Nissen with an 'e'

One of the items I bought back at Colours in September was a flat pack Nissen hut.  I completed it in October but forgot to to write it up.

The kit is a mixture of MDF and cardboard.  There were a couple of things that didn't line up perfectly but it was easy enough to put together.

Once painted, the cardboard roof gave a reasonable indication of a Nissen hut but I didn't think it looked good enough for our Dad's Army game.

So I bought some corrugated plastic and created some sheets.

These were then fitted over the roof...

...and then painted up in grey.  I added a door knob, a War Office sign for the door, and a chimney at the back for a stove/heater.  I'm very pleased with the result.  Much more realistic.  I just need to crack on paint my "new and improved" Dad's Army figures so we can have another game!

Alea Iacta Est & Ra - 16 December 2015

A classic double act this evening with firm favourites Alea Iacta Est and Ra.  A solid cluster of scores for the dice game but James pulled ahead with valuable Senate and Fortuna Cards.  Final scores: James 51, David 38, Adrian 36 and Andy 35.

Ra provided the usual laughs and groans, and the unusual situation of both Adrian and David scoring 4 civilisations in the first round.  Final scores: Adrian 51, David 45, Andy 39 and James 29 (20 more than last time we played, so I was happy!).

Java - 25 November 2015

James dusted off Java from the loft as we hadn't played it for years.

It's only on the blog once (from 2009) and that write-up also records we hadn't played it for years... but we seemed to enjoy it that time.

This time our optimisation routines seemed to run an awful lot slower than they did in the previous decade.  James struggled to score as each time he started a city, the other players built it up and collected all the available points.  The lakes seemed to get built in odd places that restricted the development of other cities.  All rather frustrating really.  But as Andy concluded, it wasn't three hours wasted because at least we now know we don't want to ever play it again!

Final scores: David 101, Stuart 82, James 76 and Andy 73.

St Petersburg - 2nd December 2015

A quick return to St Petersburg at David's, but this time we added Stuart to the mix. James, Andy and David had played a few times recently, but the Stuart wildcard completely changed the direction of the game. The cards ran out incredibly quickly, meaning that the usual steady economy building and big payoffs for collecting people didn't have time to emerge. Instead an early move by Stuart risking financial ruin to get some high scoring cards early paid off.

Final Score: Stuart 46, James 32, Andy 31, David 31. (Very low scores)

Given the speedy resolution, we had an immediate rematch. This went more in line with traditional games, although the fourth player does change the gameplay a lot.

Final Score: James 86, David 85, Stuart 80, Andy 49

Lesson: When you think you are getting better at playing a game, make sure you aren't just optimising your play against the same opponents.

St Petersburg - 18th November

Andy hosted James and David for a game of St Petersburg. Following our recent previous games we played a lot more tactically resulting in a much more challenging game. As the cards started to run out David picked up a high scoring card in what looked like the penultimate turn. The return looked marginal, but then to our surprise the board clogged up and we ended up playing several more turns.

Final scores: David 161, Andy 145, James 140

Peloponnes - 12 November 2015

A welcome return to Peloponnes this week.  The usual review of all the expansions, followed by the usual rejection of pretty much all of them - admittedly, it is an awesome game with the standard rules.  We used just the Sea Tiles (correctly this time, with just one per player, not the whole stack!) and the final round "D".

The bidding dynamic changes a lot with just three players as there are only three cards to be bid against with a further two alongside the Conquest tile (which can be purchased outright for three coins more than face value).  We therefore were bidding high so that if bounced we could pick up a 2nd choice on the Conquest line.

This game's winning strategy belonged to James, who bought up lots of wood-producing tiles, and used the excess to build up a lot of luxury goods, which were cashed in for other items as needed during the game.  In the final round James bought the card (Oracle?) that allows the higher of the Population or Prestige scores to be counted, rather than the lower, as long as the card owner has more than 20 luxury goods.

