Goats can provide a great solution for environmental problems—a couple of years ago we reported how flocks of goats visit the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California to clear scrub and help prevent fires. This week, an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live with staff at Kentish Town City Farm, the UK’s oldest city farm, explained how their goats are helping to dispose of unwanted Christmas trees.
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| – from bbc.co.uk |
| – from twitter.com |
The International Spieltage, SPIEL, sometimes known simply as “Essen”, began in 1983 as the “Deutsche Spielertage” (German Games Fair), a gathering of readers of a specialized gaming magazine. At the time there were just twelve invited exhibitors and the event was held at the Essen College of Further Education. The following year, however, there were fifteen thousand visitors and in 1985 the event moved to the “Gruga” Messe Essen Exhibition Center. It has been there ever since, and in 2019 there were a reported one thousand two hundred exhibitors and over two hundred thousand visitors.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
After the partition of Germany, in 1949, four toy manufacturers held a German toy fair in Nuremberg. The following year the exhibition committee and forty-six firms established a cooperative to run the fair, called Spielwarenmesse. It has recently been announced that the Spielwarenmesse cooperative has now acquired Friedhelm Merz Verlag GmbH, the company that runs SPIEL, the largest games fair in Europe, with the deal taking effect from the start of 2022. Spielwarenmesse is currently run by around a hundred and fifty companies and has been developing its portfolio recently having also acquired the Internationale Spieleerfindermesse or Game Inventors’ Fair. The company additionally manage trade fairs in China, India and Russia.
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| – Image by spielwarenmesse-eg.de |
In the press release, Spielwarenmesse state they intend to preserve the character of SPIEL which will remain at the Messe in Essen with Dominique Metzler continuing as director with Florian Hess from Spielwarenmesse, as a co-director. Christian Ulrich, Spokesperson for the Executive Board of Spielwarenmesse is quoted as saying, “With SPIEL, we are expanding our responsibilities in the business area for games, without changing the typical character of the fair.”
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| – Image from spiel-messe.com |
Our next meeting, and the last of the year, will be on Thursday 30th December 2021. We will start playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer (the table is booked from 6.30pm for those who would like to eat first).
Normally, we hold a New Year party in a private house, but with the current situation it feels more sensible to meet a day early in the more spacious environment of The Jockey. Normally at this time of year, we play the gorgeous puck-flicking, racing game, PitchCar, but it seems a little unreasonable in the pub. So this time, the “Feature Game” will be another car racing game, Downforce. We played this at New Year last year, but that was online, this time we will hear players swearing in person.
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| – Adapted from image by BGG contributor kalchio |
And speaking of driving at Christmas…
Jeff was driving home from a Christmas party, but his car was swerving all over the road, so a traffic officer pulled him over.
“Can you step out of the car please, sir,” said the policeman, “I am going to have to ask you to take a breathalyzer test.”
“I can’t,” Jeff responded. “You see I have very bad asthma, that could set off an attack.”
“OK sir,” said the constable, “Then I’m afraid we will have to do a blood test—you’ll have to come with me to the nearest police station…”
“Sorry officer, I can’t do that either,” Jeff replied. “I am a hemophiliac, so if a wound is opened, I won’t stop bleeding, and could bleed to death.”
“Well, we could do a urine sample then,” suggested the police officer getting a little exasperated, “We’d have to do that at the station too though.”
Jeff paused and then answered, “Sadly, I also have diabetes and that could push my sugar count really low.”
By this time, the traffic officer was really losing patience and snapped back, “Fine, in that case just get out of the care and walk a straight line for me.”
“Oh, I can’t do that…” answered Jeff.
“Why ever not?” demanded the exasperated copper.
“Well ossifer,” replied Jeff cheerfully, “That’d be because I’m drunk!”
Just before Christmas, the boardGOATS meet for food, have a bit of a party, and decide the winners of the GOAT Awards. Sadly, that wasn’t possible last year, so this year we made up for it with lots of crackers, cards, and lots of festive treats. While waiting for food, the group voted for our favourite game of the year. As in previous years, we awarded two prizes: the Golden GOAT for our favourite game and the “GOAT Poo” award for our least favourite.
