Power Grid - 12 September 2007

After watching Michael Owen put two goals past the Russians, we stopped watching the England game at half-time reasonably confident of a home win (final score 3-0, Owen 7', 31', Ferdinand 84') and turned to the Italy expansion of Power Grid, one of our favourite games.

Andy and James started next to each other in Tuscany whilst Kieron established a base in Sicily, figuring that the expensive connections would be offset by not having to fight over the towns. With three players however, there was plenty of lebensraum for everyone, and very few towns had more than player connected even at the end.

The game played out very differently to previous times. The expansions were steady and measured, several turns had players not bidding for power plants, or not building to any new cities, and this allowed us to play out different strategies rather than chase the person expanding the most.

We realised that a sudden late surge to build up to 17 cities, even if you could only fuel a dozen of them, could win you a game. Andy was first to try this and unfortunately, although he could fuel the most cities at the time, he fell just a few Electro (the game's currency) short of building the 17th city he needed to win the game.

The following turn there was lots of costly bidding for final power plants, crucially allowing James to secure 5/6/7-sized power plants against Andy's 5/5/7, and so James was able to fuel 18 cities and win the game. Andy's shortage of money meant he couldn't fuel all of his cities and so Kieron, with less cities than Andy but enough fuel for all of them, pipped him into second place. A really fun evening. Top game.

Emira - 5 September 2007

Emira is one of the second-hand games picked up by James at the Games Expo in Birmingham earlier this year. A gloriously politically incorrect game (for which the rules are rather too apologetic) where sheiks attract princesses to their harems, by making themselves as attractive as possible to match the preferences of the princesses.

The heart of the game is in the bidding for the right to take the next action - when that action (buying a trade caravan, extending the palace) cannot be repeated by another player that turn. Different tactics included earning money through caravans (Andy) and significantly enhancing his sheik's appearance (Adrian), although it was David's enlarged palace that attracted the most princesses - rather too quickly as it turned out as they are costly to keep!

Andy played a masterstroke in the last turn which allowed him to set the preferences of the last princess, and so was able to add her to his harem, and win the game (for the first time this year I think). By the suggested points system counting princesses and other status items, the rest of the order was probably something like David, Adrian, Kieron and James.

A fun game with a neat mechanism. Definitely worth another play soon to try some different strategies.

Pirates CCG - 24 July 2007

A big four-player game with almost 30 ships on the board. We put together four fleets (Pirates, English, two Spanish) of 100 points each, and played on four of the fold-out seamaps that Andy had taped together. We randomly placed eight islands with two of them actually being fog banks, and put five treasure pieces on each of the six real islands plus the three on the map. The peaceful starting position looked like this...


Andy, David and James set out for the nearby islands to start collecting gold. Kieron's tactic was to sail an armada towards James' nearest ships. James defended with his largest ships whilst his small, swift ships continued to explore islands and collect gold. Kieron and James sea battle continued all game, leaving them both with just a couple of ships - and a lot of flotsam and jetsam...

Andy had a small battle with Kieron and held on to the far eastern island, and also briefly visited the Kieron/James naval warfare to take out James' well-placed fort before it could do to much damage to Kieron. David had a quiet but effective early game, eventually succumbing and attacking Andy in order to see a bit of action. The end result looked like this...

The final tally of treasure saw David win with 50 gold pieces, James second with 39, Andy third with 29, and Kieron last with none!

We talked about the following amendments for next time we play:

• simultaneous firing
• nine treasures per island (as the rules indicate, not the five we used)
• a scoring system to include enemy ships destroyed and own ships lost, as well as treasure

A great looking game that is a lot of fun to play. A few Rival tweaks and we'll have a cracking game here. Played at Andy's before he and Kieron set off for their Bulgarian adventure.

Power Grid - 27 June 2007

With most of the rivals away and some AWOL, Russell was drafted in to join Stuart and Kieron for another cracking game of Power Grid. We played the Benelux countries which have the interesting rule that any ecological power stations immediately become available if they are turned up. The 33 'green for 4' station appeared very early and Russell immediately snatched it for face value as Stu and Kieron had already bought their stations. Stuart's power stations were resource dependent and Kieron had a mixture including a trash burning station that he only used once. Building was fairly rapid in an open board and Stu soon started phase 2 after about 30 minutes. Kieron and Russell had a moment of madness when the 50 'blue for 6' turned up. Kieron eventually won it for 141 Elektro and was cleaned up for the rest of the evening! The game ended before the third phase even began when Kieron helpfully pointed out to Russell that with the money he had left over from not buying the 50 point station he had enough funds to build to 17 cities, end the game and claim victory for being able to power just 10 cities!! Stuart was left being able to power 9 of his 13 and Kieron, although he had stations totalling 14, could only power 9 as he ran out of money to build any cities or buy resources to power the stations! Thus is was 1st Russell (again)10 powered cities, 2nd Stuart (more money than Kieron) 9 powered cities, 3rd Kieron 9 powered cities
What a great game this is.

