Ghostbusters Ecto-1

This is my first day not at work for the Christmas holidays so I settled down this afternoon with my present from Kieron and David - the Lego model of the Cadillac Miller-Meteor ambulance from Ghostbusters aka ECTO-1.

First thing to do was to get a suitable movie playing in the background...

Six packets of Lego plus the instructions book...

...makes a big pile of Lego:

Sorted into colours (I know this looks OCD but even the instruction booklet recommends this!):

And the Ghostbusters themselves were put together just as the ECTO-1 first appeared on screen (well, the first time sprayed up in the right livery).

The chassis:

Starting to look a bit more recognisable:

Marshmallow Man toasted!  Just the (very detailed) roof to complete:

Finally finished.  Ingenious kit, great fun to put together, and a real nostalgia trip.  Thanks chaps!

Notre Dame - 17 December 2014

A welcome return to Notre Dame - one of James' bargains from the UK Games Expo Bring & Buy a couple of years ago.  Despite blog evidence to the contrary, Kieron had no recollection of having played it before but it had been a while for everyone so we ran through the rules in full.  They seem complex but the game isn't complicated.  There are a lot of different actions and special cards in the game but the choice at any one time is fairly restricted, so it plays fairly quickly and we completed the game in a couple of hours, leaving time for an extended set of anecdote rounds.

It looked at one point like Kieron was going to run away with it, since he had 8 or 9 influence markers on the Earn Prestige Points region of his borough.  But the cards to make the most of that position thinned out, and other bonus cards appeared which favoured others.  Final scores: James 57, David 47, Andy 47 (but behind David on remaining coins and influence markers - and probably a little further behind had we spotted earlier he was collecting all the red messages rather than one of each colour first!), then Kieron on 46 and Stuart 42.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers ;-)

Forbidden Island and St Petersburg - 10th December 2014

A first play for Forbidden Island, David's birthday present from James. It's a well produced co-operative game where the players are adventurers attempting to find and collect a set of artefacts from a sinking island. Tension mounts as parts of the island become flooded and are eventually destroyed, requiring a balance between "shoring up" (repairing the flooded zone) and the hunt. Andy and James made good use of their special abilities (diagonal movement and two shore-ups for one action respectively) where as David never found an opportunity to use his "Diver" ability to swim across lost zones.

The game gradually progressed from us moving around easily to us defending critical areas and routes as the waters rose, although we never felt under a huge amount of pressure and completed the game. It was a fun and quick little game, but let down by a critical problem. As we all have identical goals (including keeping everyone alive) there was often an obvious right move at each step. In the end it felt that the three of us were jointly playing a one player game. A rummage on the BGG forums suggests that this is a common complaint, but short of forbidding or restricting conversation during the game it seems a difficult thing to fix.

We followed this up with another game of St Petersburg. Ever had one of those games where one player completely dominates? James built up a huge income and managed to get to a full 10 aristocrats - something we very rarely see. By the end of the game he had so much money that he was buying stuff he didn't want just to set up the next round the way he wanted it. How did this happen? One thing was James picked up the Observatory at the beginning of the game - something that can be a huge help for the aristocrat collection strategy. Also Andy and David made a mistake early on and both overspent leaving them without much money for workers. If one of them had done that it probably wouldn't have had much of an effect, but with both out in the same round, James picked up enough workers to set himself up with a large income. With James concentrating on aristocrats, David was able to switch to a building heavy strategy, building up an in-game lead, although he was unable to stop the aristo-geddon at game end. It's a great game.

Final score: James 134, David 120, Andy 97.

St Petersburg - 3rd December 2014

A trip over to Andy's resulted in us unwrapping a pristine version of St Petersburg. This is a great little game and once again offered several different strategic options. Kieron went building and VP heavy and built up an impressive lead. At the other extreme Andy didn't buy any buildings at all, going for an endgame killing with the aristocrat bonus. David and James went for more balanced play, but crucially David managed to keep fairly close to Kieron during the game and Andy in aristocrats by purchasing the VP earning aristo upgrades. Final score David 76, Kieron 68, James and Andy 62.

Given Kieron's point haul each turn if the game had lasted another turn he would probably have won.