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| – Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com |
As usual, everyone had three points to hand out for the Golden GOAT Award plus a bonus if wearing Festive Attire, but we limited each person to a maximum of two points per game (after a little controversy over the voting last time). Everyone could also nominate up to two individual games for the GOAT Poo Prize. This year, there were several nominations for GOAT Poo, but the clear winner was Dingo’s Dreams. This is probably quite a clever game that we would normally enjoy, but we played it online with lots of people, none of whom had any idea what they were trying to do. As a result, the complete chaos made for a very un-fun experience all round.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
With all the online games, there was less competition than usual, but the 2019 winner, Wingspan, was very nearly the first game to win the Golden GOAT award twice. In the event, it was just pipped to victory by Praga Caput Regni – quite an achievement given that only four people in the group had played it. While discussing possible candidates for Moment of the Year everyone fondly reminisced about the time Lime accidentally joined an online game of 6 Nimmt! with a bunch of Frenchmen, but that was last year. The GOATS have long memories though, and it would seem that they still haven’t forgiven Pink for stealing everyone else’s gems in Niagara, despite his repeated assertions that he was “just following the rules”.
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| – Adapted by boardGOATS from image by BGG Contributor El_Comandante |
Ivory, always excitable when it comes to Christmas, was first to arrive, shortly followed by Blue and Pink, with armfuls of crackers, parcels, party poppers and Golden GOAT voting forms. It was our first visit to The Jockey since the retirement of the Charles and Anna, but Michelle and John made us very welcome on their first full day, and were very understanding of the noise mess we inevitably made.
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We started with the crackers, frantically chasing dice, chocolates, and meeples all over the place, and then suffering the flock of appalling goaty jokes with which they were filled. As people munched the chocolates from their crackers they filled in their Golden GOAT voting forms, then Pine and Pink collated the results. There were lots of nominations for GOAT Poo, but the runaway winner was Dingo’s Dreams. This is probably quite a clever game that we would normally enjoy, but we played it online with lots of people, none of whom had any idea what they were trying to do. As a result, the complete chaos made for a very un-fun experience all round.
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| – Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com |
Discussion surrounding the Moment of the Year included reminiscences of the time Lime accidentally joined an online game of 6 Nimmt! with a bunch of Frenchmen, but that was last year and therefore not eligible this time round. Pine and Pink fondly remembered the pasting they gave to Burgundy and Blue when they played Ticket to Ride: Heart of Africa, but the winner was the online game of Niagara when Pink won by stealing gems from everyone else—an event that still lingers in the the memory of those who were robbed and are even now dreaming of revenge.
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| – Adapted by boardGOATS from image by BGG Contributor El_Comandante |
With all the online gaming, there was less competition than usual for the Golden GOAT award. Indeed, the 2019 winner, Wingspan, was very nearly the first game to win the Golden GOAT award twice, but much to Green’s obvious delight, it was just pipped to victory by Praga Caput Regni – quite an achievement given that only four people in the group had even played it. We spent our winnings from the quiz on appetizers and with some having a full three-course dinner, we weren’t finished till quite late. There was just time for a game or two though…
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Pine was keen to play Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries, but after the Heart of Africa experience nobody else was enthusiastic to join him. Ivory was keen to play the “Feature Game” which was Santa’s Workshop, so Pink, Blue and Burgundy joined him. This is a medium-light weight worker placement game, similar to Stone Age, Lords of Waterdeep or Viticulture, but with a festive theme. Players operate teams of elves making presents for Santa to deliver on Christmas Eve.
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On their turn, players can send elves to collect wish-list items, mine for coal, visit the metal, wood, fabric, plastic and assembly workshops, or train their elves so they work more efficiently. Players earn Cookies for every gift they make, and every three days, Santa carries out an inspection and the teams that have made the most gifts get more Cookies. The elves can also visit the Reindeer Stables to get help and more Cookies—the player whose team of elves has earned the most Cookies by the end of Christmas Eve is the winner.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
The game is played over the nine days before Christmas, appropriately from 16th December (the date of our “Un-Christmas Dinner”) up to and including Christmas Eve. Each gift card shows what it is made of and how much assembly it will need, as well as how many Cookies it will earn when it is completed. One of the things that makes this game a little different to other worker placement games is that players are unable to store resources: elves must first acquire the gift card, then the materials to make the gift (wood, plastic, fabric and metal), and only then can the elves assemble the gift.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
The idea is that the elf is taking the pieces to the assembly room and making it there, so timing is everything. If a player visits receives five pieces of wood, but can only use three, the other two go to waste. Players can improve their situation by getting some of their elves trained—this costs a turn, but a visit to the School Room means they can use this additional skill to produce more material or assemble things more efficiently. The question is whether this is worth the effort as the game is played over just nine days with only three turns per day (or four at lower player counts).
