Author Archives: nannyGOAT

Boardgames in the News: Asmodee For Sale‽

Over the last few years Eurazeo have developed Asmodee from a small French games company primarily known for a clever little kids game called Dobble, into an industrial conglomerate swallowing up the likes of Days of Wonder, Fantasy Flight Games, Z-man Games, Mayfair, and Lookout Spiele. In the process, Asmodee added some of the most high profile modern boardgames to their portfolio, including Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Pandemic, Agricola, Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game, Splendor, Dead of Winter, Settlers of Catan (now known simply as “Catan”) and as of this week, Love Letter. Speculation as to the end result has been rife, here and elsewhere. Indeed, three months ago we raised the question:

…it would seem that Eurazeo is not looking to hold onto Asmodee for the long haul, instead they will be looking to maximise Asmodee’s growth and then make their exit, probably in the next two to five years. So the big question is, how are Eurazeo going to make their “controlled exit”?

Reuters now reports that according to un-named sources, the answer is, “Sell Asmodee”. Apparently, investment bankers have been hired to run a sale process which they claim could value the company at over €1.5 billion (quite a return for Eurazeo who originally paid €143 million for Asmodee in November 2013). As yet, there is no credible information as to who the potential buyers may be, but if the news that Asmodee is to be sold is true, there will no doubt be plenty of speculation over the coming weeks and months. Possibilities range from a major toy manufacturer like Hasbro or Mattel wanting to add expand their range of boardgames, to venture capitalists companies going for maximum short term profits, leading to reduced quality and increased prices. No doubt, time will tell…

– Image from
escapistmagazine.com

Next Meeting – 1st May 2018

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, 1^st May, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. 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 Lords of Xidit, a simultaneous programming game with a very unusual scoring mechanism. The game is set in the fantasy land of Xidit which is under attack. The last remaining hope for restoring peace lies with the Kingdom’s noble heirs, the Idrakys, who must travel the Kingdom recruiting brave soldiers and restoring the threatened cities.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

And speaking of heirs…

Jeff’s father was ill, very ill and had been given only weeks to live. He was very wealthy however, and Jeff was due to inherit a fortune when his sickly, widower father passed on.

One day, Jeff was sitting in a café when in walked a woman whose beauty took his breath away.

“I’m only an ordinary man,” Jeff said, walking up to her, “But in just a few weeks, my father will die and I’ll inherit twenty million dollars. I could really do with a gorgeous woman like you to enjoy it with.”

The beautiful lady fluttered her eye-lashes at Jeff, and, after he’d bought her a couple of drinks, went home with him.

A couple of days later, she became Jeff’s stepmother.

17th April 2018

With Burgundy and Blue waiting for food, they decided to entertain Red with a quick game of NMBR 9, making it’s appearance at four consecutive games nights and starting three, something of a record. Somehow despite this extended run, Red had managed to avoid playing it, so after a very quick run-down of the rules, we started. The game is really very simple indeed, with players simultaneously drawing tiles and adding them to their tableau. Tiles can be placed on top of other layers as long as they don’t overhang and overlap more than one tile. Each tile depicts a number and the more tiles it sits on, the more points it scores. The whole game is typically over in about ten to fifteen minutes, and in this case it was quite tight between Blue and Burgundy, though Blue finished on ahead thanks to a lot of high-scoring tiles on her third level.

– Image by boardGOATS

Although it has proved to be a highly popular filler thanks to it’s simplicity and minimal set up time, Red was not so impressed because she felt it had seemed to offer more when she had watched everyone else playing. She struggled to explain what she meant, but it was clear that she was a little disappointed though that was probably largely due to her expectations. By this time, food had been dealt with and everyone else was arriving, and as the “Feature Game” was to be be Mini Park, another quick filler, we got on with deciding who would play it. When Ivory’s comment, “I’ll play that, but it depends on what else is on offer really…” was challenged, he added, “Well, if the alternative is Kingdomino, I’d rather try Mini Park!” Since Black had chosen that moment to wave Kingdomino around, that pretty much settled them as the two games and uncharacteristically, almost everyone jumped on the Mini Park band-waggon, leaving Black and Purple to play Kingdomino alone.

