A series of unfortunate events resulted in Andy missing the news that the venue had switched from Adrian's to David's and consequently enjoying the chance to explore a lot more town than he was intending.
Given the delayed start we decided to go straight to an old favourite - St Petersburg with no need for rules reading and a quick setup. James looked to be disadvantaged in the first turn with the last most expensive pick of workers, but his luck turned when he had first pick of buildings and the Observatory appeared. With its ability to select a card pile and either buy, hold or discard the top card, James then built up an advantage in workers, and then with finances assured, switched to building a large collection of aristocrats. A couple of lucky draws cemented his victory (but I think he'd have won without this). Although it wasn't immediately clear, it turned out that the rest of us were scrapping for second place.
Final score: James: 108, David: 75, Stu 66, Andy: 61
The was enough time to bring out one of David's Christmas presents: Port Royal. This is a quick card game based around the idea of collecting people and ships to build up victory points. It has some clever mechanisms:
Face-up cards have the value of what is shown on the card, but face down cards are used as currency. This means that you can't rely on certain cards coming up later - they may well have been used to pay for something without you knowing about it.
It has a push-your-luck gameplay. You keep drawing cards to create a tableau from which you can make your purchases. However if two ships of the same colour appear your turn is abandoned. Drawing a lot of cards can also give others the chance to purchase cards on your turn, but this can be a source of income as you are paid a tax. Some of the characters have special abilities that encourage you to go for large draws, creating an interesting conflict.
The game played well, although the utility of some cards wasn't hugely apparent on first play. It was reasonably close until the end when Stu and James jumped ahead through completing expeditions to finish the game.
Final score: Stu: 18 James: 17, David: 15 and Andy: 13
Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Sunday, 24 January 2016
Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Rum
Another of the Sarissa sets was some pub and shop signs. The biggest of these is for The Drunken Parrot - the new name for the public house next time we play a Pirates game with my wooden frame buildings.
I also painted up a smaller Red Lion sign to fix to the pub in Walmington-on-Sea.
Dad's Army accessories
I got a load of Sarissa Precision laser cut kits from Louise for Christmas (how did she know?!). Some of these are for Wild West games but others were for Dad's Army. These are items that help "decorate the set" but can also be used as part of the scenario.
A bit of decoration for parkland and streets are these sets of benches:
I also got a set of telegraph poles:
I found that wedging them between two steel rules was the best way to hold them straight whilst the glue dried in the base. I painted them up and decorated the base. Eagle-eyed readers will notice there are only five in the final photo - the cat chewed up one of them whilst they were on my painting table!
The final item is a searchlight:
I used tin foil to form the reflector and painted the inside a metallic grey.
Now to design the next Dad's Army scenario...
A bit of decoration for parkland and streets are these sets of benches:
I also got a set of telegraph poles:
The final item is a searchlight:
I used tin foil to form the reflector and painted the inside a metallic grey.
Now to design the next Dad's Army scenario...
Thursday, 21 January 2016
Peloponnes & Ra - 20 January 2016
A full house this evening for another cracking double bill of Peloponnes and Ra. Most of the expansions for Peloponnes stayed in the box (as usual) since there are lots of opportunities for different approaches with the standard game plus the seas.
Adrian and Stuart got devastated by disasters hitting their population at the end of the game, James lost almost all of his buildings to an earthquake, Andy played a strong balanced game, but David surged ahead with about half a dozen tiles delivering huge amounts of resources each turn and achieving at one point the previously unheard of position of full population (20!). Final scores (population/prestige): David 36/29, Andy 21/27, James 30/17, Adrian 12/33, Stuart 12/27.
With Adrian departing for an early start the following day, the remaining four had another hilarious game of Ra. The highlight was Stuart starting the game with the strongest tile (13) but failing to actually use it until the third epoch.
After nine years of playing this game, it finally dawned on me that with fewer than five players, the Ra tiles are more likely to appear in later epochs than with 5 players. With five players, an epoch ends after 10 Ra tiles are drawn - so 10 Ra tiles per epoch. But with three players for example. the epoch ends after 8 Ra tiles - so in the final epoch there are 14 Ra tiles left in the bag. Not a problem and people suggesting tweaks to this most respected of games seem to get pretty roasted on Board Game Geek, so I don't think we remove Ra tiles with fewer players - it's just something worth considering when you're trying to get a full run of tiles towards the end of the game.