Caylus Magna Carta - 27th November 2014

Only 3 rivals arrived after a sick note from Stu so we dug out a game which works well with 2 or 3.  Kieron sat on the rules to prevent James reading them, as he knew all of them by heart!
This is a great little game which might win the prize for most fun per cubic cm!
Andy's strategy was to collect resources and go for buildings. James and Kieron fought for victory tokens from the castle. Kieron pipped James due to slightly earlier castle visits which lead to him collecting better tokens.  K:36, J:35, A:30ish

20th Century - 19th November 2014

5 rivals assembled at Kieron's for another go at this clever game which has many favourite elements in it. James decided to be the hare and raced off to a huge early lead which he kept right to the death. He amassed a VP income of 23, but as a result he was bereft of science and covered in garbage!  Andy went for an eco tactic which almost worked. Stuart went for a frugal game by only buying 1 tile per turn. Deej and Kieron tried a more balanced approach with Kieron focussing on trying to keep the garbage low and science income enough to avoid disasters.  This proved just enough to pip James at the very end. Final scores

Kieron 112, James 108, David 106, Andy 102, Stu 91

Peloponnes & Medici - 15 November 2014

Following the Dads' Army game we had a five-player game of Peloponnes, which David triumphed even more spectacularly than last Wednesday, winning with 36 population and 34 prestige points.  James just beat Kieron into second place 24/31 vs Kieron's 24/25.  Stuart got 16/31 and Andy 15/14.

After some pretty fiery (but tasty) curries at one of the local curry houses, we returned back to mine for a six-player game of Medici.  Plenty of opportunities for Derren-ing, and Kieron won with 116 points, followed by both Adrian and David on 105, James on 88, Andy on 74 and Stuart on 66.

A great afternoon and evening, combining a figures game, board games and a social.  Looking forward to part 2 in a few weeks.

Dad's Army - 15 November 2014

After many, many hours of planning over many, many years, James finally brought his Dad's Army game to the table for the first day of this year's Rivals "Weekend" (the second day will be at Andy's in a few weeks' time).

The figures were bought and painted well over a decade ago, and we did use them once in a wargame back in 2002.  Some of the older style buildings I'd had for many years too, and I'd built and painted the 20th Century buildings last year, after Andy bought them for use with his WW2 figures.

One of the challenges had been finding a ruleset that reflected the spirit of the TV series.  The usual move/shoot wargame just didn't feel right for these figures - it needed something to allow the characters and humour to come through, without lots of firefights and consequences that wouldn't be appropriate in a family-friendly sitcom.

I finally found a role-playing ruleset called Dead of Night that someone had once used to run a Dad's Army horror RPG session.  I didn't want the horror but the story-telling aspect really appealed.  Rather than any detailed rules, the players (and the gamemaster) describe what is happening, make a few rolls when necessary, but together move the story on in a hopefully exciting and amusing way.  I made a few amendments to the rules, created some character sheets, wrote the scenario and we were finally ready to go.  The players and the characters went together pretty well...

Introduction

It is late summer 1940. The air war in Britain’s skies is raging. The people of the small town of Walmington-on-Sea, on England’s south coast, watch the German aircraft fly overhead every day. This may not dampen their spirits but it does increase their fear of invasion.

Like most towns, Walmington-on-Sea is defended by Local Defence Volunteers (or the Home Guard) and Air Raid Precaution Wardens. Walmington’s Home Guard platoon is part the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, and is proudly commanded by Captain George Mainwaring. The platoon meets most evenings in the hall adjacent to St. Aldhelm's Church.

It is the end of the working day and the platoon members are due to meet shortly in the hall for a briefing before heading out on a night exercise.

Scene 1: “There is a war on, you know.”

Jones and Frazer shut up their shops.  Mainwaring, Wilson and Pike closed the bank.  And they all started to make their way to the church hall.  As they passed the village pond, a flock of geese started to attack Captain Mainwaring.  Fortunately Wilson had some breadcrumbs in the bottom of the bag in which he'd taken his sandwiches to work.  The geese were much more interested in the breadcrumbs than Mainwaring's trousers, so they all continued down the High Street unhindered.

Once they remembered they'd left Godfrey up at his cottage and sent Jones to fetch him, all of the First Section were present and correct and met up with Sponge's section in the hall.

Scene 2: “I say, would you mind awfully forming three neat ranks?”

Mainwaring briefed the troops on the planned night exercise but as they went to leave, the phone in the office rang...