– Image by boardGOATS

The group doesn’t usually go for two-player games and as Black and Purple get lots of opportunity to play games like this together, normally someone would join them. However, in this case, both games were short and Kingdomino can be a bit variable with three due to the tiles that are left out, so we just got on with it. Kingdomino was the Spiel des Jahres in 2017 and has been very popular within the group as a light filler, so has hit the table quite a bit in the last year. The game is quite simple in that players take it in turns to choose a “domino” and add it to their “Kingdom”. The clever part of the game is that the tiles are numbered with players who choose the high numbered (and therefore more valuable) dominoes taking their turns later in the next round. In the two player game, players get two turns per round, so their first turn can be used to try to set up the second turn.

– Image by boardGOATS

Unfortunately, Black and Purple forgot about the other key difference when playing a two player game: instead of 5×5 arrays, each player is building kingdoms consisting of 7×7 arrays of “squares”. They suddenly noticed they had more tiles left than they had spaces and realised their error, so decided to carry on playing anyhow. Purple concentrated on getting corn fields and then sea and finally forests, while Black just tried to build areas of everything and make sure he was able to place all his tiles. It was very, very close, but despite the fact that she had to forfeit some tiles and failed to pick up her bonus for completing her grid, Purple just pinched it by a single point.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, on the neighbouring table, everyone else was learning the “Feature Game”, Mini Park, another quick-playing, tile-laying game. On the face of it, this has a lot in common with Carcassonne, played with two face up tiles to choose from. In contrast, however, the tiles are hexagonal which gives a little more variability and once during the game, players choose one character which dictates the end game scoring. We played the “advanced” game which has slight changes to the scoring and pairs each scoring character at random with a second character. In our game, for example, the Black Man in the Smart Hat was paired with the Yellow Fish, so the player who chose the Man (Ivory), got half the points that the player who chose the Fish got for that character (Blue). It was felt that this would add an interesting dynamic to the game as it would take on some aspects of a semi-cooperative game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Unfortunately, nobody realised at the start just how powerful (or not) each of the characters were and in that game it turned out that some were really very powerful indeed. For example, at the start of the game everyone was encouraged to place fish next to other fish, as this was the only way to make them pay when they were being placed. However, this left a large fish pond with lots of fish and when Blue (who was the first to get to the Yellow Fish Marker) and then Ivory added to it, it yielded a massive twenty-four points. Although this was the most lucrative character, the Green Man on a Bicycle (claimed by Pine) was not far behind with eighteen points. This was thanks largely to the fact that Pine and Blue (who had the Bicycle as her subsidiary character) kept drawing road tiles and extending the road the Bicycle was on, trying to scupper Ivory’s plans to build roads with benches.

– Image by boardGOATS

Although Burgundy picked up the most points for tile placement, the majority of the points come at the end of the game and, as he was last to pick his character, Burgundy was penalised when he ended up with the relatively low scoring White Bird (ironically partnered with the Orange Cat that also failed to score highly). Pine scored well for his Green Cyclist, but did not pick up enough subsidiary points from the White Bird. Ivory’s subsidiary scored highly (Yellow Fish), but much to his chagrin the scoring for his Black Man in a Smart Hat was severely restricted by Pine and Blue’s tactics. Blue, however, did well on both her primary goal (Yellow Fish) and her subsidiary (Green Cyclist), giving her more than enough compensate for a poor score on the tile placement, and she finished some way in front. If everyone had realised the implications of how the scoring worked, it was quite likely that they would have played differently and it would not have been such a landslide, and chatting afterwards, it was obvious that that aspect coloured people’s opinion of the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

The fact that everyone had only one shot at a character was meant it felt that all a player’s eggs were in one basket. This was made worse by the fact that with only one shot, the challenge was when to choose a character: too early and everyone else would be able to obstruct, too late and only the dross is left with not enough time to improve the situation. That said, it was not a long game and with only three players it would be very different as each player gets two opportunities to take character cards. Furthermore, it seems the rules are still being developed, for example, the latest version of the online rules state that the subsidiary character cards are placed face down and thus kept secret until the end of the game and the tile placement scoring has been simplified too. Given that it is such a short game, we should certainly give this one another go sometime, perhaps with the new rules-set.

