (Italians) whose aim was to release their womenfolk from the Temple's thrall. All well and good. However, unexpectedly the Brits and Stu's gang of natives decided to team up - no doubt native mind control skills at play there. This contributed to the general mayhem. The Francophones managed to get the Temple open and reveal the treasure, the Belgians made a successful grab for it - just as the Dinosaur made its appearance. The game was decided on the last turn - the Dinosaur succeeded in eating some of the Belgian troopers just before the Belgian hero was able to whisk the treasure off table. So the natives win, and (predictably?) Russell's extra kills and treasure finds in the game gave him victory.

El Grande - 18 April 2007

What a cracking game this is, even in its basic form without the expansions. A most unusual line-up for this games session with Adrian, Kieron Stuart and Russell. With James out of the way, it left the rest of us with a fighting chance of success but then we forgot about Russell who, on only his second games night, won again!

Russell's grande was in Catalonia but one of his early moves was to chuck loads of caballero's into Stuart's region which, needless to say, went down well! Stuart went all out to get caballero's into every territory which early on worked quite well but when it came to the crunch i.e. the final scoring round he found himself a little too thinly spread out. There was much thinking time in the game and plenty of opportunity for friendly jibes. Adrian was heard to say that he could not believe that teachers take longer over decision making than civil servants! R, K and A put many caballero's into the castillo region but Stu pointed out that two or three is sufficient to cause disruption when they are reallocated. Portugal came into the game for the first time. Russell thoroughly deserved the win by playing the region scoring action cards to good effect gaining some 20+ points in two succesive rounds. Kieron pipped Adrian in the very final region of the final scoring round. Final scores:
Russell 138, Kieron 122, Adrian 120, Stu 115

Perhaps next time we will try one of the expansions now that everyone has played it?

Caylus - 4 April

A first outing for Caylus with just Adrian, James and David playing. This game sees the players building both a town and a castle in order to obtain enough victory points. There is an interesting balance as you need to build up the town in order to get enough industry going to enable the building of the castle. However players are allowed a great deal of freedom - you can ignore the castle altogether and earn points by providing services to other players, or build up a supply of gold instead.

This freedom made a first play quite difficult as we had no idea how different strategies would play out. The opening rounds were very interesting as it took a while for those investing in buildings to see the effects of their builds. It dragged a little in the middle before leaping to a sudden entertaining end-game.

There was a reasonable amount of interplay, as each player's actions limit those the next player can take, but it mainly involved adapting a strategy as the turn progressed instead of actively attempting crown moves. James may disagree on this point...

As the game concluded we all appeared to be in with a chance of winning. The end result then was a bit of a surprise as my gold hoarding took me well past the others for victory.

I think Adrian has the final scores?

Vinci - 29 March

A first time hosting at my place since moving saw a full house for a return to an old favourite - Vinci. This great game has each player develop a series of civilizations during the course of the game, meaning that throughout the game you find yourself dealing with different opponents on different parts of the board keeping the gameplay fresh and unpredictable.

Although Andy had never played Vinci before, with (surprisingly) helpful advice and some good early moves he shot into an early lead with me close behind. Unfortunately his next civ choice was poor and progress stalled. The rest of the game saw everyone else fighting for the lead, although Kieron dropped back as Andy adopted the somewhat odd strategy of "always attack Kieron". Was this inspired by Stu and Kieron apparently playing as a team again? Those rivals who languish as "not-us" could only ponder.

The last couple of rounds saw Andy pick up a powerful Field General/Slaver combo allowing him to make up a load of points. Meanwhile Stu managed to hold off the other rivals through clever use of Diplomacy to record yet another win.

Final scores: Stu 105, Kieron 102, David & James 101, Adrian 100, Andy 80 - a good close game. Lots of fun, lots of interaction and banter and lots of attacking other players - a great rivals evening!