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
Blue and Burgundy started fast and took the bonus Cookies for the most productive team at the end of the 18th December, but by the end of the Christmas Eve, Ivory and Pink were getting the most Cookies for being the most productive while Blue and Burgundy’s attentions were elsewhere. Ivory started out making a lovely wooden music box, but then moved rapidly into making plastic tat. Selling coal to Santa was also highly lucrative (Santa always needs coal to give to naughty children).
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Blue did the reverse, starting by making Lego bricks with lots of plastic and then moving on to making dressing up clothes and a lovely teddy bear which she failed to assemble. Burgundy also struggled with his assembly and spent quite a lot of time visiting the stable and petting Comet (to take the first player marker) or Donna (to obtain the assistance of Zelf to get extra material). Pink similarly struggled and felt it was important to prioritise being the first player at certain points during the game.
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It was a very close game and the final few turns were really critical as players tried to make sure they completed everything they could and most realised they couldn’t finish what they wanted to. Ivory thought he might just make it and gambled on getting enough visits to the assembly room to do what he needed. In contrast, Blue pragmatically took the Cookies from Dasher’s stable and gave up all hope that she might be able to assemble her gifts. And that made the difference, giving Blue victory, finishing ten Cookies ahead of Ivory, with Pink just behind in third.
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Although not an exceptional game, Santa’s Workshop is unquestionably one of the best festive games we’ve played—all the more so as it has a genuine Christmas theme rather than simply being “snowy”. Sadly, the pieces lack a little something, especially Santa, but we made up for that by stealing the bits from Christmas Penguins, which we played a couple of years ago and had great bits, but lacked something in the game-play. The game itself was purchased in a couple of years ago and sent on by a friend in Australia, but first got caught in the bush fires there and then playing it was delayed by Covid when last year’s Christmas Event was online; the verdict was that it was worth the wait though.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
On the next table, the rest of the group settled down to play Carcassonne: Winter Edition. This is essentially the same as the original “blue box version” of the tile playing game, Carcassonne, but with a pretty snowy scheme, which everyone agreed they preferred to the usual version. So, as with the original, the game play is very simple: on their turn, the active player plays a tile, adding it to the map (ensuring all the edges agree) and then optionally place a meeple on the tile before scoring any completed features.
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The features on the tiles include city segments, roads and cloisters. Players score two points for each tile in a city or road they own if it is completed during the game, or one point at the end if incomplete. Similarly, Cloisters score nine points when completely surrounded or one point for the central tiles and each surrounding it at the end of the game. The clever part of the game is that while players cannot add a meeple to a feature that is already owned by another player, these can be joined together and then shared so that both players score.
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This time, the group also included the the Lebkuchenmann expansion. This consists of additional Gingerbread Man tiles mixed in with the base game; when drawn, the player moves the brown Gingerbread Meeple to an unfinished city of their choice. Before he is moved, however, the current city containing the Gingerbread Man is scored. Each player receives points for the number of meeples they have in the city multiplied by the number of tiles in the city. Thus, even players that only one meeple in the city when their opponents have more get a few points.
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The Gingerbread Man also leaves the current city when someone adds the tile that completes it and the Gingerbread Man is scored just before the normal scoring. This means it is sometimes desirable to finish someone else’s city, in order to move the Gingerbread Man or to make them earn fewer points for it. The clever part about the Lebkuchenmann expansion is that it can be played in both a friendly and a spiteful way.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
Very early in the game, Green, Purple and Lilac all found themselves with cities which looked all but impossible to close out. Black went for an early “Farmer”, making snow angels and Green followed suit. “Farmers” only score at the end of the game, giving points for the number of cities the field supplies, but they tie up the meeples for the rest of the game and, if placed early can end up being cut off yielding a poor score. So, only time would tell whether this would prove to be a master move or a waste of a good meeple.