Andy won this game well ahead with a good haul of buildings - final scores Andy 52, David 39, Stuart 34 and James 29.
And as an added bonus, here's a cute photo from a player who clearly travels with their copy of the game! Several more on BGG in a similar style here.
Adrian and Stuart got devastated by disasters hitting their population at the end of the game, James lost almost all of his buildings to an earthquake, Andy played a strong balanced game, but David surged ahead with about half a dozen tiles delivering huge amounts of resources each turn and achieving at one point the previously unheard of position of full population (20!). Final scores (population/prestige): David 36/29, Andy 21/27, James 30/17, Adrian 12/33, Stuart 12/27.
With Adrian departing for an early start the following day, the remaining four had another hilarious game of Ra. The highlight was Stuart starting the game with the strongest tile (13) but failing to actually use it until the third epoch.
After nine years of playing this game, it finally dawned on me that with fewer than five players, the Ra tiles are more likely to appear in later epochs than with 5 players. With five players, an epoch ends after 10 Ra tiles are drawn - so 10 Ra tiles per epoch. But with three players for example. the epoch ends after 8 Ra tiles - so in the final epoch there are 14 Ra tiles left in the bag. Not a problem and people suggesting tweaks to this most respected of games seem to get pretty roasted on Board Game Geek, so I don't think we remove Ra tiles with fewer players - it's just something worth considering when you're trying to get a full run of tiles towards the end of the game.
Andy won this game well ahead with a good haul of buildings - final scores Andy 52, David 39, Stuart 34 and James 29.
And as an added bonus, here's a cute photo from a player who clearly travels with their copy of the game! Several more on BGG in a similar style here.
Sunday, 10 January 2016
Keira Knightley in 28mm
One day I will also put on another pirate figures game... an extra incentive is this new governor's daughter figure which could provide some good rescue/capture scenarios:
They don't like it up 'em!
Encouraged by Stuart's recent enthusiastic recollection of the Dad's Army game I put on in November 2014, I finally finished painting my new figures. Last time we played with my Foundry models which were bought around 15 years ago. I sold them on eBay and got a set of the Bolt Action figures instead.
Importantly, this set includes Private Walker (criminally omitted from the Foundry set) and the extra bonus is that as well as all the characters in their Home Guard uniforms:
...they also come in their civilian dress:
The set also includes Reverend Timothy Farthing, Verger Maurice Yeatman and of course ARP Warden William Hodges:
So in rank order, we have Captain George Mainwaring:
Sergeant Arthur Wilson:
Lance-Corporal Jack Jones:
Private Charles Godfrey:
Private James Frazer:
Private Joe Walker:
and of course Private Frank Pike:
Even Hodges is available in his greengrocer's coat:
I'm painting a few more accessories and then I shall put on another Dad's Army game.
Importantly, this set includes Private Walker (criminally omitted from the Foundry set) and the extra bonus is that as well as all the characters in their Home Guard uniforms:
...they also come in their civilian dress:
The set also includes Reverend Timothy Farthing, Verger Maurice Yeatman and of course ARP Warden William Hodges:
So in rank order, we have Captain George Mainwaring:
Sergeant Arthur Wilson:
Lance-Corporal Jack Jones:
Private Charles Godfrey:
Private James Frazer:
Private Joe Walker:
and of course Private Frank Pike:
Even Hodges is available in his greengrocer's coat:
I'm painting a few more accessories and then I shall put on another Dad's Army game.
Five Tribes - 7 January 2016
First play of Adrian's Xmas present - Five Tribes - a very nicely produced Days of Wonder game which is ranked 35th on the Boardgamegeek list. Simple and novel game mechanisms, lots of choice, and not too long to play. The four of us employed different strategies - Adrian, James and Andy all specialising to some extent. David's extremely balanced approach to seeking to score from all the 8 scoring possibilities led to a commanding win: David 163, James 146, Adrian 127 and Andy 86. I'm sure that this one will get played again.
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