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.