Mare Nostrum, 21 March 2007

The second outing for 6-player Mare Nostrum, this time at Kieron's. We opted to use the complete set of heroes and wonders, but kept the pre-programmed starting positions. The game saw less trading than usual in the early rounds. Stu as Egypt built up a commanding lead from his tax revenues. Although he was threatened (a bit feebly) by Kieron's Greece, and Andy worried him by almost moving a piece into his territory, we didn't display the killer instinct necessary to stop Stu winning rather easily. James on the other hand, who, as Rome eschewed building legions in favour of shopkeeping, was royally clobbered by Deej (Atlantis) and Kieron. This stopped him winning, but couldn't stop him securing a clear second place. Adrian (Babylon) did nothing all game. So the final scores afforded 10 points to Stu, 6 to James, and 2.5 to everyone else (an equal share of the remaining points for grabs).

Mare Nostrum felt a bit funny. Perhaps it was the lack of trading, or the abruptness of the win, or the starting positions, but at any rate despite it being a fun evening, the game lacked bite. If nothing else, having a situation where the Egyptian player will almost certainly win unless others attack them is a strange starting concept.

Games averages: James 6.42; Stu 5.38; Kieron 4.67; Deej 4.23; Adrian 3.97; Andy 2.36.

DBM: Aztecs vs Alexander - 13 March

Our first game of DBM for the year saw us testing our Anderida armies much earlier than usual. We went for an extreme version of the Aztecs - two large commands of hordes, an ally consisting of massed bow and a final stronger command of blade and warband. Alexander's had two heavy infantry commands plus one mounted command.

Alexander invaded, and at this point the Aztecs noticed that they couldn't place any rough going. Ooops. Still a couple of woods went down - nicely giving Alexander's army an anchor for a flank protected by auxilia. Meanwhile the Aztecs deployed in a historical manner with the hordes on the flanks and the tougher stuff in the middle. The Aztec deployment covered the width of the board. Alexander's just over half with an incoming flank march.

And so it began - first roll and the flank march arrives! No time for the hordes to react - they suddenly start to face knights, cavalry and light horse on their flank. It took a while, but the hordes didn't stand a chance and over the course of the game were completely annihilated!

The hordes on the other flank were unopposed and charged towards the woods and auxilia in the hope of breaking through and turning the pike block. It took most of the game for them to get there and although they had superior numbers (by about 3 times) their lesser fighting capability meant that a breakthrough wouldn't happen fast enough. They were joined by the Aztec heavy command (backing away from a toe to toe confrontation with the superior pike). In the middle the ally bow command desperately tried to turn and face the oncoming mounted threat (as it piled through the horde). In doing to they exposed their flank to a devastating artillery attack and came very close to breaking.

By the end of the game it was an easy 6-4 for Alexander. Another turn (or maybe two) and it would have been 10-0.

So what did we learn about Aztecs?

• they look nice
• masses of hordes can be annoying for opponents, but in the end they died
  
• the horde command was too slow to take advantage of the refused flank
• their strongest troops look mediocre against pike and knights
• if we want to take advantage of the numerical advantage we need to do more than cover the entire frontage
  
• protect the bow from artillery

That said it maybe wasn't the best test. Alexander's army was lucky in terrain, flank march and some of the early fighting. However they deployed well and took advantage of their opportunities. Unfortunately having our large horde command struck in the flank on bound 2 by knights doesn't give us the best test of the effectiveness of massed hordes (I doubt many stronger troops would have fared too well under the circumstances).

Still it was good to get back to DBM - especially as I missed Anderida last year.

Whist & Ra - 28 February

Huge error. We played Contract Whist with Louise to pass the time until Adrian arrived mid-evening, and agreed beforehand that the score would count for the games log. What were we thinking?

Inevitably Kieron won, and so managed to get his first 10 points of the year - final scores Kieron 48, James 43, David 38, Stu 27 and Louise 19.

But it was obviously Kieron's night as he racked up another win with the second outing for Ra - Kieron 29, David 27, Adrian 24, Stu 23 and James 17.

Ra - 15 February

The first outing for James' Christmas game from Kieron. Ra is our second Egyptian game this year and the players compete to build monuments, develop civilizations and benefit from the flooding Nile across three Epochs. The game has a very neat bidding mechanism - auctions can be forced by cards or by a player calling "Ra", and then each player uses one of their three counters to bid for the tiles currently on the auction track.