“Mainwaring, it’s Colonel Pritchard. Some of our brave boys brought down a Luftwaffe plane earlier this afternoon. It crashed north of Walmington-on-Sea and the aircrew were picked up by Captain Square’s Eastgate platoon. Somehow, don’t ask me how, they managed to get away from that buffoon Square and stole a taxi. We think they are trying to make it to the coast and could be coming through your town any time soon. You must catch them and hold them overnight. You may as well see what you can get out of them.”

Scene 3: “Are you sure that’s wise, Sir?”

Sponge's section was ordered to the far end of the High Street where they broke down the fence around Godfrey's cottage in order to encourage the sheep to block the road.  Jones and Wilson encouraged Mrs Fox and Mrs Pike to seek refuge in the Red Lion.  Sponge rang from the phone box to report that he could see a fast-moving taxi in the distance.  Jones then drove his van up to block the road.

As the taxi entered the town, it swerved to miss the sheep and then Jones' van and ended up on its side.  A German aircrew emerged.

A couple surrendered straight away, another was shot by Jones, and another made a break for it.  Pike attempted to shoot over his head but failed the roll, and shot him in the heel instead.  Pike climbed on top of the telephone box to cover their prisoners with his Tommy gun.

Jones tied some rope to the taxi and righted it with his van.  The prisoners were then escorted back to the church hall - after another altercation with the geese, one of which Frazer took back for his Sunday roast.

Eventually, Frazer had the bright idea of searching the prisoners and found the officer was carrying a copy of Germany's invasion plans for the south of England!

Wilson unloaded all the confiscated weapons and rang HQ to report on the discovery of the invasion plans.  HQ ordered them to hold the prisoners until the following day when a courier would arrive to pick up the plans.  Jones took the plans to the bank to be secured in the safe, planning to have a snooze next to the phone.  Pike luckily had the keys on him, and the Verger was convinced to make a second copy of the plans.

Scene 4: “A typical shabby Nazi trick.” 

As dawn broke, the Verger burst into the church hall: “Parachutes, Captain Mainwaring, parachutes. I seen ‘em coming down over the town. I don’t know what his Reverence will say.”

Oberleutnant Muller: “Our rescue party is here already! These plans will soon be safely back in Germany.”

Eight paratroopers dropped in randomly over the town, although mostly around the sea end of the high street, even one straight into the graveyard at the back of the church hall, and one whose chute caught on the church spire.  This led him to be dangling right in front of the window where Fraser had taken up a sniping position.  A quick shot cut through some of the parachute cords, leading the German to drop down a few more feet, enabling Captain Mainwaring to knock him out after a couple of blows with his pistol butt.

The German prisoners started shouting out where the plans were being held, as all conversations had taken place in front of them.  Wilson gagged one with his only handkerchief and then Mainwaring gagged the rest with Pike's scarf.

Wilson shot at a precarious gravestone which toppled over, pinning the unlucky German paratrooper to the ground.  Another German shot at Frazer, missed him but knocking his dead goose out of his hands and into the church doors.  In an extremely unlikely shot, Pike managed to tear a strip down the back of a German's uniform, rendering him harmless if somewhat embarrassed by his nakedness.

Mainwaring broke down the door of Frazer's shop in order to bluff the German in the back garden to surrender.  After calling from the bank to see what was happening, Jones managed to shoot a German who had climbed on top of a truck.  He bounced off the roof, on to the bonnet, and on to the floor, where PC English promptly arrested him and handcuffed him to the truck.

Two other Germans hotwired Hodges van and started driving down the High Street.  Even though they were driving on the wrong side of the road, some members of the platoon didn't realise the threat.  Fortunately, after they'd exited the vehicle near the church hall, they faced a hail of gunfire and the remaining German got dragged backwards and forwards by Frazer in the van.

Scene 5: “You’ve all done very, very well.” 

With all the Germans rounded up in the church hall and the plans still secure in the local branch of Swallow Bank, Walmington-on-Sea was safe once more.  Colonel Pritchard turned up in a taxi to congratulate Captain Mainwaring and his men, and relieve them of the vital plans.

Summary

The players really got stuck into the scenario, with a particular mention in despatches for Andy who even turned up dressed up as Jonesy in full Home Guard uniform!  Everyone played up their character's strengths and weaknesses, and there was a lot of laughter.  The Gamemaster was much relieved!  Here's a little video of the game table:

Peloponnes & Alea Iacta Est - 12 November 2014

Another play for a couple of firm favourites.  Lots of fun with Peloponnes as always.  Empires grew, and then most of them crashed and burned.  But David secured a strong win with 33 population and 32 prestige, followed by Andy with 15/21, Kieron with 12/25 and turning in a truly dismal performance going from 18 people to 1 in the final turn, James with 3/28.

