Author Archives: nannyGOAT

1st October 2013

As our first birthday is on October 2nd, we decided to make the evening a little bit of a celebration of the year. The first game we played was our “Feature Game”, which this week was the most popular game that hasn’t been a “Feature Game” and that is Dobble. So we started out with a couple of quick rounds while we waited for people to arrive.

Next up we decided to play another relatively light and quick game, Indigo. This is a really pretty abstract game, that is extremely easy to teach. Basically, you have a hand of a single hexagonal tile, and on your turn you play it anywhere on the board that does not already have a tile. If your tile has a extends the route of one of the coloured glass stones, you move that stone along the path. The aim of the game is to navigate as many of the stones to your gates. The clever part is that gates can be owned by one or two people depending on the number of players, so there is a nice interplay between helping yourself and teamwork. The stones are also worth different numbers of points, so you need to balance the compromise between value and quantity. The game was quite tight, however, Red managed to extend her unbeaten run with a draw with White.

We couldn’t wait any longer and, decided it was time for Cake! After a quick rendition of “Happy Birthday to Us”, we attacked the really rather excellent chocolate cake and Meeple Biscuits (kindly provided by Tessa Edwards). Then it was time for the next game…

…And that was Stimmt So! This is a game that we’ve been on the brink of playing many times, but with the same basic mechanism as Alhambra, we’ve always ended up playing that instead. Basically, on their turn, players can do one of two things: buy shares, or collect money. Shares can only be bought in the correct currency, however, and if players pay for them with exactly the right amount of money they get another turn otherwise they don’t get any change. There are two scoring opportunities during the game, and one at the end, and players score for having the most shares in each market. Blue was too busy shuffling to pay much attention to the rules, so started out just buying everything she could. Meanwhile, Red and Green tried to carve out a strong position in the most lucrative companies. At the first scoring round, Green lost out to Red and Blue (who had by now realised what she was supposed to be doing) held her own with a large number of holdings in the less valuable stocks. By the second scoring Green was still struggling and the situation only got worse in the final round. Points are given for the lowest value companies first where Blue had the majority and she romped ahead with Green picking up some of the second place points. As the more lucrative shares were counted Red galloped round the board, but somehow Blue just maintained her lead.

The final game of the evening was an old favourite that we’ve played a few times before: Die Speicherstadt. This is a really fun auction game, that somehow doesn’t really feel like an auction game. A number of cards are placed on the board and players have three meeples to bid with. They take it in turns to choose which cards they would like to buy, by placing their meeples in rows above the cards they want. The person who who placed their meeple above a card first gets the first refusal, however, it costs the same number of coins as there are meeples above the card. Thus, placing first can be a good thing if you have enough money to back it up, but money is very scarce. The cards could be contracts (that give points at the end if fulfilled), ships containing goods (that enable players to fulfil contracts), firemen (which help score points if there is a fire in the warehouse), merchants (which can sell goods for a better price), or buildings (which give points or occasionally money by some other means). Blue made a pretty poor fist of it right from the word go paying far too much for the warehouse despite the fact that she had picked up a load of merchant cards in the first round. White was very late getting contracts, but lost out in a scrap with Purple for firemen cards. Purple ran out the clear winner with four fulfilled contracts to add to his fire points giving a total of 39 points – almost falling off the end of the scoring track! White and Blue tied for second, but some way behind.

We ended the evening with a little chat about the Spiel at Essen which some of us are thinking of going to this year, oh, and of course, some more of the really rather tasty cake!

Learning Outcome: There is only one thing as bad as not going for firemen, and that’s going for firemen and losing.

A Party for the Jockey…

Not sure if any of the GOATS will be able to make it, we’ll do our best.

Next Meeting – 1st October 2013

Following the fire at the Jockey, our next meeting on Tuesday 1^st October will be held in a private house in Stanford. Please get in touch if you would like to come along and would like directions. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

As it is our birthday, we have decided to make the “Feature Game” the most popular game that hasn’t been featured to date and that is Dobble (which is basically “Snap”, but brilliant as a filler when you are waiting for people to arrive).