– Image by boardGOATS

Kingdomino and Mini Park finished at much the same time, which meant i was possible to re-balance the number of players a little, but not before the usual shenanigans regarding who wanted to play what. Although neither mentioned it by name, Burgundy and Ivory clearly had an eye on giving Yokohama another go. Time was marching on though and Yokohama isn’t a short game, and even without any rules explanation there is a lot to setup. The 10^th Anniversary Edition of Puerto Rico was also available though, and there was just time to squeeze in a game provided it started straight away. So as Ivory had somehow managed to avoid playing it thus-far, we felt it was essential that we rectified the situation and Burgundy and Ivory started setting it up. With Blue joining Burgundy and Ivory, that left four people looking for something interesting to play, so Blue suggested Bärenpark. This another fairly light tile laying game, this time set in a bear park.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each player starts with a plot that will become their park, and the idea of the game is that on their turn, players place a tile from their personal supply on this plot. Each starting plot has a different array of symbols on some of the spaces, indicating different types of tiles. When these symbols are built over, the player takes more of the appropriate tiles from the general supply to add to their personal holdings. Some of these are small animal houses, some are larger enclosures and some are very small amenities like toilets and children’s play areas. Each tile also has a Construction Crew and a Pit providing the foundations for a Bear Statue. The Construction Crew allows the player to take an expansion board for their park, providing a new plot which they place next to their park.

– Image by boardGOATS

In contrast to the rest of the spaces, the Pit cannot be built upon in the usual way and is the last space to be covered in each plot; once every other space in a plot is covered, the owner can claim a statue from the display and place it over the Pit. These statues provide points, with the statues providing a diminishing number as the game progresses. Other sources of points include the animal houses and enclosures, but the number of these are limited and again, the earlier tiles are worth more. The small amenity tiles do not score points, but they allow players to fill in those awkward, difficult-to-fill, small gaps, enabling them to finish a plot and build a statue. Even these are limited, though to a lesser extent, so players need to be on the watch in case they are caught out. The game ends when one player fills all of their four plots and then everyone adds up their scores.

– Image by boardGOATS

After a little grumbling about koalas not being bears (the rules explain that “people like koalas, so we will be including them in our park!”), and a brief explanation from Blue, everyone started building. It was a fairly close game, but Black finishing with eighty-eight, seven points ahead of Pine in second place. Asked what he thought of it, Black’s comment was that it was a very simple game, but the group had been playing the basic game. The “Expert Variant” has achievement tiles which provide another source of points and make the game far more interesting for experienced gamers. Red, on the other hand, enjoyed the game much more, somehow finding in it the tessellation building thing that she had struggled to describe, but she had felt was missing in NMBR 9.

– Image by boardGOATS

Puerto Rico was still going, so the group moved on to one of Purple’s current favourites, Cat Lady. This is a light card game that got an outing last month as well. The game is a very simple a card drafting game, similar in feel to Sushi Go!, though with a very different drafting mechanism. On their turn, the active player takes all thee cards from one row or column in the three by three grid, marking the row they took with a kitty meeple. The cards are replaced from the draw deck and the next player then takes a different row or column. Cat cards go in front of the owner who must feed them before the end of the game or they score negative points. Any food cards yield cubes which can then be placed on the face-up cat cards to show they are being fed. Similar to Sushi Go!, there are also cards that score for the player with the most cards (cat “costumes”) and give players with the fewest negative points and sets that players can collect (toys).