Final scores: James population/prestige 12/29, David 21/30 and Andy 12/26.

Puerto Rico - 5 November

Stu, James, Adrian and David for a game of Puerto Rico which had last been on the table a long time before - with Andy providing trenchant commentary.  This really is a great game, fully justifying of its continued high rank on Boardgamegeek.  The slickness of the design proven in this game by all of the various 'ending the game' conditions being fulfilled in the same round.  For this game the tactics that we variously employed were pretty asymmetric, with the James' corn-only-no-production-building option proving surprisingly and comprehensively victorious.  Final scores: James 69; Adrian 57; Stu 49; David 48.

Easy Rider

This is a classic Matchbox toy (model number K-47) manufactured in 1974.  I received my Easy Rider the following year, a gift from my parents to cheer me up following an operation.  I was four and I loved it.  I found it again recently and it was looking much the worse for wear - missing a front tyre, much of the silver paint flaked off and the rider went AWOL in the late seventies.

I bought another cheap knackered bike which donated its front tyre and found a perfect condition rider on eBay.  He's a yellow/beige colour and looks so boring on the brightly coloured bike.  So I took him apart and painted him.

The figure is modelled on the Easy Rider film - he appears to have Peter Fonda's head and bottom half, and Dennis Hopper's jacket...

...so I painted him up accordingly.

And repainted all the chrome on the motorbike.  A fun little project.

Ticket To Ride & Ra - 21 October 2015

It had been a long time since we'd last played Ticket To Ride.  We used the 1910 expansion, which provides much larger cards, and a set of extra tickets.  James had a good initial set of tickets which pretty much gave three routes from one elongated route (despite almost blowing it by attempting to build a short connection to New York with the wrong colour cards - fortunately no-one blocked the route before the build was completed the following turn).  Stuart had a similar coast-to-coast route allowing him to build to pick up other tickets.  David and Andy were more geographically contained and weren't able to break out and cash in too many more tickets.  Final scores: James 187, Stuart 130, David 95 and Andy 90.

In a complete reversal of fortunes (we decided it's about being fortunate, not being lucky!), James completely messed up Ra, ending up with less points than he started with.  Andy just pipped Stuart to first place with a large collection of buildings.  Final scores: Andy 39, Stuart 36, David 21, James 9.

Sylla - 14 October

We'd only played Sylla once before, in January, and James had missed out that time. Funnily enough, the prior experience of Andy and David turned out to act against us, as our imperfect memory of the game led us both to make some dire decisions.

In the previous game, famine had been relatively unimportant and Andy's cash pile hadn't stood up to David's manipulation of the event phase. This knowledge, combined with the arrival of an event that blocked the money generating stalls from working led to James picking up multiple stalls relatively easily. However David's attempt to keep the event in play failed and James was quickly so flush with cash that he was able to dominate the first consul and the great work phases. This soon led to him taking control of character recruitment and then events creating an unassailable lead. Just to rub it in, famine hit hard resulting in David going backwards on the score track. David and Andy spent the rest of the game scrapping for second place with David just beating Andy in the final scoring.

I'm not sure how often prior experience of a game has proven to be a complete handicap.

Final scores: James 85, David 54, Andy 49

Nations - 7 October 2015

A second go at Nations, this time with just 3 players (James, David and Adrian).  The smaller number meant that we could play the entire game of 4 epochs through to the finish comfortably.  This game is possibly the most complex of all the Eurogames that we've played recently, not so much in terms of the rules, but rather the variables and choices that present each turn.  In this go, James went for the asymmetric tactic of not developing militarily.  In the final analysis we agreed that this probably wasn't a winning strategy, since military forces enable multiple benefits (from colonies to battles) that are unavailable to the pacifist.  We reckoned that this wasn't unreasonable in terms of what the game was trying to simulate, but it did mean that the final scores were a play off between Adrian and David.  The end result: Adrian 35, David 34, James 27.  Worth playing again soon a trois...