And talking of birthdays…

It was Jeff’s girlfriend’s birthday and he had no idea what to give her.

He spent ages trying to come up with a good present, but in the end in desperation he asked her.

Now Jeff likes girls with expensive tastes, so when asked, she replied, “Oh I don’t know, just give me something with diamonds.”

Unfortunately, Jeff bought her a pack of playing cards…

Week of Wonder at Thirsty Meeples

The shiny new Oxford Games Cafe, Thirsty Meeples, which opened over the Summer, is holding a “Week of Wonder”. To mark the imminent release of Relic Runners from Days of Wonder, Thirsty Meeples will be showcasing previous releases from Days of Wonder, with a different game each day. Then, over the weekend, visitors to the café will have the first opportunity to play Days of Wonder’s new game, Relic Runners, ahead of its worldwide launch.

Relic Runners

The English designer, Matthew Dunstan, will be at Thirsty Meeples on Saturday and Sunday to introduce people to his game and teach them how to play. On Sunday morning Matthew will also be giving a talk on Relic Runners, the design process and working with Days of Wonder, plus there will be more promotions and giveaways, including a limited number of signed copies of Relic Runners.

Next Meeting, 17th September 2013 – Cancelled

Due to a combination of work, car problems and bereavement, we have decided to cancel the meeting tonight and our next meeting will be Tuesday 1^st October. More details will follow nearer the time.

3rd September 2013

First up this week, while we waited for the others to arrive, was Toc Toc Woodman (aka Clack Clack Lumberjack). This Is a dexterity game that consists of a segmented plastic tree where the am of the game is to knock bits of bark off with an axe, while not removing the core segments. As the game progresses, the tree becomes increasingly unstable with the inevitable consequences… Honours were just about even when we were saved from a tie-breaker by the last of the late arrivals.

– Image by BGG contributor EndersGame

Next we started our “Feature Game”, Keyflower. Although we have played it before and it is a very popular game with most club members, we had one player who was unfamiliar with it, so we chose to play it without any of the additional tiles.

– Image by boardGOATS

Keyflower is a worker-placement and auction game that is played over four seasons. Each player begins the game with a home tile and eight worker meeples (or Keyples as they are known in this game). At the beginning of each round there is a new stack of tiles that players can use and bid for. The really unusual part of the game is the interplay between workers and bidding: workers can operate on any tile, in a players own village, in another players village, or one that is still being auctioned. At the end of the round, the workers go to the owner of the tile, thus, if you have a commodity that other players want, it can be a source of Keyples. On the other hand, if you chose to bid for a tile, presumably you wanted to use it, which means that you have competition for the resource, and so it proved.

– Image by boardGOATS

One player had been present at the drubbing we had received last time we played and tried the same strategy, i.e. to collect skill tiles. Those of us that were aware of this approach started out with no real strategy except to prevent a second run-away victory by the same means. Meanwhile the new player quietly got on with collecting gold and marshalling her Keyples. Mixed based strategies gradually evolved for otherwise indecisive players with resources, the river and transport all featuring and it wasn’t long before we got to the final round, Winter. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much competition for tiles to begin with as everyone concentrated on getting the resources and skill tiles they wanted to the place they needed them. By this time, Keyples were in short supply, so there was only a token amount of scrapping for final tiles in what ended as a very, very closely fought game with first and second just one point apart, a tie for third and fourth, and everyone separated by only six points.

