BKC Eastern Front - 29 October 2018

There was quite a furore last year following the publication of BKC version 3.  Pendraken bought the rights from the author of version 1 and 2 but took ages to release their update and the changes, particularly to the army lists, were not well received.  After waiting months for the promised re-write, Andy and I finally got our money back at Salute this year.  Version 4 is reportedly in advanced preparation and release is planned for Christmas.  We'll see.

In the meantime, we went back to version 2 for an early WW2 game Andy arranged between Germany and Russia, utilising a dedicated approx 4x4ft board that Andy had painted along with recently purchased buildings and hedgerows.

Andy's Russians were defending the town and had to hold off James' German blitzkrieg.  James advanced tanks to line-of-sight of the town's defenders and starting the attack, supported by devastating mortars on the hill.

German infantry were transported on the other flank, before dismounting and making an assault on the town via a swamp.

The Germans were supported by a Stuka which did some damage to Russian troops in the town before being taken out by some sharp shooting by the Russian command unit.

It was James' third Command Blunder that actually did him some good - one of his commands had to advance full move towards the nearest enemy.  This resulted in a pretty effective Close Assault on the Russia defenders. 

At the end of the seventh turn, the town was being cleared of Russians but the Russian reinforcements were holding the ford behind the village, so a minor victory for the Germans.

We managed with the rules reasonably well - still a struggle to find the thing you're looking for but it didn't hold us up too much.  We won't rush to buy version 4 until we've seen how it goes down on the Pendraken forum.  Good to get the tanks out on the table again!

Roman civil war - 28 October 2018

Adrian and I went round to Jonathan's on Sunday for another big figures game.  Jonathan fielded the usual table of well-painted figures along with a new set of scenery tiles for a clash between Roman factions vying for control of the declining empire.

We used the excellent Augustus to Aurelian ruleset again.  These rules work really well with the randomness resulting from the use of counters being drawn to activate commands, along with Event cards, and the crucial "Carpe Diem" chits.

The lines of deployment were formed by a short initial skirmish: Adrian and James both had five units to bring on.  They could move 12 inches but not within 12 inches of an enemy, and not further than 18 inches of another friend.  So as we brought on units and pressed towards certain game objectives, a non-linear deployment line was created.  Very clever idea.

The objectives were the central point of the plain (2 points), a ford with abandoned baggage...

...and a dilapidated fort, worth one point each...

The close deployment lines meant that ranged attacks happened immediately and close combat wasn't far behind.  On one flank, mounted troops clashed resulting in Adrian's horse chasing off James' camels.

Adrian's allies holding the ford proved unreliable and James' troops came from the hill to chase them off.  On the other flank, James' cataphractii (with the help of a motley crew of mercenaries deployed by Jonathan's youngest) entered and held the fort.

As time ran out, Adrian was holding the central plain...

...and James held the ford and the fort.  Two victory points each - a well-fought draw and a great game.

Peloponnes & The Mind - 26 September 2019

A full house this evening for another great game of Peloponnes where David, yet again, drew the population growth civilisation.  There was a lot of money floating around in this game but with a famine and an earthquake before the last feed, food stocks were hit and some populations took a dive.  Final scores were Adrian 27 population and 30 prestige, James 33/21, Stuart 18/20, David 15/29 and Andy 12/16.

We then tried out a new game called The Mind.  This was a nominee for the 2018 Spiel des Jahres and won the critic's prize.  Essentially very simple: from a deck of cards labelled 1 to 100, players receive a hand of 1 card (then 2, 3 etc in following rounds) and, without communicating, they have to empty their hands in numerical order.  Get it wrong, lose a life.  With four players, try to complete Level 8 before losing four lives.  There are also shuriken cards which can be used to enable each player to discard their lowest numbered card, but we didn't quite work out how to use that to best effect.

We got as far as Level 6 a couple of times and were steadily improving how we played, learning what how long to wait for particular gaps between cards.  The group thinking does synchronise as you play.  Similarly, when it goes wrong, it tends to go wrong again quickly.  But when it runs really smoothly, it does feel rather good.  A fun little game for the end of an evening.

David - your potential exploit about discarding 100 is discussed here.  I guess it's probably better to play out and hope not to lose life, rather than definitely throwing one away...

St Petersburg - 19 September 2019

Over to Andy's for another game of firm favourite St Petersburg.  David and James both achieved 79 points but David took the win with five roubles remaining to James' two, and Andy scored 54.

Peloponnes & Medici - 5 September 2018

Two incredibly close games this evening.  The first was Peloponnes where, unusually, none of the disasters or final feeds had a really devastating effect on anyone.  David won with 29 prestige and 30 population, then Andy with 33 and 28, and finally James with 35 and 27.

We next played Medici - the old Spiel des Jahres winner from Reiner Knizia with a great bidding mechanism and opportunities for brinkmanship.  We haven't played this for almost two years but it's a cracking game.  Final scores were James 142, Andy 140 and David 139.

Airlines Europe - 22 August 2018

First play of Airlines Europe, the revised version (21 years later) of Airlines, which we played a few weeks back.

I'm pleased to say this lived up to expectations.  Same essential gameplay as Airlines but much clearer and less fiddly to play, and with vastly improved production values including the lovely little aeroplanes.

It's quite a short game (just over an hour with the three of us) and the first scoring round arrived much more quickly than we were expecting.  Good fun to play, some judgement in when to declare your interests in airlines, and some interaction in either grabbing the coat tails of other players' successful airlines or trying to take them over.

And in a further indicator of a well-designed game, the scores were incredibly close: Stuart 74, James 73 and David 71.

Russian Railroads - 2 August 2018

James brought his new birthday game - Russian Railroads over first a first play. This is definitely one of those games where the playing of the game is easier than the rule reading would suggest.

Players are building 3 Russian railways through placing different types of track, obtaining trains, developing engineering, building factories and recruiting engineers. As you develop the railway track, bonuses and opportunities are opened. For some bonuses the power of the trains is important. Recruiting engineers gives some in-game advantages and the most engineers earns an end-game bonus.

The game uses worker placement to decide actions, so awareness of what others want to do is needed to make sure you don't get blocked out.

In some ways the game reminded me of Tzolk'in where a number of different tracks offer many different ways of scoring points. In the same way as with that game, working out which of the many options to pursue is critical. Some options score early, some build for big points later.

David bought a lot of engineers and used them early to score bonus points and get an early lead.

James went all out on the Kiev line, helped by an early acquisition of a level 9 train. This line earns massive bonus points and for a while looked like an unbeatable combination as he caught up with David and then took the lead.

For this first game, Andy and James both balanced track building with industry and factories. This was a bit limited as the factories only really started appearing towards the end of the game, earning Andy some big points in the last couple of rounds.

At the end, David completed the Vladivostok line and was able to bring the high scoring white track into play with some double score markers. This combined with the most engineers bonus let him overtake James and win the game.

Scores: David 291, James 255, Andy 195.