Andy bid early in each Epoch leaving him little to do for the remainder of each phase, but David made good use of calling "Ra" allowing him to bid last with low counters. Ultimately though it was these low counters that lost him first place at the end... the final points tally includes +5 for the player with the highest sum of counters at the end, and -5 for the player with the least.

James lost the piece of paper with the results on so we are relying on the superior recall of Stuart, who writes:

The result of the first Ra game is not in doubt. I am not likely to forget a win in a game that doesn't involve combat, taking out Deej, random aggressive actions or huge amounts of luck:) Kieron and myself remember the scores being 34 to myself, 33 each to James and Kieron, 30 to Deej (who would have won without the -5 penalty at the end). I think Andy was playing, but he spent most of the game inactive so it was hard to tell.

A good game to play again soon.

Zombies - 7 February

And oh how we laughed... Not at first admittedly, but by the end of the evening, with the fixed rictus grimace of Kieron inspiring as much mirth as sympathy, the guffaws were coming thick and fast. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I remember playing Zombies once before with the Rivals, probably 4 or 5 years ago now. The game itself is pretty simple, with very heavy elements of luck. But happily for those Crowning Moments, with large amounts of interaction too. What we hadn't remembered though is just quite how punishing and relentless the game is. The layout was unforgiving too, with a very long route to the heliport infested by the living dead. All of us were wiped out and bounced back to the start at least once. But entertainment really started when Kieron, 3 spaces from victory, was slotted by a corpse. As Confucius once notionally said: "There is nothing funnier than watching an old friend fall off a roof". And after that fall from glory we all pretty much lost it, and gave up any pretence of this game being anything other than a childish dice-fest. By no means a satisfying Rivals game - but probably more laugh out loud laughs than most Wednesday nights. With the possible exception of seeing James in an Evil Balaclava. And the scores? It hardly matters, but Stu won.
:-)
I think we concluded that we won't be playing this one again in a hurry. No matter how late Andy turns up...
;-)
The averages now stand at: James6.14; Stu 5.87; Deej 4.6; Adrian 4.2; Kieron 3.36; Andy 2.4.

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects - 31 January

The first outing for Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, Adrian's Christmas present from James. A really great looking game where the players compete to build elements of a temple without succumbing to corruption. The player who has the most talents (the credits received for building) at the end of the game wins - but only after the player with the most corruption counters has been fed to the Nile crocodiles. Quite a lot of luck involved with how the resource cards turn up and limited opportunities for backstabbing, but a lot of fun and short enough for two games in an evening.

The master builders were James and Stuart, who scored the most points in both games. In the first game, James just pipped Stuart by a few points but Kieron found himself in 2nd place after the corrupt Stuart was thrown to the crocodiles.

In the second game, the players placed mosaic tiles carefully to benefit from the consequential reductions in their corruption at the end of the game but the tiles were used up before Adrian got a chance to follow suit, so his corruption level saw him end up in the Nile. James and Stuart had exactly the same number of talents this time but Stuart's lower corruption allowed him to take 1st place.

El Grande - 24 January

To Kieron's this week for one of his Christmas games - El Grande. There was some initial confusion as James and David recognised some of the paying pieces and cards, but not the board - it seems that some elements were recycled for the "sequel" game El Caballero.

We decided not to play any of the many expansions this time and just get on with learning the game. And what a great game it was.

Although points are scored at the end of round 3,6 and 9, the cards allow for special scoring throughout the game and taking advantage of this allowed Stu into an early strong early lead while Kieron was left on the starting blocks. However after the round 3 and 6 scoring, Kieron's hidden Castle force pushed Kieron up to second place with David narrowly in the lead thanks to some tricky use of the King to protect his home territory.

In true Rivals style David struggled to maintain his lead for the last 3 rounds as the others attempted to dismantle his empire and the last scoring round saw David just edge ahead of James by a couple of points.

All in all - a great game, with a nice balance of empire building and backstabbing. There's no point planning too much ahead as many cards can completely change the situation.

War On Terror - 17 January

The first outing of a game James had spotted in development and bought on release - War On Terror: The Boardgame - which has an official website here. It's very politically incorrect and caused a bit of fuss in some papers and on Board Game Geek but we found it rather funny and, more importantly, a damn fine game too.