– Image by boardGOATS

The third game of the night was, the race game, Salmon Run. We’ve played this a couple of times before, but still managed to have a couple of new players, so after a quick run through of the rules, off we went with board S1, 5E, 6E, 3M, 2M & F1. White took an early lead, while Red and Black got in each others’ way and battled with bears. Red and White both got sore heads bashing the bank, while Black got a bit stuck with mid-stream and trapped everyone else in the current.White made a dash for the finish, but got caught needing a right and straight to get across the last lot of rapids giving Red and Black a chance to catch up. Red got closest, but White managed to make it across the line first and Red failed to quite make it to the Spawning pool on his last turn. Even if Red and Black had made it home, Red’s nine fatigue cards and Black’s six dwarfed White’s two (thanks to the enforced wait before the last rapids where she had been able to ditch a lot of hers).

– Image by BGG contributor kilroy_locke

The last game of the night was an old favourite, Love Letter. This is a really simple little duelling game played with just sixteen cards. Each round only takes a couple of minutes and each player takes it in turns to draw a card and then play one of the two cards in their hand. Cards allow players to look at another’s hand, force them to discard, give them the opportunity to try to assassinate other players etc. and the last player in, or (in the unusual case that all sixteen cards are drawn), the player with the highest card, wins the round. Remarkably, one player managed a run of three rounds undefeated, and despite a desperate rear-guard action, this proved an unassailable lead.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: A winning strategy doesn’t always work…

Next Meeting – 3rd September 2013

Following the fire at the Jockey, our next meeting on Tuesday 3^rd September will be held in a private house in Stanford. Please get in touch if you would like to come along and would like directions. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

This week the “Feature Game” will be Keyflower, which is a worker-placement and auction game played over four seasons and depicts the growth of villages as new pilgrims arrive by boat. It is a truly beautiful game with fantastic original artwork, as well as being the sort of game that that really sucks you in.

And talking of pilgrims…

Two pilgrims went out hunting, but one was carrying two blunderbusses.

Jeff, the second pilgrim asked, “Why do you have two blunderbusses?”

His friend explained, “I usually miss the first time I shoot. By taking two I can take a second shot.”

Jeff thought about this for a while and then asked, “But why not just take the second one, and only shoot once…?”

20th August 2013

It being the height of the summer holiday, there was a severe shortage of people about, so we started late with our Feature game, Agricola. This game is about farming in the middle ages and is a one we have played several times now. However, one of our regulars has somehow missed out and, as it is a game we know she would enjoy we decided that while it was quiet it was a good opportunity to play the “family game” again.

So we had a gentle run down of the rules before we started collecting wood and clay, fish and grain. Before long, Red had renovated her two room hut to brick and started ploughing fields while her farming couple lived on fish. Meanwhile, Blue was trying (and failing) to expand her wooden hut, plough fields and fence in some pasture so she could keep some sheep, all at the same time. Blue was the first to engage in a little “family growth” and had no qualms about sending her unfortunate offspring out to work the land at an early age. Red didn’t have enough clay to build an additional room, so had to wait until she had the option of sharing rooms. Despite Red picking up vegetables, cattle and pigs, at the end of the day, Blue’s experience (and larger family) meant she had an unassailable lead.

There was just time for a quick second game, so we decided to go with something we were familiar with, Forbidden Desert. This is clever little cooperative game that we’ve played a couple of times before. The idea is that players are members of a team of adventurers on a mission to excavate an ancient desert city and recover a legendary flying machine that’s rumoured to be powered by the sun. Moments before arriving at the destination, the helicopter crash lands, stranding the team in the vast desert,exposed to an unrelenting storm and extreme sun. The only hope for survival is to work together to excavate the city, find the parts of the flying machine and rebuild it to escape.

Players have particular areas of expertise: this time we had the “Archaeologist” and the “Meteorologist”, which meant we had one player who could clear sand more efficiently (twice as fast as normal) and another who could check what the storm was going to do next. We started well, making good use of the special abilities and taking advantage of the tunnels to hide from the sun. Without the “Water Carrier” we were really worried about dying of thirst, but we managed eke out our water supply and stayed on top of the problem by hiding as much as possible. We also managed to prevent too much sand build-up with occasional judicious use of the Duneblaster, but what we failed to keep an eye on was the sand-storm level and we were at level six with clues still to find. The storm was on its highest level when we finally managed to pick up the last clue, hop over the dunes with a jet pack, clear the launch pad and escape, but it was a very close-run thing!