However, dignity was preserved as James then won Alea Iacta Est with 56 points, followed by David on 48, Andy on 47 and Kieron on 44.

20th Century - 30 October

Four at Adrian's for a go at 20th Century, a game with little bits of everything neatly arranged into a very satisfying experience: Power Grid meets Puerto Rico meets Carcassonne meets Steam.  Some asymmetric play went on, with Deej building a large territory, Andy going for money, Adrian trying to minimise the amount of rubbish, and Kieron adapting his tactics each go whenever someone pipped him to the draw.  In the final analysis, Adrian's flower power was enough to take him just out ahead of Deej.  Scores: Adrian 108; Deej 100; Kieron 79; and Andy 71.

Battle of Worcester - 19 October 2014

The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 at Worcester, England, and was the final battle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians defeated the Royalist, predominantly Scottish, forces of King Charles II. The 16,000 Royalist forces were overwhelmed by the 28,000 strong "New Model Army" of Cromwell.

Our version of it took place at Jonathan's last weekend using Warhammer ECW rules, with David and James' Parliamentarians attacking Jonathan's well defended Royalist position.

The Parliamentarians got off to an aggressive start in the middle and on the right flank, throwing everything forward, and then watching mostly everything running away.  Salvo fire from the Royalists requires a leadership role to test morale, and our leader Cromwell didn't arrive on the table until turn 3, so we were failing tests all over the place.

Fortunately when the veteran red coats of the New Model Army turned up, things picked up for the Parliamentarians.  Despite some incredibly inaccurate artillery shooting, the Royalists were starting to lose units, under pressure from James' cavalry on the right flank, and David's mixed forces coming over the river on the left flank.

The final outcome was as expected but I suspect the early losses of the Parliamentarians meant their victory was not as strong as historically.

Cheesy smile from Oliver C...

Very well defended farm on the outskirts of Worcester...

Responsible for many craters but very few casualties...

I am not charging that pike block...

General Leslie rather isolated as the Parliamentarian cavalry pursue fleeing Royalists behind him (although he managed to escape)...

Reinforcements courtesy of Charlie...

David's raw recruits valiantly (and successfully) charge the gun...

The Scots start to break on the left flank...

20th Century - 22 October 2014

First games night play of Kieron's 20th Century - a game seemingly designed by putting Carcassonne, Pelopennes and Power Grid into a blender.  Fortunately, the resulting concoction works rather well and is a lot of fun to play.  A variety of strategies can be employed.  I can't recall what everyone tried but it looks my winning strategy of minimising rubbish worked for Adrian the following week too.

If I've remembered who had which colour correctly, the photo finish shows the final scores to be: James 127, Stuart 122, Kieron 103, David 97 and Andy 88.  We sorted out a number of rules clarifications before we started (which meant Kieron failed to emulate his previous winning score of 175!) but one I did realise I abused was using the train to transport a worker further than I should, so think the moral victory goes to Stuart.  (I still think moving them just to an adjacent city is pretty useless in a game where you are building a railway layout, but them's the rules, and no-one's raised it on BGG).

Village - 15 October

I have a rule of thumb that goes 'If you are stupid enough to show any competence at something then you'll be asked to do it again'. I should have known that the plaudits (well plaudit) for last week's write up would result in me being suggested for this week's effort.

Kieron, James and David had a foggy drive over to Andy's for a game of Village. We played the expanded version with the addition of the pub.

Andy went all-in on the market, acquiring a huge stack of chits. Kieron played the market for a bit, but then switched to a gold/council strategy generating lots of gold and converting it to victory points. James concentrated on travelling and towards the end of the game was able to gain some positions in the church. David went for a more balanced game - some market, some travel, but kept ahead just enough in the church to earn the bonus points each turn.

Tactics around the balance between spending time (and killing off your people) and influence (a scarce resource) varied. James rattled through his family at quite a rate but as a result ended up with lots of influence cubes giving him a lot of options later in the game. David was at the other extreme, spending influence as it came in meaning he had more people to spare but had very limited choice of actions.

As the end game approached both the Chronicle and the pauper's graveyard were almost full. James had five in the Chronicle where as Kieron only had two. On the other hand, Kieron was stacking up 9 or even 12 points a turn just from use of the council.