Castles of Burgundy - 30 September 2015

Another outing for Castles of Burgundy.  Great game with variety of strategies, but David's and Adrian's farmyard collections made the difference this time.  Final scores: David 127, Adrian 122, James 113 and Andy 94.

Japan Project - Garden items

One of the items I spotted at Salute had sold out by the time I found them, but were available again at Colours last weekend.  It's another laser cut MDF kit...

...but with all the accessories (paper, grit, stones, moss) to make up a Japanese-style garden with four lanterns and seven assorted planters.  It's really designed for more modern gaming but I think it will fit.  And there's plenty of leftovers to make a larger Japanese rock garden.

Amun-Re - 16 September 2015

James and Stu at David's for a return to Amun-Re.

The Old Kingdom had James doing everything he could to keep the sacrifice phase low to support his caravan income alive. Stu meanwhile used his massive farm income to make large offerings and claim the 3 item bonus. David avoided the extremes and was able to collect the second place bonus for minimal payment.

The first half completed with us each gaining the same temple set bonus, but by building for the "most pyramid" bonuses David and Stu pulled away from James. David managed to complete a bonus card for three extra points. However as with many of these games, the first scoring is only a small part of the whole picture.

Moving into the New Kingdom, James built up a massive income, while David struggled to make any money as he was less successful than James at holding down the sacrifice offers. Stu collected a large number of cheap build power cards and was able to use them to develop several large pyramid complexes.

James' purchasing power really told as we added up the final scores. Before the final money bonus, James and David were tied on 41 with Stu on 40. Then James revealed his loadsamoney wad and the final score was James 47, David 45, Stu 42. A really close and enjoyable game.

Footnote: I went back to the rules to check a few things afterwards and discovered a few things we weren't doing right. You can discard a power card at any time in exchange for a gold. Useful especially when you realise you aren't going to make the bonus cards work. The 8 income card is placed onto a province and replaces that province's income for this round. We should also be stricter on when cards can be played (something we realised part way through), although it is a shame the cards don't have that information on them. Finally (and crucially) you can't play more than one power card of a particular type in a phase. In other words you can only play one cheap build card each round, and during the scoring phase you can't use more than one of each type of bonus card.

Colours 2015

After last year's hiatus, Colours was back again at Newbury Racecourse today, but just today rather than the whole weekend.  Andy and I drove up in the morning, and I bumped into Adrian a few times who was there in the afternoon.  I missed Jonathan but he was spotted by Adrian.

I really like this show - I hope they can keep it going.  It certainly seemed to be popular with traders and wargamers - probably a bit more crushed than usual since folks only had the one day to get there.

I bought a resin river (seven 12 inch long pieces), a Nissen Hut and pill boxes for Dad's Army scenarios, a pack of Japanese garden items, and some paints and basing materials.  Not a bad haul.

As usual, some great looking participation and demonstration games.  Here are my favourites:

Ben-Hur in Playmobil

 Amazing scenery in an American Civil War game

Another colourful game (ECW?)

 Stunning interior

A close up of the bar area

Modern Afghanistan

Wings of Glory with clouds, zeppelin and lots (and lots) of planes 

'Allo 'Allo game (I loved the mat - googled it when I got home - £59!) 

Beautiful painting on one of the figure manufacturer stands 

WW1 stretcher bearer game

DBA - a second helping

I also really enjoyed our DBA evening this week - all the good bits of DBM (nice looking battle, variety of troop types) without the 3.5 hour play time.  So those 6-1 dice rolls can't ruin an entire half-day - just finish your 45-60 minute game, and hope for better luck next time!  Here's a few more photos:

DBA - 9 September 2015

After a break of many years, we played a DBA later medieval mini-tournament this week.  Andy played Ottomans, James Burgundians, Deej Teutonic Knights, and Adrian Polish.  The two competitions in parallel on the kitchen table worked well and we were soon back into the flow of the rules.  DBA 2.1 is a very good game, simple enough to get 3 games completed in an evening, but involved enough for it to be a real challenge with each game on a knife edge throughout.  The results were:

