Peloponnes & Ra - 19 October 2016

One of the classic double acts of games.  First we played Pelopennes with the Victoria expansion, which allows players to purchase a 2nd tile at face value once in the game - or alternatively score an additional 3 prestige or population points at the end.  David has the population-producing civilization tile again and by the middle of the game was at the maximum 20 population.  Andy bought up all the stone producing resource tiles and relied on the luxury goods from his over-production to meet this food demands.  After a wobbly start, James built up a good set of buildings and bought coinage in the last round so that his pile of money was worth 1 prestige point for every two, rather than every three coins.  The different strategies resulted in a very close result, with Andy taking the win.  Final scores: Andy 30/29 population/prestige, James 27/34 and David 27/31.

Then a quick game of Ra with the usual teasing and Russian roulette moments.  Final scores: James 63, David 54, Andy 35.

St Petersburg - 12 October 2016

Andy forced us to play St Petersburg (yet again).  It's a good job we all think this is a marvellous game!  Andy hadn't yet spotted David's understated write-up of Andy's win a couple of weeks ago so here's a photo of the finishing position for posterity (clockwise from top, David, Andy, James).

This week, Andy's noble strategy didn't quite pay off, beaten by David's prestige buildings plus some nobles and ultimately by James' prestige buildings plus even more nobles.  Final scores were uncharacteristically (for this game) spread out: James 159, David 139, Andy 114.  I thought this was a particularly impressive score but I'll admit David pipped this by two points in a three-player game last year.

Five Tribes - 5 October

A second play of Five Tribes, the game of meeple dropping, camels and Djinn.  A fun game even if it isn't really possible to have a coherent strategy - Five Tribes is more a game of trying to optimise your luck from turn to turn.  Broadly, the players who relied more on scoring points for territories on the board (James and David) didn't do as well as those who aimed for the off board scoring (from yellow meeples in particular).  It was a close finish though:  Stu 141; Adrian 140; David 128; James 113.

Remember the Alamo!

Back at Colours I picked up Sarissa Precision's Adobe Hacienda MDF kit at the Bring and Buy.

Easy to construct and paint...

The build inspired me to paint some Alamo-era Mexican Army soldiers from Artizan Designs that Andy had given me.

The hacienda has internal rooms, removable upper floor, removable roofs and etched detail.

All ready for the next Wild West game!

Reply from Rostherne Games

I came across a twenty-two year-old letter when tidying the study.  It's the response from David Watts, creator of Railway Rivals, after I phoned him to tell him of our (in retrospect) slightly insane obsession with the game, playing it every Wednesday, and creating our own maps.

Even though we very rarely play it now, it will stay in our affections as the game that the gang formed around and was named after!

Pond life

I bought a pond kit from Charlie Foxtrot models at Colours earlier this month.  It's a couple of shaped pieces of MDF with a piece of perspex for the pond.

First stage was a series of blue and green washes on the base and a brown base for the surround.

With the addition of some rocks, pebbles, rushes (made from an old broom) and grass, it all comes together nicely.

The piece of perspex gives good depth to the pond which is highlighted by painting on some weed and lilypads.  I had some ducks painted up already (on tiddlywink counters) so I added them for the finishing touch.

To show the scale, here's Pike and Jones hunting ducks.

St Petersburg - 28th September

Another excellent game of Rivals-favourite St Petersburg for James, Andy and David.

The usual mish-mash of strategies resulted. We all went for aristocrats, but Andy came out on top. David lagged behind James and Andy, but some big building upgrades led to him closing the gap as the game came to a close, meaning that a lot of choices in the later phases revolved around how to trigger the end of the game (or not depending on your point of view). In the end David ran out of turns and Andy's aristo collection paid off.

Final result: Victory for Andy on 138, James 133, David 122.