El Grande - 22 December 2009

An early start at Andy's with a delicious fish and chip supper before a great game of El Grande.  Stu played nasty cards the first two rounds, which hit Kieron in particular quite badly, and by the first scoring point there were very few caballeros on the board.  As the game progressed, it became two separate struggles for position between Stu and James, and behind them, Kieron and Andy.  Various cards played by others worked to bring almost all James'  caballeros into a single territory but he played the special scoring card a couple of times to build up points before the final reckoning.  But it wasn't enough and Stu won with 128 points, James 121, Andy 97 and Kieron 92.  Special thanks to Keren for baking a lovely cake, and to Andy for actually sharing it this time!

Power Grid - 16 December 2009

A good turnout this week with 6 rivals braving the cold weather in the last session before the Christmas. So it was Power Grid again!
We played on the Korea map and decided to create a bottle neck by blanking off the central purple sector. We also played with the top 6 power cards added to the basic power station stack to hopefully create some tempting high value buys later in the game.
Deej decided to set up camp in the expensive North with Adrian. James decided to do the dirty on Andy in the tight central section and Kieron and Stuart had a cosy arrangement in the south. Andy became blocked in due to various dastardly moves but managed to accumulate tonnes of money and control resources by stocking up. He had enough breathing space to expand slowly though. Phase 2 of the game lasted for ages as a combination of nuclear and rubbish stations blocked the top row. By the time the good stations arrived, panic set in and we realised that Andy and James were close to winning. More dastardly moves bocked James' final expansion but Andy had managed to break into South Korea and could power 14 cities for the victory.
Andy 14 powered cities, Stuart 12, Deej 11(w*), Kieron 11, Adrian 11, James 9(w*)

*wet/sloshed

Power Grid - 9 December 2009

Five of us settled down for old favourite Powergrid with one of the original boards: America. Orhan started in the North East corner shielding cities he could link to later, Andy did similar in the South East. Kieron started nearby but David and James both started in the mid-West and Kieron ended up encircled.

Some differences from previous game: no ludicrously high bidding wars (missed you, Stu), fewer replacement power stations bought, and the final position saw three players all able to power the most cities. So it all came down to money, and the three revealed note by note until James just pipped David to take first place.

Scores: James 14 cities and 248 elektros, David 14 and 230, Andy 14 and 196 (he had to spend more to reach the 15 cities built that ended the game), then Orhan with 13 cities and Kieron with 12.

Field of Glory, Assyrians v Egyptians, 6 December

Orhan and I began the FoG training for next year's Anderida with a Biblical bash involving Orhan's first version of Neo-Assyrians (with Phrygian allies) versus a scratch list I put together of Libyan (ie Late) Egyptians - based around the figures I had for the 2002 Anderida DBM army (complete with Stargate).

The first thing that was apparent was that 850 points provides fewer units and a greater amount of blank space on the table: Orhan's Assyrians were 13 strong; my Egyptians 15 but with only 3 commanders. The terrain was Agricultural with pretty much all of it falling on Orhan's side - several pieces of Open and Enclosed fields messing up his deployment somewhat (very few places for his heavy infantry to go for example). I was left with the challenge of stacks of medium impact foot (Invincible Meshwesh) and light foot making a dash for the terrain on Orhan's side. I deployed the 3 units of Light Chariots to screen Orhan's centre and my right flank - which was totally open and dominated by his 2 Heavy Chariot units.

The battle opened with the sole unit of Light Horse (Orhan's Skythian mercenaries) catching one of my javelin skirmish units in the middle of the field - I fled, Orhan caught me. Curtains I thought, but some excellent dice for the Libu and woeful roles for the Skythians meant that the Libu held (albeit Disrupted and then for one turn Fragged) until a Chariot unit could get in and flank charge the Skythians, who broke the next turn. However, this engagement held the Chariots long enough for them to be hit in turn by Orhan's Elite Guard cavalry. These wiped out the Chariots over a couple of turns due to good dice rolling (and being able to re-roll 1s, 2s and 3s coz Orhan threw a general into the fight). The Guard cavalry, although Superior, a bit shooty, and with light spear and sword were nevertheless not quick killers, lacking lances. We both weren't sure that that they were really worth the points.

Elsewhere on the field, my Light Chariot on the right held off the Heavies long enough for them never to get into the battle. The Meshwesh that got into the rough marmalised a couple of units of light and medium foot facing them. My superior Nubian light foot and a Light chariot unit broke through shooting alone a heavy foot spear/bow combo unit. And two more units of my light foot broke through Orhan's centre.

We stopped at the point where it looked like a clear victory for the Egyptians and then analysed the army lists and options. Some thoughts:

850 points is quite small. Going for lots of Superior, Armoured units didn't feel sensible.

Light Chariots are quite hard. We weren't sure how hard Heavy Chariots were coz they were too lumbering to carry a wing. If they'd got into the fight though they might have been nasty. Impact foot destroy average medium foot quickly. Having lots of light units was quite effective. We didn't bottom out whether 4 troop commanders or 2 x field and 1 x troop was better. I think that we both considered that getting some early playtesting in with armies for next year will be worth it - the game feels very different to the Pike/Blade/Elephants/Cataphracts of Anderida 2009; which is good.

The Princes of Florence - 2 December 2009

A Rio Grande game, still in the top twenty on Board Game Geek and the winner of a clutch of awards, but barely (perhaps just once or twice) played by us - and certainly not mentioned on the blog before. The Princes of Florence rulebook does its very best to stop you wanting to play the game - even with Kieron avoiding his usual "free association" style of sharing rules, it was really hard to understand. Finding it difficult to get into isn't helped by the terrible graphic design - cards and boards are mostly a yellowish colour with a really challenging font and limited use of pictures. (Some folks on BGG feel similarly - it seems there is a different version that looks lovely - see here for example).

Eventually we got through the rules and found to our complete lack of surprise that it was much simpler once you actually started playing. The game involves developing medieval and renaissance cities to attract various professions. It involves bidding, trying and changing strategies, making the most of cards you pick up, and fitting tiles together to develop your city. So a bit of everything really.

And it's a lot of fun with different approaches to take, for example Stu pursued builders and cramming his city, James went for as many artisans as possible, David went for Prestige bonuses. It was a close game with the lead changing throughout. Orhan took a strong lead in the middle of the evening but the endgame was between David and James, with David just jumping ahead by one point in the final Prestige tally. Scores on the doors: David 55, James 54, Orhan 48, Kieron 43, Stuart 42. A game we should play soon enough that we don't have to go through all the rules again!