Teutonic Knights beat Ottomans

Burgundians beat Polish

Polish beat Ottomans

Teutonic Knights beat Burgundians

Polish beat Teutonic Knights

Burgundians beat Ottomans

Which left James, Deej and Adrian on 2 wins out of 3 each, and Andy alas with the wooden spoon of no victories - which we could all blame on the rather underpowered Ottomans (who lacked any Knights or hard-hitting infantry).  We'll do this again soon since the format worked very well indeed.

The Teutonic Order invades Turkey

Polish cavalry charge the flank of the Burgundian army

The view from the Ottoman lines as the Polish attack

The Teutonic and Burgundian Knights clash

The Polish prepare to charge the Teutonic Knights

Nations - 2 September 2015

We tried out one of Adrian's 2015 Xmas presents at Stu's last week - Nations, a new game from a Finnish designer which continues in the tradition of Civilization but adds an abstract Eurogames approach.  Players buy card upgrades each round to increase military power, state stability, and production of various resources.  Golden Ages can provide extra resources or victory points as can winning battles.  Starting wars has the general affect of causing grief to the other players and encouraging a military arms race.  And this was the tactic that started a Stu/James militarism vibe that went through the game and probably contributed to Stu and James coming out on top - that, plus the construction of Wonders of the world that gave James more options than the rest of us.  Although we only played 5 of the possible 8 epochs, we started late and had to go through the rules so this is probably a game we could finish comfortably in an evening.  Final scores: James 35; Stu 28; Adrian 22; Deej 15; Andy 7.

Notre Dame & Ra - 26 August 2015

Just the three of us last week, so we tried Notre Dame.  The closeness of the regions with three provided easier pickings with the carriage movement, and Stuart and Andy pretty much cleaned up before James got a look in, but he did get an early visit to the Cathedral instead.  Rats came and went, character cards provided variety, and we had a good close game.  Final scores Stuart 51, James 49, Andy 43.

Time then for perennial favourite Ra.  With three players, each has four bidding tokens, so potentially more opportunities to win bids, but the best bid token (13) wasn't even used in two of the epochs, due to rapid arrival of Ra cards.  Final scores James 47, Andy 34, Stuart 26.

Alea Iacta Est & Maori - 19 August 2015

The three player version of Alea Iacta Est dispenses with the Templum and Fortuna cards, removing on the options and strategies of the game.  This makes the Senate Cards even more important and James maxed out on cards which provided extra bonuses.  We all had about the same points based on the provinces and citizens, but the Senate Card bonuses gave the final scores of James 54, David 38 and Andy 33.

Time then for a game of Maori - the island exploration game.  Andy had a bit of bad luck with island opportunities at the beginning of the game and couldn't catch up, and the final scores were James 49, David 43 and Andy 18.

Train Robbery & Eight Minute Empire - 12 August 2015

Building on our commitment to more frequent figures games, James hosted a Wild West train robbery scenario.  This was played once before back in December 2007!  The train is carrying the Cavalry payroll and the desperados have to attack the train and steal the money.

The neat twist is that the train is static on the table and the scenery scrolls past each turn, forcing the players to take evasive action.

The train had three flat beds, two of which I converted to a goods wagon and a passenger carriage.  I formed a carriage from foam card which could slide over the flat bed.

The train was attacked by three bandits (Adrian, David and Andy) and James umpired and defended with three lawmen on the train and three members of the US Cavalry.  There were fights on roof tops, shoot outs in carriages (with some incredible misses), and regrettably no failed Jump rolls as characters leapt from their horses to the train, or across the roof tops.  But the good guys were vanquished and the James-Younger Gang escaped with the loot.