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Lilac was building herself a nice big city, obtained the first Gingerbread Man and placed it into her growing metropolis. This attracted the attention of Pine who set up camp in a small city across the open divide. On his next turn he got exactly the tile he needed (a city tile with two opposite open ends), and joined the two together. When the city was completed shortly after, both Pine and Lilac scored, not just for the city, but for the Gingerbread Man too. This put them both out into a commanding lead on the score board, with Pine half a dozen points ahead—a lead he would not relinquish for the rest of the game.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
In the meantime, the rest of the group kept drawing road tiles. The Gingerbread Meeple was very handy to get some of the awkward, incomplete cities to score at least something, as he hopped around the board giving out gifts. As the snowy scene expanded and grew, more farmers were placed, more cities were completed, and roads wiggled their way round the landscape joining areas previously separated. As one of his last moves, Green found the one tile that would fit into the gap next to his first city to complete it. This did something else, too, that would have a game-changing impact, though nobody realised it until scoring.
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With the last tile placed everyone scored their uncompleted cities, roads and cloisters. At this point Pine was still in front, with Lilac not too far behind in second—the Farmers were going to be key. Black and Green had managed to maneuver two Farmers each into the same massive field, but sadly Purple’s lone farmer got booted out. Lilac had a couple of farmers on the other side of the board, one gave her two cities and the other gave her three, just enough to push her ahead of Pine (who had eschewed the whole farming in the snow business as being too cold for him).
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Green’s and Black’s Farmers had amassed a total of huge total of ten cities for their shared field, which brought them right into contention. Scores were just about to be added to the board when Black pointed out that his (and Green’s) field went further round and actually swallowed Lilac’s farmer with three cities due to the tile placed by Green to complete that city. So Lilac lost nine of her points and Green’s and Black’s new field total was for thirteen cities giving them thirty-nine points each. This leapfrogged both of them ahead of Pine and Lilac, with Green coming out a few points on top. A close game, everyone enjoyed. This edition is a worthy edition with the Lebkuchenmann expansion a perfect little festive addition too.
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Learning Outcome: ‘Elf and Safety is everyone’s business.
Our next meeting will be on Thursday, 16th December, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale.
As this is our last meeting before Christmas
we will be meeting early from 6.45pm for pizzas and Christmas festivities.
This week, the “Feature Game” will be Santa’s Workshop followed by a range of Christmas and winter themed games like Christmas Tree, Snow Tails, Carcassonne: Winter Edition, Giftmas at Dungeon Abbey, Gingerbread House and Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. We’ve been waiting over two years to play Santa’s Workshop as the game was caught up in the Australian bush fires late in 2019 and the global pandemic meant we were unable to play it last year. Third time lucky!
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And speaking of Christmas…
Jeff wasn’t in a festive mood. He was in a lot of pain, so he went to see his doctor to get the problem looked at.
“What seems to be the problem?” Jeff’s GP asked.
Jeff looked a bit shifty and uncomfortable, and not just due to his ailment. “I’ve, er… got um…” he mumbled.
“Speak up, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s the matter,” interrupted the doctor.
Jeff tried again, “I’ve, um…” but again his voice faded away to silence.
The doctor took pity on him and gently coaxed him on, “Is it something to do with an intimate area? You know there’s nothing to be ashamed of, we’re all the same really. Now what’s bothering you? You can tell me.”
Jeff took a deep breath “Doctor…” then he blurted out, “I seem to have a mince pie stuck up my bottom!”
“Oh, you’re in luck,” answered the Doctor, “I’ve got some cream for that!”
While Blue, Pink and Burgundy were waiting for their supper to arrive, Teal, Green and Lilac turned up. Since Teal wasn’t staying for the quiz, the group decided to squeeze in a quick game of NMBR 9. Although the game officially only plays four, we have two sets which means eight people can play together. This is a game we have played quite a bit recently, largely because it is very quick to play and has almost zero set up time. Everyone except Teal had played it before too, so a very quick explanation later and people were placing tiles.
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The game is driven by a deck of cards each of which represents one of the tiles which are shaped like the numbers zero to nine. The numbers are really important in the scoring as each is multiplied by the storey it is on, so the higher the number is, the more it is worth. With some of the high scoring tiles coming out at awkward times, it felt like comparatively low scoring game compared with some of the recent efforts.