We read the rules and set up the game, and started playing it reasonably conventionally, with Stuart surprising everyone by resisting the temptation to turn terrorist from the outset. James was first to become an Evil Empire, thanks to his own unlucky spinning of the Axis of Evil, but soon passed the Evil balaclava to Kieron, and shortly thereafter to Stuart. David ended up with it not long afterwards and then kept it for the next two and a half hours. Although we wouldn't let him take it off, we did allow him to show his face before heat exhaustion took him out.

All players start as Empires but can become Terrorists by being wiped out, bankrupted or voluntarily if they think they can no longer win as Empires. Stuart grew quite quickly which brought swift nuclear retribution in Europe from Adrian, who paid for it in North America later. Deej almost got a conventional victory towards the end of the evening but just fell short, and then everyone fell on him.

Adrian switched first to Terrorism which cleared Antarctica and most of North America of Empires. After defeating the last Empire counter in North America, David followed suit taking Asia and Australia with him, cunningly converting Stuart into a Terrorist too, and the Terrorists then controlled enough to claim their victory.

James was left to consider what might have been because he would have won the following turn had David not gone over to the Dark Side. Kieron regretted not going Terrorist when he had the chance, and Andy inspected his small but honourable forces in South America.

So Stuart, Adrian and David share the 10+6+4 points (rounded up to 7 each) and James picked up 2 points, worrying that our scoring system may turn folks away from going for the glory of an outright win!

One of the highlights of the game is the exchange of Secret Messages. Some excerpts give a flavour of the Rivals backstabbing tendencies...

James to Adrian: Can we freak people out by exchanging the first secret message?
Reply: Absolutely old chum.
Reply: Not sure that worked!
Reply: No, we'll have to be more blatant.

Adrian to Kieron & James: As fellow nuclear powers, what say you to wiping out all of Stu's cities? Alas, Scandinavia would die. But I never liked pickled fish anyway...

Stu to Kieron: Take out Adrian.
Reply: Yeah - I'm worried about him.

Andy to Kieron: Never again shall you do this, for I will wipe you off the board.
Reply: Truce?! James has the most points this year...

Kieron to James: Let's fund Stu to get Deej!
Reply: I'll attack Deej anyway...

A really fun game that played even better than we hoped.

Mare Nostrum (with Mythology Expansion) - 10 January

James hosted a new Xmas game, Adrian's Mare Nostrum, boosted up by its Mythology expansion to cater for 6 players. Hard core Rivalry ensued. Adrian as Egypt got off to an early start, getting his second hero/wonder card quickly. But was sat on by James with little means to retaliate. Stu continued his vocation of carnage and built legions to attack Deej's Greece, but was seen off very quickly by the Greek centaurs. Stu's attention then turned to Kieron's Atlantis and desultory warfare raged in the west for the rest of the game. Andy as Babylon expanded his influence consistently, but somewhat purposely. The game came down to James' dominance of three of the roles - Trade, Gods and Movement. Early trading was cautious but the later uber-trade-fests resulted in James managing to buy the Pyramids. Deej also could have, but Adrian (unwittingly) picked James to play first. With the Pyramids gone, Kieron was next in line, being able to win with a fourth hero/wonder card. Deej and Stu could both acquire another to make three; Adrian had his (original) two; Andy his starting hero. But immense influence. :-)
With the now agreed scoring system, James got 10, Kieron 6, Deej and Stu 3 each, and Adrian and Andy on big fat 0s. After two games then, the running average scores are (by my reckoning): James 8; Deej 4; Adrian 4; Kieron 4; Stu 3; Andy 1. So Mr Parker pulls ahead...

Antike - 3 January

We played the war and civilisation game Antike. New player Russell played the knowledge game and spent coins on inventions rather than armies and joined Adrian (who played a similarly peaceful game until a lightning armada strike on one of David's temples) on the podium with 7 points. James managed to scrape 14 sea territories in the last round but couldn't destroy one of Andy's temples to take him beyond 6 points. David's empire left lots of temples and 5 points. Kieron and Andy spent the game accummulating forces for a huge battle that never happened, after Kieron attacked one of Andy's cities early on in the game, and they both finished on 2.