Salute 2015

Andy and I braved the traffic by driving to Excel yesterday for Salute 2015.  Last time we went was 2007 - the first year it moved from Earl's Court to Docklands.  This inevitably adds hours to the travel time.  Was it worth yet?  Definitely yes.  A cavernous hall with over 150 traders and incredibly over 100 demonstration and participation games.  So much to see we never found time to sit down and play any.  Lots of goblins and zombies stuff to ignore and plenty of proper historical things to see.  Resin models almost disappeared now and the air was rich with the aroma of laser cut MDF.

And even the extra hour or so across Central London has the benefit of passing most London highlights - the Museums, Harrods, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and more - although there is the share of lowlights too - mine was the gold-plated/wrapped Ferrari we saw in Knightsbridge.  #wereallinthistogether :-(

Almost all of my purchases were for my new Samurai project so I'll blog about those separately.  This posting will highlight the favourite game tables we saw.

The feature game from the Warlords who put on Salute was a great Stingray game, with the players given caps to wear and rudder wheels.

I was obviously looking at the various Samurai games for inspiration:

Other highlights included a WW1 game with a massive Zeppelin:

A Dambusters game with bouncing bomb splash markers and a breachable dam:

A game played inside the many levels of a Russian cold war ship:

A James Bond ski-chase game (with magnetised figures of course!):

A Wicker Man!

A rather nice looking Star Wars game:

An amazing layout with ships (mostly old ship models that had been bought up, had the keels cut off, and re-rigged):

Another ship game with ships mounted on dolleys (no, it wasn't a fantasy flying ship game - they had just got fed up of playing on the floor!):

Lastly, a wonderfully detailed WW2 game with tons of scenery and plenty of loose rubble.  Looked amazing, must have taken all evening to pack away:

Keyflower - 15 April 2015

First outing for new game Keyflower.  Stu didn't bring his copy to Adrian's but Adrian had his own (unplayed) copy, a Christmas present from Orhan, that was rapidly fetched from the cupboard, allowing Kieron to indulge (for the last time before Malawi?) his penchant for popping cardboard pieces out.

The Keyflower rules are quite lengthy to go through but as is often the case the game plays more smoothly than the rules might suggest.  Coloured meeples allow players either to use common (or opponents') tiles to generate resources and hence victory points, or to bid on those tiles to take them into the player's own village.  Meeples (in short supply) used to bid on or use common tiles are lost, but used on one's own tiles are retained, creating the imperative to develop one's own village.  Various combinations of resources are needed to upgrade tiles - and there is a significant number of variables and hence options.

The game took the full evening to go through the rules and play, with certain combinations and strategies becoming apparent during the course of the game.  Overall a good game and worth persevering with, but likely needing a succession of plays to get into its groove.  Scores:  James 56; Stu 50; Deej 49; Kieron 36; Adrian 34.

Vasco Da Gama - 25th March 2015

4 rivals came tonight for the very last night at Kieron's before he moves out. This one game is one of Deej and Kieron's favourites and is the last game to be packed!

Kieron took an early lead as very few ships were sailed. Andy decided to go for the money grab to restrict options which worked early on. However, due to lucky minus money cards coming out, the costs of actions were not too prohibitive until the very last turn when, poised to slot his ship into the last vacant top row slot, Andy found himself having to pay to sail because a positive card finally appeared and he was one coin short! This left Kieron free to put a 3rd ship in the top row and he sailed to victory for an unprecedented 4th win in a row (although he is claiming a 5th due to a win for the French in Sunday's Napoleonics)

Final scores: Kieron 74, Deej 64, Adrian 56, Andy 42

St Petersburg - 18 March 2015

First play of David's present to Andy, the second edition of St Petersburg.  This introduces an extra phase and a market, and allows a fifth player.  Kieron went straight into the market and developed a healthy lead.  Others joined the market later, and Andy and James pursued the original strategy of collecting nobles, slightly hampered by a lack of shuffling that left all the noble upgrade cards at the bottom of the pile, and consequently unplayed!

Final scores Kieron 73 (another win!), James 67, David 58, Stuart 55 and Andy 42.

Cleopatra and Ra - 4 March 2015

Egyptian night at Adrian's, starting with a game of Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, the Days of Wonder 3D crocodile-fest which Andy and David had never played.  Cards representing building materials and special characters are collected and then exchanged for building extensions to Cleo's palace.  Employing corrupt practices allows the players to build more and faster, but the most corrupt ends up being fed to the crocodiles.  The philosophy of going all out to build was taken to heart by James who ended up on 62 points, but was the most corrupt by a significant margin so was consumed by the crocs.  Kieron was thus the winner on 49, David on 41, Adrian on 37 and Andy on 36.  A fun game, which we should play more regularly than the 5 or so years between this game and its last outing.

We then had the obligatory go at Ra, David triumphing on 41, followed by Kieron on 39, James on 36 and Andy and Adrian equal last on 32.  Nefertititastic.

Notre Dame and Ra - 25 February 2015

Another play of the ingenious Notre Dame which has some neat mechanics and a nice theme.  A variety of strategies were employed and it was a high-scoring game across all players.  David won after making big donations at Notre Dame in the final rounds of the game, reaching 67 points, then James on 55, Kieron 54, Andy 50 and Stuart on 46.

Plenty of time for a hilarious game of Ra, notable for being (we think) the first time that a player has ended all three epochs with a smaller score than the 10 we each started with.  Another clear win with David on 44 with lots of buildings, James on 33, Andy 28, Stuart 23 and Kieron on 8 (no sniggering at the back please!).

Peloponnes - 12 February 2015

A full house and a short game, so lots of time to chat and catch up before and after.  We played Peloponnes with just the expansion to allow six players and some of the additional (possibly too powerful...?) starting civilizations.

Mixed outcomes for the players: James struggled to get going but a handy sea purchase in the last round helped him jump ahead of Kieron who simultaneously had a major population crash; Adrian had the closest pair of scores but with David just ahead of him (balancing his blessing of being immune to disasters with the curse of losing population every turn); then Andy with a large flexible income from his civilization developing a huge score (and probably on another night, a game-winning one); but he was eclipsed by Stuart with the biggest score yet in this game (one point more than he won with back in October 2013).

Final scores: Stuart population/prestige 48/39, Andy 42/32, David 24/31, Adrian 24/22, James 21/18 and Kieron 6/38.

This remains the best value for money game I've got - £9 in the Bring & Buy back at the 2011 UK Games Expo!