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It might have been beginner’s luck, but Teal played a great game on his first attempt scoring eighty one, taking victory by six points from Blue with Green taking third. Food had turned up towards the end, followed by Black, Purple and Pine, so once dinner had been dispatched there was time for a quick game of 6 Nimmt! before the Quiz. This is one of our favourite games (and won the Golden GOAT award last Christmas), but we rarely play it with so many.
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The game is really simple: players simultaneously choose a card which are then placed in turn at the end of one of the four rows on the table. Starting with the lowest value card, the cards are added to the row that end with the highest number that is lower than the card itself. If a card is the sixth in the row, the player takes the first five into their scoring pile and the card instead becomes the first and only card in the row. The player with the fewest “nimmts” is the winner. This time, while Teal, Black and Pine were busy picking up cards Green, Pink and Purple were keeping it tight.
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Pink and Purple tied on six with Green just one point behind. Purple took victory in the end, with a quickly invented tie break (guess the number of the single left-over card). There wasn’t time for another game and after Charles had been round with the pictures, we presented him and Anna with a signed wooden goat and a card to thank them for looking after us so well over the last nine years. Next time we meet, the Jockey will be under new management. In the meantime, we had the Quiz to focus on though.
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Things started badly as we struggled with the picture round, usually a strength. However, we took an early lead with a series of Perfect Ten rounds. It couldn’t last, but by the time we got round to scoring the Pictures we had a healthy lead. Getting all three anagrams helped (no “Orvilles” this time) and a fairly straightforward “Who am I” also went in our favour, finally resulting in victory. The first time we did the Quiz (Christmas 2016) we won, but since then, despite coming close we’ve never achieved the same heights. It was fitting therefore to bookend our attempts under Charles with a second win. And we’ll put the winnings towards our unChristmas Dinner next time.
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Learning Outcome: Winning is all the sweeter after a few near misses and the odd “Orville”.
It was a relatively quiet night with no Burgundy, Lilac or Teal. However, that was slightly offset by the arrival of Lime who had missed the last few and Beige, who is much cuter in real life than on Teams. The first game of the evening, as Blue and Pink finished their supper, was No Thanks!. A very simple game where players take a card or pay a chip to pass the problem on, it is easy to play when attention is elsewhere.
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At the end of the game, players sum the face value of the cards they collect and the player with the lowest score wins. The clever part is that if players have a run of cards, they only score the lowest, and the fact that some cards are missing encourages players to gamble. This time, Blue “top scored” with a massive sixty-six having tried and failed to make a run out of high scoring cards. Green won with a careful game that gave him thirty points and Pink was took second place, four points behind.
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As people arrived, the group split into two with the one group playing the “Feature Game“, Draftosaurus. This is a very light drafting game, a bit like Sushi Go!, but with dinosaurs (because everyone, especially Beige, likes dinosaurs). We have played this quite a bit, but mostly online over the last year or so, but the tactile wooden dino-meeples add a lot to the experience. The basic idea is that players start with a handful of wooden dinosaurs, pick one to keep and then pass the rest on.
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Players then choose which pen to place the dinosaur in obeying the restrictions the pens have for example, each dinosaur placed in the Meadow of Differences must be different. Players also take it in turns to roll the Placement Die and have to additionally follow the conditions imposed it (e.g placing the dinosaur in an empty pen or a pen that does not contain a Tyrannosaurus rex). The game is played over two rounds and at the end of the game, when all the dino-meeples have been placed, players add up their scores.
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Each pen scores according to its specialism, with players scoring an extra point for each Tyrannosaurus rex they have have. Draftosaurus is a very quick and light game, but is also very enjoyable, and this time the scoring was very tight too with just five pints separating first and last places. Blue just managed to edge it though finishing one point ahead of Pine with Purple and Lime tied in third.
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With five players the options were a little limited, but Pink effectively made the decision as he was keen to play Fabled Fruit, a game we last played two and a half years ago. This is a game he’s very fond of because he likes the cute animal artwork and bright primary colours. It is a light card game, with the unusual feature that the game evolves and changes each time it is played. This “Legacy” style was made popular by Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock with Pandemic Legacy, a game that divided gamers as it required them to destroy components and write over the board, an anathema to people who are accustomed to looking after their games, sometimes to an extreme degree.