– Image by boardGOATS

Players can also collect catnip cards which score minus two if the player only has one at the end of the game, or one or two points per cat if they have more. There are also lost cat cards, and discarding a pair allows players take a two victory point token or one of the three stray cat cards which are particularly useful because they have special powers. The tricky part is making sure that the food a player gets matches the cards, because cats are fussy creatures and some like tuna, while others will only eat chicken… At the end of the game, players score points for each happy well-fed cat and for their toy collection with extras if they have the most cat costumes. Unfed cats, having the fewest costumes, and the largest surplus of food will give players negative points.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time everyone went for different approaches with differing degrees of success. For example, Purple went for costumes and Pine went for toys; Black and Red both went for lots of cats and catnip, but Black failed get enough catnip to score, and actually ended up with negative points. It was very close between Pine and Red in the end, but Pine who had fewer cats (but very contented ones thanks to all the toys they had to play with), just beat Red with her larger number of cats that were all high on catnip. Time was getting on and Puerto Rico was just coming to an end giving them just enough time to watch the last few rounds.

– Image by boardGOATS

Puerto Rico was the number one rated game on the BoardGameGeek website for over five years and still commands a lot of respect though it has significant flaws. The problem is that there is very little randomness in the game which is great, but when a game like that is played a lot people become “experts” and there is a perception that there are right and wrong moves. In Puerto Rico, this point is exacerbated because of the way the game is played. In each round, beginning with the Governor, players take it in turns to chooses an action. Every player carries out the action, but the player that chose it gets a “privilege”, i.e. a bonus. The catch is that players that players need to watch what everyone else is doing in order not to give an advantage to an opponent, or worse, give one opponent an advantage while making life difficult for someone else (also known as “King making”).

– Image by boardGOATS

In Puerto Rico, 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. Thus, the aim of the game is to get victory points which are awarded for buildings and for shipping goods. However, to build, players need money, and before they can ship goods, players need to be able to produce the goods with a plantation, and where necessary process them in the appropriate building.

– Image by boardGOATS

As Ivory had not played the game before, Burgundy was Governor for the first round and Blue went second, giving him a little thinking time before he had to choose an action. This has consequences for the setup, with Blue and Burgundy starting with an indigo plantation and and Ivory starting with a corn field. At first, Ivory couldn’t see why corn might be useful as selling it doesn’t give any money, however, he quickly realised that it doesn’t need a production building and therefore is quicker and easier to produce, making it ideal for shipping. Blue joined him and the pair were soon filling boats as often as they could. Burgundy meanwhile, had gone for the high value coffee. This took him a little while to get going, but once he had a coffee roaster he was able to sell his first batch of coffee and for a short while looked like he was going to storm ahead as he added sugar to his portfolio. Unfortunately, for him, once he had spent his coffee profits, Burgundy got a little stuck as Blue and Ivory worked together very efficiently to make life difficult for him.

– Image by boardGOATS

To begin with, Burgundy was able to ship his coffee, but as it is a high value produce, he really wanted to sell it and use the profits to build. That wasn’t possible though as the Trading House already had a coffee crate in it and until there were four different commodities there, no more coffee could be sold. Burgundy had been able to commandeer a ship for coffee, but once that was full, Burgundy was in an even worse position, because between them, Blue and Ivory were able to make it very difficult for Burgundy to ship two different goods types. The reason why this caused him problems was because of the Boston Tea Party Rule: after shipping, players are only able to keep one crate and anything else is lost over the side. Thus, to begin with, Burgundy was forced to ship when he didn’t want to, and then lost valuable stock when he couldn’t ship. And all the while, Blue and Ivory were collecting victory points for shipping their corn and a little sugar or indigo.