This is really a two-player scenario and although it was a good re-introduction to the Warhammer ruleset Legends of the Old West, it didn't give each player that much to do.  So I hope to run a proper multiplayer game with a posse each within the next few months.

Back in 2007, we took a photo each turn and posted a stop-motion video on YouTube.  This time, I used the Framelapse app to take a frame every second, which at 30fps means an hour long game is a two minute video.

With hindsight, I should have repositioned the camera when the action moved further up the train, but it gives a flavour of the action and how the scenery scrolls past.  You can see the bandits chase the train, jump on the guard van, knock a sheriff off, and then start working their way up the train.  The cavalry arrive from the top right with one killed by David's shotgun before getting anywhere near the train.

We finished the evening with another quick game of Eight Minute Empire, using the other side of the board with more islands.  Some very close scores but a triumph for Andy.  Final scores: Andy 11, David and Adrian on 10, and James on 9.

Eight Minute Empire & Downfall of Pompeii - 29 July 2015

First play of David's birthday gift to James.  Eight Minute Empire claims to be learned in one minute and played in twenty (not sure where the eight comes from...).  The small board has a large number of territories on a small number of continents.  Players buy cards that allow then to add counters to the board, or move them across land and sea, and a couple of other options, in order to maximise the territories and continents they control.  But the cards also represent resources, and sets of these earn additional points at the end of the game.  Neat, good fun and does play in 20-30 minutes even with us!  Final scores: James 12, Andy 9, David 8 and Stuart 7.

Plenty of time for a medium-length second game - Downfall of Pompeii.  The first half of the game is placing people, and the second half is directing lava flows over your opponents - Nya Ha Ha!  Final scores: Stuart 8, David 7, James 7 (3rd place since more people killed by lava!), and Andy 5.

Tikal II - 15 July 2015

We hadn't played this for a long while and it was new to a couple of the crew.  Quite long instructions to get through but a reasonably simple game to play with a nice theme (although teleportation of keys and treasures appears to occur between canoeist and explorer!).

Adrian created a strong early lead by exploring the secret buildings outside the main pyramid and maintained it for the rest of the game, with David just reaching him at one point.  James squeezed into 2nd place ahead of David in the final scoring thanks to pair of bonus cards, with Andy in 4th.

Shako - 8 July 2015: 1809 mini-campaign game 1

Aiming for a figures game every month or so, this week saw a tactical game of Shako hopefully leading up to a refight of the 1809 Battle of Eckmuhl between the French and her German Allies and the Austrians.  In this Divisional battle, Friant's 2nd Division of Davout's III French Corps (James and Andy) engaged the Austrian General Sommariva's Division (JP and David) who were defending the village of Hausen.  Given their requirement to attack into the face of the Austrian defence the French had slightly more troops - Pajol's Brigade consisting of the 5th Hussars plus a Horse Battery; Grandeau's Brigade consisting of the 108th and 111th Line Regiments; and Barbanegre's Brigade of the 48th Line Regiment - the latter Brigades with Foot Batteries and detached skirmishers.

The Austrian defenders had Radivojevich's column consisting of the Austrian 3rd Hussars plus two Battalions of the 9th Grenz Infantry; and Pfanzelter's column made up of 5 large battalions of Austrian line infantry (3 battalions of Manfredini's Infantry Regiment number 12 and 2 battalions of the Wurzburg Infantry Regiment number 3), also with guns and skirmishers.  The Austrian infantry were deployed defending the town and the light troops and hussars on the other side of the river - fordable just below the Austrian front line.

I opted to use a new mechanism for deployment, given each side playing cards representing the position of their Brigades plus an additional dummy cavalry card.  The players could see whether the opposite side was deploying infantry or cavalry but not the exact make up of the force and one of the cavalry cards was a blind.  

After the first move - French Hussars and Horse Battery approach the Austrians on the left bank whilst the French infantry move in echelon to the far right

The French tactics were to try to break the Austrian forces on the left bank by attrition from the horse battery and to ignore the town sector and send the infantry to the far right to punch through the Austrian line.