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| – Adapted from image by BGG contributor Muse23PT |
Once Pandemic Legacy has been played out, the end product is a personalised copy of Pandemic which embodies the memories of the campaign. This further irritates some gamers because they feel they are left with a comparatively unplayable copy of the game or at least one that is less well be unbalanced and may have design flaws. Fabled Fruit is different from the Legacy games as the changes are not destructive, so the game can be reset and played again from the beginning, in this case by simply sorting the cards.
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The game is quite simple—it starts with six decks of four cards in the central play area and on their turn players move their worker from one pile to another and either carry out the action associated with the cards, or buy a card. Each card has a cost in fruit and, when bought represents a fruit smoothy. When a player buys their third card (in the five player game) they trigger the end of the game and the player with the most smoothies at the end of the round wins.
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The starting decks include simple actions like “take two fruit cards from the deck” and “give one banana to any other player and get two fruits in exchange”. As the game evolves though, the actions become more interesting with the introduction of a fruit card market and more complex interactions. This time Blue got out of the blocks quickest and was the first to three with Pine and Purple tied for second. It was a very enjoyable game and people were just starting to get interested in how the actions were changing and what animal would be introduced next, so the group decided to play it a second time and see what happened.
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By the second round there was lots of talk about how the some fruit looked like hemorrhoids and from there the conversation deteriorated into a discussion of bum grapes and hairy nuts. This time, Lime was the victor with Pine taking second place. As it was packed away and Pink sorted the cards to reset it, the group lamented the “problem” with “Legacy-type” games. Sadly, they really shine with a small group like a family or household that play together frequently. The problem with a group like boardGOATS is that people play in different groups each time, so it isn’t really possible to work through a campaign properly.
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With that, Lime took his leave and there was just time for the remaining foursome (plus Beige) to play a quick game of Coloretto. This distills the essence of the, arguably, better known board game, Zooloretto, into a simple yet clever little card game. We’ve all played it a lot, so it needed little introduction: on their turn, players either turn a card and add it to a truck, or take one of the trucks. The aim is to collect sets, but only the three score positively, the others all score negative points with the player with the most winning. This time, Blue picked up a couple of full sets and won by a bit of a landslide with Pink in second.
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Meanwhile, on the next table, Black, Green and Ivory were playing Brass: Birmingham, the Sequel to Brass (Lancashire). It is an economic strategy game that tells the story of competing entrepreneurs in Birmingham during the industrial revolution, 1770-1870. Each round, players take turns according to the turn order track, receiving two action points to perform any of the actions: Build, Network, Develop, Sell, Loan and Scout. The game is played over two halves: the canal era (years 1770-1830) and the rail era (years 1830-1870).
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The game is quite complex so Ivory’s explanation took a little while. Black had previously read the rules, but Green came in with no prior knowledge, so it was typical that the Start Player application chose Green to go first. He started the first, Canal part of the game building in the North West, while Ivory went for the Midlands and Black the Mid-South. Black and Ivory were soon linking their routes and connected up to the board edge trading towns. Ivory’s experience of the game meant he was first to use it and collect the Beer barrel.
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Green’s routes remained separate from the other two for a while, and although that gave him relatively uninterrupted growth in the region, he found himself limited to only one trade. Thus he pushed south to join up with the other two. At the halfway point, Ivory was narrowly in the lead over a surprised Green, with Black a few points behind. The board was then cleared and reset. Everyone had managed to build at least a couple of stage two buildings.
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As the second, Rail part of the game went on it became clear that everyone had switched places. Green was building up in the South East, and Ivory was working in the North and Black even further South. It took much longer to join up the routes so it wasn’t until the very end that players started to build and use resources that others had planned for. By the end of the game and after the final scoring, Ivory had romped away to a comfortable win, with Black leapfrogging Green into a comfortable second place.
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It had been enjoyable, though it was a bit of a rush at the end as time was pressing. Brass is an unusual game in the way that players can each use the others resources, which is an interesting twist. With many different options to planning, this makes for quite a thinky game which leaves players feeling they can do so much better the next time.
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Learning Outcome: Beige is a lot smaller in real life.
After much discussion, in August, we moved our meeting to Thursdays. However, the Horse and Jockey have recently brought back their quiz on the first Thursday of the month, so this week we will be meeting on WEDNESDAY 1st December 2021. As usual, we will start playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer (table is booked from 6.30pm for those who would like to eat first).