– Image by boardGOATS

Ivory had got off the mark quite quickly buying a Hacienda early on. It wasn’t till much later in the game when Blue bought a second that we realised we’d been playing it wrong and instead of choosing which extra plantation tile he got, he should have been drawing them blind. This had two consequences: firstly it gave Ivory a small, but potentially significant advantage, and secondly, it meant we didn’t run out of plantation tiles quite as quickly as we would otherwise have done. It couldn’t be fixed though, so we just carried on and as long their strategies were aligned, Blue and Ivory were worked well together. It wasn’t long before Ivory moved on to the next stage of his development and first built a Factory and then started raking in the cash every time he produced. Blue then built herself a Warehouse and upped her shipping rate and starting raking in the victory points.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game was coming to a close when the Big Question came up: Burgundy asked whether players were allowed to buy more than one large building. Both Burgundy and Blue had a vague recollection of the rule, but it couldn’t be found in the booklet. Ivory graciously switched his strategy and did something else, though checking later proved that was wholly unnecessary. The game came to a close as we ran out of on victory point chips and colonists (something that would have happened a lot earlier had we realised there should always be a minimum number arriving on the Colonists Ship), and all that was left was to tally up the scores and it was very tight indeed. Although he had lots of buildings, Burgundy’s shipping had been effectively stymied by Blue and Ivory and the shortage of colonists had also made things a lot more difficult for him than it should have been, despite all that though, he wasn’t far behind Blue and Ivory. In the end, Ivory won by a single point. There was no need to re-count as he would have undoubtedly won by far more if he had built that second large building, though perhaps that off-set some of the advantage he had received early on with his Hacienda.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Sometimes it is best to play the “basic” game to get a feel for it before trying the advanced rules, but other times, it just feels trivial.

Boardgames in the News: Osprey Plays Games at Blackwell’s

On 28^th April 2018, Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford are holding their second games night in collaboration with Osprey Games, a small games publisher based up Cumnor Hill. Originally owned by Berkshire Printing, part of Brooke Bond, the tea company, Osprey was formed in 1969 to publish “Aircam Aviation“, a series of books that grew out of the aviation illustrator Richard Ward’s work on the collectable tea cards. In 1998, Osprey became an independent company and moved from London to Oxford and began focusing exclusively on publishing on warfare and military history books. Over the last ten years, Osprey has been publishing the Bolt Action rules used for World War II simulation games, but more recently has also engaged in reprinting some of the lesser classic board/card games. This includes Martin Wallace’s London, Reiner Knizia’s High Society and Patrick Reid’s semi-cooperative game, Escape from Colditz.

– Image from tabletopgamingnews.com

Blackwell’s is a very well known independent Oxford bookshop, but given the increasing popularity of board gaming in Oxford, they have jumped on the band-waggon and now stock a moderate range of modern board games including staples like Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne. Last October when London was re-released, Blackwell’s had copies available for pre-order for significantly less than they were being sold for at Essen a couple of weeks later. Since then, Blackwell’s have had good deals available for other Osprey games as well, including Star Cartel and The Lost Expedition. It is clear that Blackwell’s and Osprey Games are building a strong working relationship which was consolidated back in February when they held their first joint board games evening at Blackwell’s Bookshop on Broad Street. This was clearly very successful, as there is now a second games evening planned for Saturday 28^th April, 7pm-10pm. There is a £4 entry fee, but that includes a free drink at the bar.

– Image from theguardian.com

Next Meeting – 17th April 2018

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 17^th April, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. 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 Mini Park. This is a very quick, light tile-laying game from Taiwan that was popular at Essen last year. Players take on the role of architects designing a new park, taking it in turns to either place a tile or add a character.

– Image by used with permission of boardgamephotos

And speaking of architects…

An architect named Jeff and an Engineer named Joe, went on a camping trip together. It had been a long day and both of them were tired so they pitched their tent, and went to sleep.

Some hours later, Joe woke his mate and said, “It is a beautiful night, Jeff, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”

Jeff replied, “I see millions of stars.”

Joe asked, “What does that tell you?”

The young architect thought for a moment and then said, “Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically speaking, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it’s evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.” Then he paused before he continued, “Why, what does it tell you?”

