Thursday, 28 June 2012
Kingsburg - 20th June 2012
Unluckily, only 3 rivals made it round for games this week. Luckily for Kieron, this meant that he only had 2 people to out-roll in order to win. As luck would have it, Orhan started with a series of unfortunately low rolls which stunted his ability to make the best of two rivals new to the game. After the first year, Stuart was very unfortunate to be the only one to lose his battle which removed his chapel. Then, luckily for Kieron, it was Stuart's turn to have a series of unlucky rolls of '8' which he was unable to claim a mulligan on. Kieron made the best of his fortunate rolling and made a collection of gold which enabled him to construct the best buildings on his card. He risked all by not really concentrating on building an army and watched as lucky high rolls saved him in the battles. So unsurprisingly, Kieron won with 42 points. Orhan was unlucky to miss out with 41 and Stuart blamed it all on bad luck languishing on 31 points. If only as many games had as much luck in them; Kieron would be assured a win every time ;-)
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Canal Mania - 27 June 2012
The first outing for Canal Mania, purchased by James direct from the Ragnar Brothers at the recent UK Games Expo. This has elements of Railway Rivals, Ticket to Ride and Steam, but the jury is still out as to whether it combines the best elements of those games effectively (i.e. given the choice, would we rather play Ticket to Ride...?). But it is promising and worth a replay. BGG says best with 4 players and it has a pretty good score with lots of supporters (I'd checked BGG on my phone before buying) so I'm keen to try it again before we've completely forgotten the rules.
As with many of our other games, we use our huge brains to work out every possible option each round, and so end up turning a 90 minute game into one lasting 3 hours. I think that's where some of the dissatisfaction creeps in. If we'd finished it in an hour and a half, and then had a game of Ra (for example), I suspect we all (even Orhan! :-) would have gone home thinking it was a pretty good game. But as we invest more and more time, so our expectations grow.
Final scores: David won with 71, Adrian and Kieron both had 69, Orhan and James both on 63.
As with many of our other games, we use our huge brains to work out every possible option each round, and so end up turning a 90 minute game into one lasting 3 hours. I think that's where some of the dissatisfaction creeps in. If we'd finished it in an hour and a half, and then had a game of Ra (for example), I suspect we all (even Orhan! :-) would have gone home thinking it was a pretty good game. But as we invest more and more time, so our expectations grow.
Final scores: David won with 71, Adrian and Kieron both had 69, Orhan and James both on 63.
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Caylus - 6th June 2012
With only one Rival confirmed (although with 2 nil responses and an enigmatic "ok") I was preparing for anything from 2-5 players this week. As luck would have it Kieron, the only person I was expecting for sure was running late so when he turned up at 8.30 we settled for a 2 player game. At this point Stu phoned up - he'd already been over, seen no cars, assumed he'd got the location wrong and left.
Stu made it back over and we decided to play Caylus.
The initial set up presented some interesting problems - the woodcutter was placed ahead of any of the resource production buildings making it a little more difficult than usual to develop the town. For the first phase I managed to get a single build in rounds 1 and 3 while Kieron and Stu fought over a double build in round 2. Stu and I also managed to get a couple of buildings down. Kieron then started making use of the joust to gain extra favours and moved ahead of us in developing residential buildings at the expense of sacrificing some castle builds.
The endgame came very suddenly as Stu decided to make the most of his lead and rush the bailiff to the finish line. Kieron suddenly developed a prestige building and shot some 20 points into the lead. On the following turn he was able to both block my attempt to build a prestige building and influence the provost causing the bailiff to move to the finish line and win the game.
Except - I paid out to move the provost back and switched player order to put me first should there be another turn. It was then up to Stu - he could move the provost to cause the game to finish early, but probably give himself second place, or he could allow another turn and mix it up. He chose the latter.
At this point it looked like Kieron disintegrated. He hadn't planned for another turn and he'd effectively finished early. I on the other hand had a fist full of resources that Kieron had blocked me from using last turn and with first move was able to make sure I wasn't blocked. As Kieron and Stu fought over the victory point and gold earning buildings at the end of the road I was able to build a prestige building and earn enough favours to take the lead.
Final scores: David 100, Kieron 80, Stu 74.
Sorry Kieron...
Stu made it back over and we decided to play Caylus.
The initial set up presented some interesting problems - the woodcutter was placed ahead of any of the resource production buildings making it a little more difficult than usual to develop the town. For the first phase I managed to get a single build in rounds 1 and 3 while Kieron and Stu fought over a double build in round 2. Stu and I also managed to get a couple of buildings down. Kieron then started making use of the joust to gain extra favours and moved ahead of us in developing residential buildings at the expense of sacrificing some castle builds.
The endgame came very suddenly as Stu decided to make the most of his lead and rush the bailiff to the finish line. Kieron suddenly developed a prestige building and shot some 20 points into the lead. On the following turn he was able to both block my attempt to build a prestige building and influence the provost causing the bailiff to move to the finish line and win the game.
Except - I paid out to move the provost back and switched player order to put me first should there be another turn. It was then up to Stu - he could move the provost to cause the game to finish early, but probably give himself second place, or he could allow another turn and mix it up. He chose the latter.
