Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures: War at Sea - 2 January 2008

With other gamers variously being out of the country/county/energy, David and James got together for the first games night of 2008. After discussing Andy and James' candidate army for Anderida (and getting some useful tips from the Deejmaster), it was a good opportunity to play one of James' two-player games for the first time - Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures: War at Sea - a birthday present from Adrian.

Despite having a ludicrously long name, this is a short and simple game, but no less fun for that. It's a collectible game (usually worrying, but perhaps not in this case) and the starter pack comes with 9 lovely little models of WW2 ships, submarines and aircraft, and two 30" x 40" playing maps. We had to conscript a German Kondor patrol bomber to fight for the Allies in order to better balance the two sides.

Game turns consist of initiative, movement, air defence and attack, followed by surface and torpedo attacks. Rules worked well and rolling a handful of dice as a wing of Spitfires attacked a Japanese destroyer was rather fun.

We had about half the number of units required for a full game, and the bloody and explosive affair was over reasonably quickly, with David winning for the Axis. James plans to look for some additional units on eBay so we can then see how it really plays will the full complement of units. This looks like a good quick game for one of our 2-or-3-games-in-a-evening affairs, and once we have twice as many units on the table, this would be a good game to play in teams too.

Ticket To Ride - 22 December 2007

In what may possibly be the last games night of the year, we gathered with guest gamer Russell to try James' Christmas present from Adrian - Ticket To Ride. This is a card collecting game where sets of cards allow you to place railway carriages to connect towns (and earn points) on a map of North America. Points are also earned by connecting pairs of towns indicated on secret Destination Tickets held by each player, and by owning the longest continuous path of routes.

Players tried different tactics - trying to connect their Destinations first, or accruing points early by building the longest routes - but the scores were pretty close. James just managed to add to his track in the last couple of turns to get the same length route as Adrian, preventing the 10 point bonus taking Adrian past him. So the final scores were James (Red) 112, Adrian (Blue) 105, Kieron (Yellow) 94, Andy (Green) 82 and Russell (Black) 68 - unusually not winning this visit.


There was some discussion about whether the "longest continuous path of routes" meant the most trains of one colour which were connected, or the longest path traced by those trains without branching. Posts on the Board Game Geek forum here and here say the latter, so that's what we'll play. It didn't affect the final player order in this game, but would have brought Andy's score to just a scrape behind Kieron.

Since it wasn't a school night, we brought Medici back out for another outing. Adrian was alone in remembering exactly how he'd creamed us last time we played this, and so he thrashed us again. Adrian 129, Russell 100, James 98, Kieron 96 and Andy 65.

A fun games night punctuated by hacking coughs from most of the participants.

Train Robbery - 12 December 2007

At long last, James' 2006 birthday present from the boys of a Wild West train finally made it on to the gaming table. Using the Warhammer "Legends of the Old West" ruleset, the boys played four train robbers with James defending the train. The rules worked well and the motion of the train was nicely simulated by sliding the scenery down the table. Adrian, David and Kieron got stuck in and attacked the train, with Kieron drawing fire from the defenders. He failed to make the jump onto the train but a discretionary hero point allowed him to find a handhold and he managed to cling to the side. Andy took a rather longer route to the train, weaving in and out of cacti and cattle, and just made it to the action at the end of the game. The defenders were gradually overcome, and the cowboys escaped with the safe. Lots of fun.

To watch video on full screen, view it here on You Tube.

Edison & Ra - 28 November 2007

Edison was the other game that James picked up at Colours (Newbury). A strange little game - presents itself as a racing/influencing game but there's little incentive to get the racers around the track once they're sat on a position that could give them high points when scoring happens. Nice figures but dull to play. One for eBay. James won, then Adrian followed by Kieron (it might have been the other way round but we'd lost the will to add up the final scores).

Cheered ourselves up with another cracking game of Ra. This game has never failed us. Even worked well with just three despite the reduction in Derren-ing opportunities. James got off to a good strong start and held on to the lead even though he was ending up with the low value Suns. Kieron did the equivalent of Formula Motor Racing's Charge move at the end of the game, trying to fill up a good auction track he alone could bid on. Sadly, but hilariously, he pulled out the final Ra card to finish the game before he could collect. Engine blows.

Final scores: James 46, Adrian 27, Kieron 26

Medici - 31 October 2007

Another game bought at Colours earlier this year, Medici is another cracking game from Reiner Knizia. Players are medieval merchants bidding on a range of commodities. Points are accrued by collecting the most of a particular commodity with extra points for getting the maximum number. Quite simple to understand but with the usual complexities involved in a bidding game. Adrian came out top in both games - the scores on the doors were Adrian 95 Andy 84 Kieron 80 David 75 James 61, and then Adrian 117 David 102 James 91 Andy 90 Kieron 77

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.