The last turn.  The Austrian light infantry and hussars are rushing back across the river but too late for the main Austrian infantry brigade which was broken by the fast moving French columns massing all their force on the far right. 

Alas for the 5th Hussars unlucky dice rolling saw the Austrian Hussars break the unit and the battery, allowing those forces to recross the river, but the time this took meant that they were too late to influence the main infantry clash.  On the right bank the French were successful in ignoring the town, although Austrian sallies eliminated 2 French battalions.  The concentration of force on the far right meant that Friant was able to break Pzanfelter's Brigade and hence the Division.  So, Hausen remained in Austrian hands, but Friant's Division were able to break through the Austrian line - a French victory.

The game was fast and tactical and finished in just over 2 hours after set up - very playable.  

Alien Frontiers - 17 June 2015

Three Rivals at Adrian's for a game of Alien Frontiers, the dice placement/resource management game - sort of Alea Iacta Est in space.  The game mechanics are very clever and although (inevitably with a dice-based game) there is a lot of luck, the opportunities and viable tactics for scoring points keep it a close run thing.  All three of us used a different approach to accrue points but the Terraforming option (sacrificing a spaceship/die to get a colony immediately onto the planet) combined with good use of Alien Artefact cards allowed David to win out.  Final scores, David 11, James and Adrian each 9.  A very good game.

Japan project - scenery complete

I've now completed the fencing and gates around the village, based all the cherry blossom trees, and put together a bamboo grove.  The full scenery now looks like this.

Takai Ki village and the bamboo shrine:

Takai Ki shrine and cherry blossom trees:

Now on finally start painting the figures!

Japan Project - shrine miscellany

I received some grass flock yesterday from Total System Scenic who make the 2 foot by 2 foot gaming tiles we use, so I could base the gravestones from Oshiro confident that the grass would match.

Using some offcuts from the PlastCraftGames kits and the unused "thatch" fur from a 4Ground kit, I scratchbuilt a small shrine-keepers hut.

I painted the bridge from Sarissa a while ago but hadn't got round to taking a photo, so here it is too.

I've still got the cherry blossom and bamboo trees to base, and then I'll finally start on the figures themselves.

Tzolk'in - 1 June 2015

We managed to squeeze in an Extraordinary Games Night (the first on a Monday?) before Kieron leaves us on Wednesday.  He chose one of his favourites Tzolk'in (with the amazing rotating board) as his last game with the Rivals (for now).  With his copy in transit, Kieron had the added bonus of helping press out the pieces in David's unplayed copy.

However, despite our best efforts, we couldn't compensate for the wine Kieron had quaffed with dinner and he sadly came in last place with 39 points (plus some overlooked and unscored bonuses earlier in the game).  David still had his holiday head on and was only just ahead on 41.  Andy combined skulls and temple to reach 50 but James' all out attack on the temple points bonuses gave him 60.

A great evening to finish this chapter of the Rivals story.  Bon voyage, Kieron!

Japan Project - Takai Ki shrine

I've now completed the shrine for my Japan project, which will sit outside the village, now named Takai Ki.

I started with flat-pack kits of a building from Plast Craft Games and a torii gate from Sarissa, but I wanted to make more of a feature of the shrine.  I started with a piece of dense foam which I cut and edged with balsa.

I scored some marks on top to represent paving around the shrine and used my dremel to carve a stone wall effect into the balsa edges.  This was painted black and then dry brushed with grey and white.

The next step was to use thin balsa to construct a perimeter fence.

I painted the fence white and grassed the area between the paving and perimeter.  I constructed some steps and added a couple of lanterns.

The shrine itself required little painting.  I sprayed some elements in a bright red and painted the windows and doors.  More time consuming was etching the plain base to represent the grain of the floor boards.

The torii gate was painted in the same red and based.

There are a few finishing touches I plan to make but this is another big step of the project complete.