Pirates CCG - 20 June

The first outing of the Pirates collectable card game which both James and Adrian had bought in the last few weeks - part of a series starting with Pirates of the Spanish Main, and most recently (to tie in the latest Pirates film) Pirates at Ocean's Edge. Wonderfully illustrated pirate ships are pressed out of the cards, and constructed in 3D to make really nice-looking models. Players control a group of ships to explore islands, discover treasure and fight each other.



The rules are quite simple but have some neat mechanisms, with all the info you need about your ship on its card. Notable exceptions in the rules are Wind (ships move the same distance in any direction), moving or shooting each turn (and not both) and initiative (which we introduced as rolls at the beginning of each turn). So further rules tweaking is needed or we might try using versions of Wooden Ships & Iron Men or similar rulesets which have been adapted for use with these ships.



The game started with mad rushes towards islands and we all starting stocking up with gold to return to our home bases. When the gold was more scarce, battles commenced - and masts were rapidly blasted off many of the ships - see devastation above. The number of treasures collected were roughly the same but their values meant Adrian was well ahead, with James second and Kieron cursing his paltry collection of 1 and 2 gold pieces.


A fun, good-looking game... but one not to be taken too seriously.

DBM 5 June Alexander v Asoka

Another practice game for Anderida, this time allowing Andy and James' Macedonians to have a go against a Classical Indian army from 270BC (the Mauryas under Asoka). The Macedonians had thinned out their cavalry command a bit, and had massed their light troops on their right and left flanks respectively. Phalanx and Artillery held the centre. The Indians had a soft centre of cavalry, chariots, light horse and expendables (which was pretty much impervious to pike). Each flank had superior bow, war wagons, elephants and some light troops.

The battle opened with the expendables destructing on the phalanx and James' knights setting off abortively towards the centre, only to retreat from bow fire and the elephant threat. That flank put the Macedonian horse under heavy pressure - they retreated throughout the game and were one element from breaking at 11pm when we stopped. In the centre, the phalanx advanced but found it hard to get to grips with the Indian cavalry. On our right, the Macedonian auxilia cheerfully presented themselves to be shot at by our bow for most of the game, never daring to attack. Throughout all this Alexander and his companion cavalry sat at the back. Perhaps things would have been different had he been true to his historical nature.
;-)

So, a 5 - 5 draw when we stopped. Another fun game.

UK Games Expo - 2 June 2007

Our first visit to the UK Games Expo in Birmingham. Kieron and I drove up and met Adrian, Fred & Felix. First set of advantages over Salute - entry half the price (£3.95), free parking and less than an hour's drive.

The Expo was held in the Clarendon Suites, a typically charmless sixties carbuncle, but with several large conference rooms and places to get a drink and bite to eat. With our goody bag collected, we started exploring. Perhaps half the size of Salute and with the balance more towards board games than miniatures, but the latter still well represented despite the lack of Salute stalwarts like Essex. A small number of computer games stands as well, giving Kieron and I the opportunity to try ten-pin bowling on the Nintendo Wii (which was surprisingly fun).

As well as game shops, there were also several stands of entrepreneurs with their board game inventions, and it was interesting to see those and chat with them. There was a big stall of second-hand games which provided most of my and Kieron's purchases, but I also succumbed to a Pirates of the Spanish Main pack and some female gunslingers for my Wild West scenarios.

There was a really nice atmosphere at the show. No pushing and shoving around the stalls, much easier to see what you wanted and talk to sellers. The now seemingly obligatory Star Wars re-enactors were wandering about which the boys enjoyed. Weather was wonderful too which helped, as we had a lovely drive up and had a lunch break outside on the grass.

There were lots of (mainly board) games to join in with (plus competitions in a couple of the halls) but none of the big set-piece demonstrations that you find at Salute (the only downside). On balance, I enjoyed the Expo more than Salute this year (the miniatures at Salute seem to have been mostly Sci-Fi and Fantasy in the last couple of years), and so I hope we can have a bigger Rivals trip to Birmingham next June.