Payroll raid - 24 January 2019

A belated write-up of the first quick game with the paddle steamer (now with added - but removable - bow wake and stern wash).

James' US Cavalry were escorting the quarterly payroll on the Louise Marie.

Andy's band of Mexicans launched two small boats to intercept the paddle steamer.

We modified shooting from a moving deck to another moving deck to make it a little harder, but still some shots hit home.

Andy's Mexicans started to board the paddle steamer and engage in hand-to-hand combat.  The fat Mexican leader failed about three times in a row to make the jump over the side.

Eventually, everyone was on the paddle steamer for an almighty scrap.

The US Cavalry lost their first Head for the Hills morale test and the surviving soldiers promptly jumped overboard and swam for the shore.

Leaving the fat Mexican to crack the safe and escape with the payroll.

Clank - 21st February 2019

We met on Thursday this week and Stu turned up determined to get us to play Clank!. Andy was initially unconvinced, but was eventually persuaded to give it a go.

Borrowing shamelessly from The Hobbit, Clank has us playing the roles of adventurers sneaking into a dragon's lair to steal treasure. The odd name comes from the need to keep quiet. Making noise introduces risk that you'll be attacked when the dragon awakes. This is done in a neat mechanism - every time you make a noise you pay a cube of your colour. When the dragon wakes these cubes are put into a bag and drawn out to seen who is hurt.

Once we got the hang of it the game played well, but the main thing was how much fun it was. Although there isn't much direct interaction, there is plenty of room to "advise" your fellow thieves about a course of action, to sneak ahead and claim artefacts before them, and of course the pleasure of watching their cubes come out of the dragon bag.

The mayhem of the game resulted in a lot of death. Final scores were James 63, Stu 63, David 50, Andy 43. James won on the tie-break.

It was so much fun that I bought Clank! In! Space! the next day and have already had a fun game with the family.

Dinosaur Island, Century: Spice Road - 16 February 2019

A flying visit by Kieron and family was a great excuse for some weekend gaming and a night out.  First up was Adrian's kickstarter game Dinosaur Island, which is essentially Jurassic Park without any royalties (I feel a trick was missed here - since it would have been one of the very few TV/movie tie-in games that is actually any good!).

It has a huge number of luridly-coloured playing pieces and setting it all up plus rules explanation took a while but the game itself is straightforward enough.  Harness DNA, create dinosaurs, entice visitors to your park, and make sure not too many of them are eaten.  Lots of fun.  I especially like the different dinosaur models.  Final scores: James 59, Kieron 51, David 43, Adrian 35, Andy 27.

We then played a three-hander of the very neat Century: Spice Road and finished with a couple of games of Red7.

Great to have Kieron back for some games - we miss you!

The Castles of Burgundy - 13 February 2019

A four player game of this good (if long) game.  Different tactics were employed which saw Stuart take a strong lead for much of the game, with David and James racing to catch him up and just getting ahead in the final scoring.  Scores on the doors: David 128, James 123, Stuart 117, Andy 70.

Peloponnes & Skull & Azul - 23 January 2019

A mega-games night with five players and three games.  First off was old favourite Peloponnes.  Adrian played an interesting new strategy with no building purchases, and just three resource tiles (mostly food) and three sea tiles.  Along with the ever increasing population civilisation, his population continued to grow and although his lack of buildings impacted prestige points, the strategy got him into second place, behind James' - whose score was bolstered by the last round purchase of the "2 coins equals 1 prestige". 

There was a huge amount of money swimming around in the game, with many of us passing on purchases several times during the game.  There were a couple of unusual features with the disasters too.  Firstly, none occurred until all five were showing two of their three counters.  And secondly, no disasters occurred in the final round, as they had all already happened, with the final two counters both being blank.  Final scores (population/prestige): James 27/34, Adrian 27/24, David 21/31, Stuart 16/35 and Andy 18/12 (following a  devastating earthquake in the penultimate round).

Then a bluffing/bidding game of Skull, which David won.  Works much better with more players and is a fun end-of-evening filler.

And then finally, we managed to fit in a game of Azul after Adrian left.  This is a neat tile laying game (real wall tiles as in a mosque) with simple mechanisms but plenty to think about. 

David scored strongly from the start and we never really caught him up, despite a large negative bonus forced on him by James in the final turn.  Final scores: David 62, James 55, Stuart 51, Andy 26.

Final(?) Wild West buildings

I completed the final two Wild West buildings today.  A church...

...and a railway station, with personalised "Highwood" town sign.

Time for a break from MDF for a while, I think...

Paddle Steamer - full steam ahead!

I thought I'd use some off-cuts from the Paddle Steamer kit to create wakes for the bow and stern to simulate movement of the boat.

The white froth on the waves is formed by pulling apart a cotton ball and varnishing it into place.  There are some very skilled ship modellers who use this technique - this video was my inspiration.  I'm nowhere near that but I'm quite pleased with it as a first attempt.