James triggered the final round on gaining the final travel location with the final graveyard space being filled. This caused David to utter a rude word (earning a fine of his match fee and a 6 month ban suspended for 1 year) as he realised his cunning plan was for some reason based on thinking James was playing yellow not red. The resulting brain meltdown caused him to think of an even more cunning plan securing the a fifth spot in the Chronicle and victory.

Final scores: David 66, James 59, Kieron 58 (for the second week running being pipped by 1 point by James) and Andy 40.

We concluded that we would probably leave out the pub next time as it slowed things down a bit and the game is good enough without it. Despite the variety of strategies the top three were very close.

Hamburgum - 9 October

At a long overdue curry evening we agreed to reduce our game variety so that we could concentrate on a smaller set of games and take advantage of the fact that we'd remember the rules. In this way there would be shorter set up times, better strategies, fewer rule 23 moments and much fun and hilarity.

We implemented Project "Old Farts With Poor Memory and Little Patience" immediately with a quick return to Hamburgum. To demonstrate how much better things were, Andy promptly asked what the rules were, Kieron managed to mistakenly misremember the missed rule from last time and James forgot the scope of the donation chits. David sat crowing about his vastly superior memory until he later realised that he'd forgotten a rule printed on the player guide in front of him about always being able to sell goods to the bank for the knock-down price of £30. Not much use early in the game when goods are going for around £100, but pretty useful at the end game when the trading price is £50.

David got the jump on the others and built up an early lead making use of lots of buildings. Kieron and Andy stalled near the start but Kieron started coming back in the mid-late game. James kept his donation scores quiet for as long as possible making it look like he was in a worse position than he really was.

At the end game, Kieron and Andy loaded the dockyard up with ships and made a play for the ship donations, building up a large score. This effectively stalled David's game - limited trade options meant that he never managed to put the funds together to complete a church. Instead he had to make do with picking up as many cheap donations as possible. James completed a couple of churches and picked up some very useful donations along the way.

The final scores were very close: James 81, Kieron (who really thought he'd won for a moment) 80, David 78, Andy 52.

Hamburgum - 24 September 2014

Actually "Londinium" since we played with the English language version on the other side of the board.  Adrian took an early lead from a fleet of ships trading goods but was eventually overtaken as the game progressed.

Final scores: David 73, James 53, Adrian 51, Andy 36, Kieron 33

However, Kieron spotted a Rule 23 - when putting up buildings, players are only allowed to build one Special building at a time.  Both David and James earned double points in the same turn when building two Specials, but I suspect David would be in first place either way.

The Castles of Burgundy - 17 September 2014

Second play for this new game.  Lots of different strategies to follow.  Only real improvement we'd like to see is board and tiles 50% bigger (do they not playtest new games with middle-aged players?!).

David's chicken strategy paid off big time and he won with 232 points, followed by James on 210, Kieron 199 and Andy 195.

Downfall of Pompeii & Tzolk'in - 10 September 2014

We started with Stuart's Downfall of Pompeii (which I half-remember playing at Adrian's many years ago).  A bit of strategy, a fair bit of luck, but a lot of fun in particular in the second half of the game as you direct lava over your opponent's pieces!  Nicely self-levelling too as one tends to direct the lava over the colour with the most pieces, and it did end up very close.  Final scores Stuart 9, David 8, James 8 (third place because of more people taken out by the lava), and Kieron 7.

Plenty of time to then play Tzolk'in with its rotating cogs.  Stuart went for skulls, David a bit of everything, James went for gods, and Kieron seemed to always be short of food.  Final scores James 76 (jumping ahead thanks to a card that rewarded the god strategy), Stuart 61, David 48 and Kieron 31.

Power Grid-Factory Manager - 4th September 2014

Round at Kieron's for a rare outing of a game that should be better than it is. Rules and setup took an hour! Kieron lost the will to complete reading the rules due to overexcited rivals not listening, so the most important rule of the scores being doubled in the last round was omitted! James noticed this as we entered the final round thereby making the final round redundant and we were left feeling empty, but still willing to give it a go again at some point........not before 2018 though!
Final scores were Stuart 165, James 150, David 132, Andy 129 and Kieron 85.

Village & Alea Iacta Est - 28 August 2014

A small but select gathering for games this week.  We first played Village without the beer & inn expansion.  Andy majored on the market, James went travelling, and Kieron joined the council, enabling him to later produce lots of free goods to sell in the market to compete with Andy.  Final scores Kieron 68, James 53, Andy 42.

