Eight Minute Empire & Downfall of Pompeii - 29 July 2015

First play of David's birthday gift to James.  Eight Minute Empire claims to be learned in one minute and played in twenty (not sure where the eight comes from...).  The small board has a large number of territories on a small number of continents.  Players buy cards that allow then to add counters to the board, or move them across land and sea, and a couple of other options, in order to maximise the territories and continents they control.  But the cards also represent resources, and sets of these earn additional points at the end of the game.  Neat, good fun and does play in 20-30 minutes even with us!  Final scores: James 12, Andy 9, David 8 and Stuart 7.

Plenty of time for a medium-length second game - Downfall of Pompeii.  The first half of the game is placing people, and the second half is directing lava flows over your opponents - Nya Ha Ha!  Final scores: Stuart 8, David 7, James 7 (3rd place since more people killed by lava!), and Andy 5.

Tikal II - 15 July 2015

We hadn't played this for a long while and it was new to a couple of the crew.  Quite long instructions to get through but a reasonably simple game to play with a nice theme (although teleportation of keys and treasures appears to occur between canoeist and explorer!).

Adrian created a strong early lead by exploring the secret buildings outside the main pyramid and maintained it for the rest of the game, with David just reaching him at one point.  James squeezed into 2nd place ahead of David in the final scoring thanks to pair of bonus cards, with Andy in 4th.

Shako - 8 July 2015: 1809 mini-campaign game 1

Aiming for a figures game every month or so, this week saw a tactical game of Shako hopefully leading up to a refight of the 1809 Battle of Eckmuhl between the French and her German Allies and the Austrians.  In this Divisional battle, Friant's 2nd Division of Davout's III French Corps (James and Andy) engaged the Austrian General Sommariva's Division (JP and David) who were defending the village of Hausen.  Given their requirement to attack into the face of the Austrian defence the French had slightly more troops - Pajol's Brigade consisting of the 5th Hussars plus a Horse Battery; Grandeau's Brigade consisting of the 108th and 111th Line Regiments; and Barbanegre's Brigade of the 48th Line Regiment - the latter Brigades with Foot Batteries and detached skirmishers.

The Austrian defenders had Radivojevich's column consisting of the Austrian 3rd Hussars plus two Battalions of the 9th Grenz Infantry; and Pfanzelter's column made up of 5 large battalions of Austrian line infantry (3 battalions of Manfredini's Infantry Regiment number 12 and 2 battalions of the Wurzburg Infantry Regiment number 3), also with guns and skirmishers.  The Austrian infantry were deployed defending the town and the light troops and hussars on the other side of the river - fordable just below the Austrian front line.

I opted to use a new mechanism for deployment, given each side playing cards representing the position of their Brigades plus an additional dummy cavalry card.  The players could see whether the opposite side was deploying infantry or cavalry but not the exact make up of the force and one of the cavalry cards was a blind.  

After the first move - French Hussars and Horse Battery approach the Austrians on the left bank whilst the French infantry move in echelon to the far right

The French tactics were to try to break the Austrian forces on the left bank by attrition from the horse battery and to ignore the town sector and send the infantry to the far right to punch through the Austrian line.

The last turn.  The Austrian light infantry and hussars are rushing back across the river but too late for the main Austrian infantry brigade which was broken by the fast moving French columns massing all their force on the far right. 

Alas for the 5th Hussars unlucky dice rolling saw the Austrian Hussars break the unit and the battery, allowing those forces to recross the river, but the time this took meant that they were too late to influence the main infantry clash.  On the right bank the French were successful in ignoring the town, although Austrian sallies eliminated 2 French battalions.  The concentration of force on the far right meant that Friant was able to break Pzanfelter's Brigade and hence the Division.  So, Hausen remained in Austrian hands, but Friant's Division were able to break through the Austrian line - a French victory.

The game was fast and tactical and finished in just over 2 hours after set up - very playable.  

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!