At this point it looked like Kieron disintegrated. He hadn't planned for another turn and he'd effectively finished early. I on the other hand had a fist full of resources that Kieron had blocked me from using last turn and with first move was able to make sure I wasn't blocked. As Kieron and Stu fought over the victory point and gold earning buildings at the end of the road I was able to build a prestige building and earn enough favours to take the lead.
Final scores: David 100, Kieron 80, Stu 74.
Sorry Kieron...
Saturday, 26 May 2012
UK Games Expo - 26 May 2012
Andy and I attended the UK Games Expo in Birmingham today - about the fourth time we've been I think. The focus remains on board games with RPGs, fantasy and wargaming the secondary attractions. There are fewer and fewer figures traders each year - I don't think I spotted any that weren't science fiction or fantasy-related. That said, there were some historical wargaming participation games, including this great layout for a Pirates / Governor's Daughter scenario (although I failed in this photo to include the mansion to the left of the foreground):
I spent a short while chatting to the pirate who was GMing the game (he was in full garb - he looked quite hot, although I suspect the various storm troopers and daleks were the ones really sweltering) as they were using a newish ruleset called Cutlass! which I hadn't come across before. Had a quick look when I got home, but I think we'll stick with Legends of the High Seas given how infrequently we actually play with them (note to self to organise another one some time soon).
But anyway, we go for the board games, and I bought five. (And sold none - the Bring & Buy was poorly organised and the queue was horrendous, so I took my bin bag of games straight back to the car).
My new purchases are Canal Mania (echoes of both Railway Rivals and Ticket to Ride - produced by and bought from the Ragnar Brothers - had a chat with them again, agreeing to disagree about the relative virtues of a weekly Wednesday games night versus a Thursday one :-), the BoardGameGeek Board Game (published to celebrate 10 years of the website - 2nd hand from Ragnar Brothers), Notre Dame (a Rio Grande game from the Bring & Buy), and two clearance items from Leisure Games - The Indomitable Citadel and Section X (brand new and respectively £2 and £1, so don't get your hopes up). Expect to start seeing these games appear over the next few months. The last two are a bit random but the others were bought after reviewing scores and comments using my BoardGameGeek mobile phone app - very useful today!
I spent a short while chatting to the pirate who was GMing the game (he was in full garb - he looked quite hot, although I suspect the various storm troopers and daleks were the ones really sweltering) as they were using a newish ruleset called Cutlass! which I hadn't come across before. Had a quick look when I got home, but I think we'll stick with Legends of the High Seas given how infrequently we actually play with them (note to self to organise another one some time soon).
But anyway, we go for the board games, and I bought five. (And sold none - the Bring & Buy was poorly organised and the queue was horrendous, so I took my bin bag of games straight back to the car).
My new purchases are Canal Mania (echoes of both Railway Rivals and Ticket to Ride - produced by and bought from the Ragnar Brothers - had a chat with them again, agreeing to disagree about the relative virtues of a weekly Wednesday games night versus a Thursday one :-), the BoardGameGeek Board Game (published to celebrate 10 years of the website - 2nd hand from Ragnar Brothers), Notre Dame (a Rio Grande game from the Bring & Buy), and two clearance items from Leisure Games - The Indomitable Citadel and Section X (brand new and respectively £2 and £1, so don't get your hopes up). Expect to start seeing these games appear over the next few months. The last two are a bit random but the others were bought after reviewing scores and comments using my BoardGameGeek mobile phone app - very useful today!
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Amun-Re - 24th May 2012
Just 4 this evening for an outing of a game we have not played for years (and never in my case). What a clever game Amun-Re is with a really neat, quick bidding system and plenty to think about, lots of possible strategies, but a straightforward game at heart. Players bid for control of a territory and gain income from farmers they place after buying farmers, power cards (element of luck) and stones which convert to pyramids. There are 2 scoring rounds (old kingdom and new kingdom) where players score points for pyramids (and sets of pyramids) and positions of their territories (e.g. all in upper Nile, all along the Nile) if they have the correct power cards. At the end of the game, quite a few points can be scored for having the most money, but second and third places also score so this is not really a game decider. The tactic to win seemed to be to get the most pyramids. I did this and romped home with 42 points, Deej's winning streak was ended as he finished 2nd on 38 pipping Orhan on 37 and James was last again on 31. Once again my victory was hollowed by shouts of "there's too much luck in this game" but I can take it, after all it is becoming a Rivals tradition! One more for the light side Stu!
San Juan - 12th May 2012
Adrian had to leave early leaving the three of us the opportunity for a quick game of San Juan, the shorter card game version of Puerto Rico, with a similar feel and good fun. Worth a go if you have 45 minutes left at the end of an evening. Deej won through again. I must remember to stop picking on James (for a while!). Final scores: Deej 28, James 26, Kieron 24
Puerto Rico - 12th May 2012
The old firm met for another great game of PR. We could not remember what game knocked it off the top spot - not to worry. As it has been such a long time since we played, we all went for different tactics. James went for quality products but struggled to get enough on the boats. Deej went for a balanced game, but went all out for the city cards after managing to play the markets really well. Kieron grew loads of corn and shipped it out by the barrow load! Adrian went for quarries and took an early lead but did not get going on the production. Predictably, the large purple card bonuses won through for Deej (just) after Kieron ran him close with a huge haul of 44 points in cash alone. Final scores: Deej 57, Kieron 54, Adrian 44 (+6), James 43 (+2)
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