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!