Then Alea Iacta Est which plays without the Temple/Fortuna elements with only three players.  A very close result with Andy on 47 and Kieron on 48, but James' useful set of Senate cards gave him the win with 59.

Trajan - 21 August

First 4-player go at Trajan, Adrian's Xmas present from Orhan.  After the success of Castles of Burgundy recently it was good to play another Stefan Feld game and this one was another winner.  Trajan is a reasonably complex Eurogame - in that there are a number of moving elements to keep in mind each turn, central to which is the 'mandala' concept, a rondel-type arrangement for determining the main action for each player each turn, but with the added element of extra actions being won by the positioning of coloured tokens around the rondel.  Very cunning.  Each round players opt to seek victory points by deploying meeples as legionaries in the provinces or builders in Rome, by shipping commodities, by seeking political office, or by acquiring power up tiles of various flavours.  The elements all fit together very harmoniously.  There is a fair bit of luck involved, but not so much that it detracts from the planning.  We all broadly adopted different strategies, with James specialising in shipping sets of goods, Andy dominating the military field, Kieron doing lots of building, and Adrian going for the political track.  In the end though being able to score points across the different disciplines seemed to be key.  Kieron's early lead was cut down to size to see the final scores being Adrian 119, Kieron 111, James 102 and Andy 58.  A good game.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/102680/trajan

Peloponnes & Darjeeling - 7 August 2014

A welcome return to old favourite Peloponnes.  We haven't played this for a while and had only previously played it with the maximum 5 (or 6 with the expansion).  With fewer players, the bidding is quite different.  Tiles are placed to match the number of players (3 in our case) and then made up to 5 by placing further tiles alongside a "Conquest Tile".  Players can bid on the 3 initial tiles in the same way, or can buy outright (with no risk of being displaced) any tile alongside the Conquest Tile at a cost of the value on the tile plus a further 3 coins.  This adds an interesting twist to the game.

Final scores (population/prestige) were James (39/35), David (36/29) and Andy (18/23) who had an unlucky start with an early earthquake taking out his first (expensive) building.

Plenty of time left for a second try of Darjeeling.  With David acting as scorer and James as tile placer for everybody, the game ran much more smoothly.  David and James pulled away from Andy early on, and then James inched ahead of David.  Still a strange game with the scoring at the beginning of each player's turn and it does feel hard to catch up with someone once they establish a lead.  But we think it will play even more balanced with 5 players.  Final scores were James 99, David 90ish, Andy 50ish.

The Castles of Burgundy - 30 July 2014

First play of Adrian's gift to James - The Castles of Burgundy.  The game is set in the Burgundy region of High Medieval France. Each player takes on the role of an aristocrat, originally controlling a small princedom. While playing they aim to build settlements and powerful castles, practice trade along the river, exploit silver mines, and use the knowledge of travelers.

The game is about players taking settlement tiles from the game board and placing them into their princedom which is represented by the player board. Every tile has a function that starts when the tile is placed in the princedom. The princedom itself consists of several regions, each of which demands its own type of settlement tile.

An ingenious game, really good fun, although James and Andy were well and truly outplayed by David and Adrian.  Final scores: David 222, Adrian 204, James 87, Andy 73.

The evening was also notable for the late night room invasion by a huge hornet.  It lost...

Darjeeling and Valley of the Kings - 24 July 2014

First play of James' new game from Kieron - Darjeeling.  As the name suggests, this game is about tea.  Not war, not empires, just picking tea.  It's a nice looking game with some neat pieces that fit into the master board depending on the number of players, and with some interesting mechanisms.

A whole set of tiles are set out on the table in the shape of India (or Sri Lanka or China).  Players control tea pickers who move around the country, picking tea where they land, with a new tea bush springing up in the location they vacate.  Players create shipments of tea by combining the tiles together in the right colour, getting bonuses based on the demand for that type of tea (using a clever 3D demand mechanism where the distance between two barrels in the bonus - easier seen than explained).

James got an early lead by shipping a very small shipment right away.  Stuart and David started to ship medium-sized shipments soon after, and David caught up and was neck-and-neck with James for most of the game, with Andy waiting to ship a couple of huge shipments.  This latter tactic may work better with fewer players but once Andy had shipped, everyone else did too, and the income from this shipment was unfortunately short-lived.

