Peloponnes & Ra - 20 May 2015

This was the penultimate games night before Kieron departs and the last occasion for board games, so a couple of favourites were brought out.

First Peloponnes without any of the expansions.  James benefited from a civilisation that grew in population every round but Andy suffered from an earthquake and Adrian lost a group of people in the final turn, giving final scores (population/prestige) of James 39/33, David 28/35, Kieron 33/27, Andy 24/22 and Adrian 15/31.

Then Ra which is always fun.  Fittingly, this was yet another win for Kieron who stormed home with 52 points, master builder Andy 2nd on 40 points, then David 32, Adrian 29 and James just 23.

Keyflower - May 6th

We engaged the fast-return-switch to revisit Keyflower, a game we played a few weeks ago. Andy suffered from not having played this before, and struggled to get enough production going. This game is not kind to first-time players. James went for a strategy of collecting and upgrading high VP buildings. Kieron and Adrian both started producing lots of resources with the hope of securing a high VP payout. David played a conservative meeple hoarding strategy and was able to make it pay off by grabbing some buildings that paid out for population, just pipping Adrian's massive resource score.

The scores were: David 74, Adrian 70, Kieron 61, James 50, Andy 28

This is a strange game. The big VP payouts are gained through collection of the high scoring buildings at the end of the game. However you are often already committed to a strategy by the time they are available, leaving very little room for manoeuvre. I was very lucky in the last round that three meeple scoring tiles were available and I was able to secure two of them.

The Castles of Burgundy - 29 April 2015

Another play for this very clever game.  As we noted, the scoring strategies pretty much converge with four players because every tile is available (this isn't the case with 2 or 3 players).  Kieron soared away following his recent pattern of establishing a strong lead but with Adrian not far behind him, and Andy and James dawdling some way back.

But as the other strategies started to score victory points later in the game, the gaps closed, and in the final scoring there were big scores, particularly from Andy who almost but not quite overtook Kieron.

In the last phase, we were a couple of tiles a short.  A knowledge tile that we could easily work out (number 16) and an animal tile that we couldn't (and so we agreed to randomly re-introduce a discarded tile).  Having now sorted through all the tiles, the real missing tile contains sheep, but we'd brought back a discarded pig tile which was to my benefit as the only pig farmer.  So I think the real winner would have been Adrian.  But then again, I'm the one who just sorted through dozens of little tiles when I should have gone to bed, so I'll record the actual scores achieved on the night :-)

I've e-mailed the games company on the off-chance that I might be able to get spare tiles from them.  I know I've a little collection of games parts I've found on the floor after games nights, so if anyone else finds these missing two tiles, do let me know!

Final scores: James 221, Adrian 219, Kieron 193, Andy 192

Hang 'em high!

I exercised significant self-control at Salute in buying nothing for any existing game (Wild West, Pirates, Dads' Army) and focussing on building up the Samurai Project.

With one exception.

My cardboard Wild West town is wearing well.  Except the gallows which obviously don't have the box structure of the buildings to keep them square.  I found a laser cut MDF flat pack for just £2 and had to have it.

A very quick build which was a practice run for the 4ground Japanese buildings.  A simple construction with a trap door which I hinged with tape, and I made a proper hangman's noose.

Butcher Casually prepares to meet his maker...

Dancing the "High Noon" jig...

Japan Project - the raw materials

I returned from our recent trip to Japan with a very clear idea of what my next 28mm project should be.  I had two weeks before Salute to do some research and place some orders for collection.

I bought a selection of buildings, gates and fencing from 4Ground to create a village.

A building from Plast Craft Games, and a torii gate and bridge from Sarissa will make up the shrine area (along with some gravestones I'll order from Oshiro as they'd sold out by the time I got to their stand).

I collected my pre-order of Perry Miniatures Samurai metal figures - Samurai with swords, Ikko-Ikki with mixed weapons, and Ninja with various weapons:

plus Samurai fighting with swords in everyday clothing, a selection of town people, and armed monks attacking with naginata:

By a happy coincidence, the trees I had ordered from a Hong Kong-based eBay seller had been delivered whilst we were at Salute.  The trees are made of dark brown wire with pink, white and green "fluff" attached to represent cherry blossom and leaves.  They are inevitably compressed when they come out of the bag (bottom left) but a minute of coaxing results in a very effective looking tree.  They are about 12cm high, which is about four times the height of a based figure, so the scale is fine.

There's a lot of building and painting now required.  And I'm thinking about how best to do the terrain, perhaps some modular tiles, or some paths and waterways that can be laid down.

Adrian dug out for me an old copy of Wargames Illustrated that provided an adaptation of Legend of the High Seas for use with this period, so that's the primary option for rules.  I'm also considering Ronin, which is Osprey's set of skirmish rules.  Lots of fun ahead!

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.