Learning Outcome: There is a reason farming families are usually large.

Next Meeting – 20th August 2013

Following the fire at the Jockey, our next meeting on Tuesday 20^th August will be held in a private house in Stanford. Please get in touch if you would like to come along and would like directions. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30 pm as people arrive, until 8 pm when we will start something a little longer.

We decided to have (yet another) go at Agricola, which is about farming in the middle ages. It is a game we have played several times now, but has proved popular and there are players who haven’t tried it yet.

And talking of farming…

Farmer Jeff’s dog Shep went missing and he was inconsolable, so his wife asked him, “Why don’t you put an ad in the paper to get him back?”

Jeff like this idea, but after two weeks Shep was still missing.

Unable to understand why there had been no response, Jeff’s wife asked, “What did you write in the paper?”

“Here boy.”

6th August 2013

We decided to save our “Feature Game” (Guillotine) for an occasion when there’s a more appreciative audience and went straight into a much longer, deeper, and very highly regarded game called Puerto Rico. Although we had all played it before, for some of us it was a long time ago, so we had a quick recap of the rules before we started.

In this game players are plantation owners in seventeenth century Puerto Rico growing up to five different kind of crops: corn, indigo, sugar, tobacco, and coffee. Each plantation owner must try to run their business more efficiently than their competitors. First they must grow their crops then they must store them efficiently. Finally, players must sell their crops at the right time or ship their goods back to Europe for maximum benefit. In order to do this most effectively, the plantation owners must make optimal use of the arriving colonists and develop the capital city, San Juan, building useful amenities. In each round, players take it in turns to choose a role, but no role can be selected twice in the same round. Each player gets the opportunity to carry out each action, however, there is a privilege that goes to the player who chose to do it. For example, if one player chooses to build, everyone can build if they want, however, it is cheaper for the person who chose to do it. Ultimately, the player who selects the best roles to advance their position during the game will win. There are two small expansions, but after some discussion, we decided not to use either in the end as we didn’t feel we needed the variety for this game, but maybe next time.

Green decided to start building a couple of quarries and then expanded the indigo plantation that he started the game with, and added sugar (as nobody else seemed to be planting sugarcane). Meanwhile, Blue started out with some corn, built a quarry, then dabbled briefly in tobacco, before going all out for coffee sales. Red, on the other hand, started out with one indigo plantation and added a tobacco plantation. When that didn’t really provide what he wanted, he tried coffee as well for good measure before deciding that what he REALLY wanted was a factory! Red then went into the coffee market which messed with Blue’s plans, so she started shipping corn and coffee which screwed up Green. Towards the end of the game, everyone made a mad dash for big buildings, but the damage had already been done by the efficient factory which gave Red the win with fifty-three points.

We only had time for one other game, and decided on Hanabi. This is a really clever and unusual cooperative game which has just been awarded the Spiel des Jahres. Hanabi is the Japanese word for “fireworks” and the idea is that you are collectively trying make the perfect firework display. To do this, all you have to do is play cards, in order from one to five, in their colour suits. The snag is that you hold your hand of cards back to front so that you can’t see the cards you are going to play, although you can see everyone else’s. Thus, on your turn you can give a hint to someone to tell them something about their cards or you can play or discard a card. Hints are restricted though and you can only point point out all the cards of a specific, common number or colour. You also only have eight hints, although you get extras for every card you discard. You also only have three lives and lose one each time you play a card that has already been played or if you play a card before all the lower numbers of that colour have been played. One of the reasons Hanabi is so unusual is that although players are working towards a common goal, they can’t really help each other. In this game, we made a mistake quite early on when someone discarded the second yellow four and it all went downhill from there, ending with a total of eighteen (out of a possible maximum of twenty-five).

Leaning Outcome: If you teach people too well, sometimes they end up winning!