The game was a bit fiddly as you had to remember to score your shipping points at the beginning of your turn, and then take and replace tiles - as David noted, it would work brilliantly as an app with all the game housekeeping done for you.  But it was a light but clever game that played in an hour, so definitely one to play in an evening alongside another shorter game.

Final scores: James 99 (the game stops when a player reaches 100 but there are negative scores for unused tiles), David 92, Stuart 70, Andy 58.

Another new game next from David - a card game called Valley of the Kings.  This was expected to be the shorter game but with a lot of text to read on the cards and a lot of options to (over)think about, it actually took two hours, but I expect we'd play it quicker next time now we've familiar.

Like Dominion, the cards have multiple purposes - as artifacts (and so VPs when added to your tomb), as money (to buy more cards) or as actions, following the option written on them.  Each player has a deck of cards, initially of low value, which are enriched by purchasing new ones.  Stuart spotted first that thinning out the deck by discarding the original cards (preferably into others' decks) was a good tactic to ensure quality cards coming up more frequently in your hand.  We were all a bit late to start shifting cards (as artefacts) from our hands and into our tombs.  Stuart and David both started entombing sets of blue cards (the points are N squared, where N is the number of unique cards you have in a set) but with David to Stuart's left, he couldn't build up as a big a collection.

Another clever game we should play again soon before we forget how to play.  Final order: Stuart, David, James, Andy

St Petersburg - 16 July 2014

Andy writes:

Played St Petersburg Last Wednesday at Minchinhampton, only 3 Rivals attended.

 

St Petersburg is a very simple game and sometimes we can over think our strategy, James decided to go for the Buildings, David a very mixed and balanced approach,they both picked up the observatory card that most times can give you quite an edge, except if you're James, Anyway with quite a good deal of Luck. The scores at the end were:-

 

Andy 88

James 70

David 65

 

I really like this game, I think because you need to be lucky.

Tzolk'in - 3rd July 2014

Another Thursday games session brought the rivals to Kieron's for a cracking games of Tzolk'in. Every time we play something new happens. This time James and Kieron struggled all evening to gain enough food. Stuart went for a building strategy which was a slow burner but almost worked. Deej made it to the top of a god track.  There were plenty of "oh no" moments as well as some senior ones. Kieron hardly moaned at all, but just spent the evening quietly recycling skulls.
In the final reckoning, Deej's strength on all the god tracks as well as some clever chaining [ (c) Deej games systems 2003 ] proved to be the winner.
Deej 62, Kieron 58, James 43, Stuart 42
Sorry Stuart for not letting you win on your Rivals membership 10th anniversary games session!

Alea Iacta Est and Circus Flohcati - 25th June

We started the evening with a game of Alea Iacta Est. Lots of fun with the usual Derrening and helpful suggestions, combined with a couple of nya-ha-ha moments when a round was finished unexpectedly.

Final score was Adrian 49, James 43, David 36 and Kieron 33.

Burnt out by his victory, Adrian departed mumbling some excuse about early starts and important meeting tomorrow.

We then tried out Circus Flohcati (one of Reiner Knizia's two flea circus themed games), a game aimed at the whole family and one that plays extremely quickly. We ended up playing three hands and while it was fun, it didn't engage us as much as we'd hoped. Kieron ran away with the first two hands (luck or judgement???) but although James convincingly won the third it wasn't enough to catch up.

Final score: Kieron 171, James 162, David 140

Hanabi & Love Letter

A very relaxed evening playing a couple of card games.  The first was brought by Stuart and called Hanabi, currently quite popular on the BGG Family Game list.  This is a cooperative game with a unique mechanism - you hold your cards the other way around, so everyone else knows what you have, and tries to give you information during the game to enable the playing of a sequence of cards to set off one of five fireworks.  Really clever and led to some good-natured frustration when ESP failed.  I think we played it about three times in the end.

We finished with a very close game of Love Letter (using James' home-made Dad's Army set of cards).  I think we all got to three cubes each but Kieron got the fourth cube first, winning the game.

St Petersburg - 5 June

Three Rivals for anecdotes and St Petersburg at Adrian's.  A lovely game that Adrian and Kieron hadn't played for ages.  Asymmetric tactics commenced from the very first turn with Andy opting for a hand-expanding warehouse and a relentless collection of aristocrats; Kieron with multiple buildings; and Adrian balancing his options.  Come the final analysis Andy's tactics paid off big time, overtaking both others to win handsomely.  Kieron was second, Adrian last.  All the scores were above 100 but because we did a comparative calculation, just how awesome the scores were is, alas, lost to history.