Some of the group are also keen to do the Quiz on Thursday 2nd December. So, we have booked a table from 6.30pm for those who would like food, and we’ll be playing games until the quiz starts at shortly before 9pm.
The “Feature Game” on Wednesday will be Draftosaurus. This is a very light drafting game, a bit like Sushi Go!, but with dinosaurs (because everyone, especially Beige, likes dinosaurs). We have played this quite a bit, but mostly online and the tactile wooden dino-meeples add such a lot to the experience.
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| – Image by BGG contributor kalchio |
And speaking of dinosaurs…
Jeff and Joe had just finished watching Jurassic World and as they watched the credits, Joe said commented that he thought it was a fantastic film. Jeff was less impressed.
Joe enthused, “But just look at what they made those dinosaurs do!”
Jeff replied, “Yeah, it’s great—they were able to train raptors. Still, that’s not as impressive as the Flintstones convincing a bird to be their record player…”
The evening began with news—the landlord of our beloved Horse and Jockey , Charles, and his wife Anna, who have been trying to retire for years, are finally succeeding. This time next month, the pub will be under new management. In due course, we will find out what this means for our little group, but in the meantime, we Keep Calm and Carry On Gaming. And Blue and Pink, who were first to arrive started off with a quick game of NMBR 9, with Pink aiming to get his revenge for last time (before the Quiz).
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
NMBR 9 is a very simple tile laying game, but the pieces cleverly fit together, except when they don’t. The idea is that tiles must be placed in layers with pieces placed on higher levels worth more. Each tile is a stylised number and the number multiplied by the “storey” is its score. Each numeral, zero to nine appears twice in the deck of cards, so players can place each twice during the game, with the order dictated by the order the cards are drawn. This time, Pink scored more than last time and Blue scored less, but sadly for Pink, even with Burgundy’s assistance, he was unable to beat Blue’s score of eighty-eight.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
Blue, Pink and Burgundy were joined by Pine who’d had a particularly tiring week, and was therefore delighted to be able to avoid cooking. As they finished, Green popped up and started setting up Praga Caput Regni. In this game, players take the role of wealthy citizens who are organizing various building projects in medieval Prague. By expanding their wealth and joining in the construction, they gain favour with the king. Players choose from six actions on the game board, the “action crane”. The actions are always available, but are weighted with a constantly shifting array of costs and benefits. By using these actions, players can increase their resources, improve the strength of chosen actions, build “New Prague City”, the Charles Bridge, the city walls, or participate in the construction of St. Vitus Cathedral.
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| – Image by BGG contributor PZS69 |
Praga is one of those games with lots of pieces and takes a little while to set up. Green had agreed to play it with Ivory and Lilac in advance, but were one person down and there was less enthusiasm to play it from the others, so in the end there were just three with Black joining in. There was quite a lot to explain: Green had played a few times and Ivory had watched a video, but Black came into it completely cold. When the game finally started, random selection gave the first turn to the least experienced player, Black. Although there a lot of things that can be done in this game, each turn usually only provides a small choice (unless you want to pay for the chance to do something specific that isn’t available for free). With a little advice Black was able to make his choice reasonably quickly and the game was underway.
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| – Image by BGG contributor PZS69 |
Black’s game was a tactical one, trying to do the best that he could each turn rather than following a recognised strategy. With only one upgrade to his actions tile (building The Kings Road), he ended up with four wall tiles and made it to the top step of the City Walls. Although he had upgraded his Kings Road tile it was late in the game and he only managed the third step along the road, not quite reaching the Charles Bridge. He did not try for the education tracks, but his mines progressed reasonably well. Green tried to go for a City Walls/Cathedral strategy, but didn’t manage it very well, reaching only the second tier of the Cathedral and only one step on the City Walls.