St Petersburg - 21 May 2014

I introduced David, Andy & Keren to Love Letter whilst we waited for Stuart to find us(!), and then we played another great game of St Petersburg.  A number of different strategies resulted in a very close finish but unfortunately Andy didn't surge at the last moment like last time.  Final scores Stuart 75, David 74, James 73, Andy 51.  This is swiftly becoming one of my favourites and I was interested to read on BGG that there is an expansion for five players.

Love Letter & Ra - 7 May 2014

Stuart, Kieron and James met up for a last minute convened games night.  We played a couple of light games which allowed plenty of time to catch up.  The first of these was Stuart's excellent Love Letter - a very clever little game involving just 16 cards, some bluffing, some informed guesswork, and a fair bit of luck.  The winner is the first to win five rounds so there is inevitably some levelling as the person out front gets more attention from the other players.  So we all got to four points before James' lucky "Princess protected by a Handmaid" combo won him the last game.  Enormous fun and it plays quite quickly, so definitely one to bring out at the end of games evenings (I've already bought another copy!).

We followed up with the comfortable pair of old slippers that is Ra.  Always fun - James scored big early on with pharoahs and civilizations, Stuart scored late with a huge collection of buildings, Kieron had a more balanced strategy, but the final scores were James 48, Stuart 38 and Kieron 37.

Zulus - 1 May 2014

A Thursday night for a second go at the Zulu siege skirmish game with new appropriate scenery (2 mission station buildings, a dry stone cattle kraal and sandbag defences) and a reversal of sides - Deej and Kieron as the Brits and Andy and Stu as Zulus.

A plethora of Zulu cards coming up early resulted in large forces surrounding the mission station and managing to rush the defenders without the chance for them to fire many volleys.  Both buildings were overrun with the Redcoats managing to recapture the hospital once before having to fall back.  Mid-way through the game it looked like it was all up for the British but a run of Red cards allowed them to stabilise the position.  The relief column arrived reasonably quickly in the second run through the pack allowing the British to claim victory.

A good game but again quite an abrupt end.  Next time we'll try it with all 4 Aces having to come up in the second pack run through for a victory to be declared, allowing hopefully for more tension to build up.

The moment before the relief column arrived - the handful of survivors have pulled back to the inner courtyard as the Zulus charge in

Caylus Magna Carts - 9th April 2014

Only 3 rivals were around this week, so Kieron dug out a pared down version of the excellent Caylus. Both versions work best with 2 or 3 players to reduce the random factor and allow some element of planning.  This is the first blog entry for this game!
Andy spent the evening collecting gold and stone and managed to purchase the best civic building. Kieron ploughed most profits into the castle. Deej played the markets and built lots of his own buildings plus was able to get into the civic buildings right at the death to take the victory.
We must play this again soon.
Final reckoning Deej 52, Kieron 42 Andy 35

Beowulf & Ra - 2 April 2014

We had a second play of Beowulf - bought because although it's a film-tie, the game was designed by Reiner Knizia.  It's a three act abstract game with no real link to the saga but the artwork and playing pieces are quite nice.  At the end of Act II, it was pretty much neck and neck, but in Act III David played a particularly nasty tile on James, who retaliated with an even more powerful tile that enabled him to swap that nasty tile with a very good one next to several of David's playing pieces, reducing his final score by about a third in one swoop.  Not as fun as it sounds ;-)

We concluded that anyone with that tile could have swung the game in such a way to win it.  In other words, all the strategy and clever play in the rest of the game gets undermined by these two over-powerful tiles.  It is definitely a good game and one we'll replay, but we'll remove those tiles next time.  Final scores: James 235, Kieron 187, David 157.

This left us plenty of time to dust off Ra.  This never fails to please, with a bit of Derren-ing and a bravura performance by Kieron right at the end.  Although pulling out one more Ra tile would end it, Kieron successfully played Reiner Roulette and completely filled the tile track with points, jumping up into first place and winning the game with the last draw of a tile.  Final scores: Kieron 40, James 37, David 30.

Zulu Wars Skirmish Game - 19 March 2014

Adrian's excellent write-up and photos of this game are on his Rival Colonial Miniatures blog but I thought I'd add my photos here too.  A fun game with Adrian's lovely figures and edge-of-the-seat game mechanics.  Replay please!