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| – Image by BGG contributor PZS69 |
As that strategy just wasn’t working Green switched to completing the King’s Road and managed to get his piece onto the final step of the Bridge. He upgraded a couple of actions, stone mine and (much later) Town tile actions, but could only manage two walls (rather surprising considering he built his first wall early on). Green did manage to reach the top of the University track and half way up the Knowledge path though. In contrast, Ivory went very quickly for the Kings Road strategy, which he completed as well. Like Black he ignored the Learning tracks, but did manage to get his Gold mine to the top, although (strangely) never managed to unlock his six gold bonus cube. He also only did one Upgrade (the Gold mine action), but completed three walls.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
Ivory also concentrated on the City Walls and manage to climb to the top tier, but completely ignored the St. Vitus Cathedral. Within the Town, Green placed most tiles, but only two plaza’s were ever completed, and no one built on the Old Town section North of the Road. Ivory won the game, with Green a second on a tiebreaker. Everyone kept forgetting the extra point bonuses from the Upgrades and Books, but it was clear that Ivory was the victor.
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| – Image by BGG contributor PZS69 |
Everyone enjoyed the game, Black in particular liked it much more than he thought he would. Ivory also liked it as did Green though the fact that players seem unable to do very much through the game frustrates him. Overall it appealed to the group’s idea of strategy planning. Although it seems complex with lots that can be done, it is actually relatively straight-forward to play, with the complexity coming from working out what they want to do and which route will provide the best outcomes later in the game. It is possible that the key is getting the Golden Arches and therefore extra free actions, but they seemed very lacking this time.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
The prior arrangement to play Praga meant there weren’t enough people to play the “Feature Game” (Nusfjord), particularly as neither Pine nor Purple fancied it. Unfortunately, there was no alternative mid-weight game that everyone felt up to playing, so, after half an hour of debate, Pine insisted on sitting out leaving the rest to play what is now a bit of an old favourite, Wingspan. We’ve played this a lot as a group since it was released two years ago, but Pink and Blue had not yet had the opportunity to play the newest, colourful birds expansion, Oceania.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
Wingspan is a fairly straight forward, card driven engine-builder with players collecting bird cards and playing them into their reserve. To play bird cards in their reserve, players need to encourage them to stay by providing the right food as payment. Thus there are four actions that players can take on their turn: Play a card; Collect food, Lay eggs and Pick up cards. The last three of these are associated with habitats. Each card has a special power, some come into force when they are first played, some when the habitat is activated, and others when another player carries out an action.
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In addition to special powers, each bird card also gives points and holds eggs. At the end of the game players receive a smorgasbord of points for each bird, for “tucked cards” (those placed under their bird cards as part of an action), for food stored by birds on cards (also as part of an action), for eggs laid on cards, all added to any end of round bonuses achieved and any bonus points from character cards. The first expansion, with European birds, additionally adds cards which take effect at the end of each round, some of which are very powerful, and the new Oceania Expansion adds a new food type—Nectar.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
Nectar can be used as a substitute of any other food type, but it is used in a different way and cannot be carried over from one round to the next. There was no need to go through all the rules because everyone was familiar with the game, it just needed a summary of how Nectar worked and how the game changed, including the scoring with players who use it the most picking up bonus points at the end. The expansions mostly add more cards, and although these change the flavour of the game they don’t significantly add to the complexity, so both expansions were included this time along with the cards from the Swift-Start Promo Pack.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
This time, there were almost no birds of prey cards in the game, which was unfortunate for Pink because his Black-Billed Magpie went hungry. He had the help of Pine, however, who stayed long enough to see his favourite bird, the Black Woodpecker put in an appearance, landing in Blue’s reserve. Pink went on to concentrate on using Nectar and Character cards, the Omnivore Expert and Fishery Manager, both of which give points for the type of food birds eat. Burgundy also focused strongly on his bonuses from Character cards (Citizen Scientist and Bird Counter) and both he and Pink scored more than twice Purple’s and Blue’s bonuses.
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This is a relatively small part of the scoring, however. Purple concentrated on making sure she had plenty of eggs at the end of the game and the purpleness of her reserve with all it’s purple eggs was a sight to behold. Everyone made good use of Nectar, but Pink cleaned up winning two of the three categories and coming second in the third. Burgundy took a lot of points for his tucked cards and had lots of his scoring birds in his reserve. Blue had more birds and more valuable ones too, nearly filling her reserve. The question was whether her huge pile of eggs was enough to offset the points others had taken elsewhere. In the event it was, and she finished with just enough to knock Burgundy into second place, slightly ahead of Pink. And with that, it was home time.
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| – Image by boardGOATS |
Learning Outcome: Don’t put all your eggs in one nest.
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