His engineer friend was silent for a moment, and then said, “Practically speaking, it seems someone has stolen our tent…”

3rd April 2018

Blue and Pink arrived first and, as they were early, they decided to get in a quick game of NMBR 9, while they waited for food and more people. This is a game which is rapidly becoming one of our go-to fillers primarily thanks to it’s almost non-existent setup time. This time, Blue turned over the cards, and Pink scratched his head a lot as he tried to work out what to do with his tiles. Once a few tiles have been placed to form a base layer, then tiles can be placed on top of other tiles as long as there are no overhanging parts, and the tile sits squarely on more than one other tile. This is essential as the higher the tiles are placed the more they score. Unfortunately, the rule Pink forgot about was that tiles must be placed such that at least one edge touches a previous tile on that level. “Cheating” didn’t do him much good though, as Blue won by more than thirty finishing with a massive eighty-one thanks largely to placing a seven on the fourth tier.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Although a few of our regulars were missing (Green, Red and Ivory), they were ably replaced by a couple of our irregulars in Pink and Turquoise. So while we made sure there were no more stragglers and Burgundy finished his inch thick slice of ham, we played another quick filler game, this time of 6 Nimmt!. This has long been a favourite in the group, thanks to the fact that it plays a lot of people coupled with the hilarious way that a tenuous control of the game can catastrophically turn into chaos. It is one of those games that is more difficult to explain than to play, but essentially each player has a hand of cards and simultaneously everyone chooses one to play. Simultaneously, everyone then reveals their card and each card is added in turn to the end of one of the four rows of cards on the table. Beginning with the lowest each card is added to the row with the highest number that is still lower than the active card. The snag is, if anyone’s card is the sixth to be placed in a row, the first five are “won” and and the card becomes a new starting card.

– Image by boardGOATS

As well as a face value (one to a hundred and four), each card also has a “nimmt” value: most are one, but there are some as high as seven. The player with the fewest nimmts at the end is the winner. It has been somewhat neglected of late though, and has only been played once this year by the group, and then only just (it was the early hours of New Year’s Day), so it was definitely time for another outing. Normally we play two rounds, dealing out approximately half the deck each time, but with so many of us all wanting to play, we decided to go for a single round and deal ten cards each. This time Black and Purple were fighting it out for the unofficial wooden spoon, but that honour was reserved for Turquoise with a quite fantastic thirty-one. At the other end, both Burgundy and Blue thought they might have got it with just three and one respectively, but it was Pink with a nice round zero who pipped them to it.

– Image by boardGOATS

Once the food and the nimmts had been dealt with and it was clear that no-one else was coming, the inevitable squabble began over who wanted to play the “Feature Game”. This week it was Fabled Fruit, a very light worker-placement and set collecting card game with a “Legacy” element to it. As such, the game is very simple, but develops as you play. The idea is that the game starts with six “Locations”, each of which is formed by a deck of four cards. On their turn the active player moves their meeple to one of the locations and either carries out the action shown on the cards in the deck or buys one card for the amount shown. The locations provide access to “fruit cards”, which are the currency in the game and are used to buy the location cards. Each location has a different action, for example, the first location enables the active player to draw two cards from the top of the fruit deck.

– Image by boardGOATS

On the other hand, Location Five allows the active player to draw cards until they have a hand of three—useful if they started with no cards, but not so helpful if they had a handful. At Location Six, the active player can turn over as many cards as they like, keeping all the unique cards they turn over, but go bust in a Port Royal sort of way if they turn over a duplicate card. Since there are five different fruits, this action quickly becomes increasingly risky. There are other actions, some of which add a bit more interaction, like giving a player a banana card and getting two cards in return or drawing one card from the fruit deck and then exchanging three fruit cards with another player. A little more interaction comes from the fact that visiting an occupied location costs a fruit card: since location cards typically cost four or five fruit cards, this is expensive, especially with low player counts, but playing with the full complement makes this almost unavoidable from time to time. Aside from this though, there is very little interaction and the actions for the starting locations are quite mild.

– Image by boardGOATS

The interesting part is how the game develops, since a new card is added to the game every time a location card is bought. Each location holds just four cards, so for every cards that are bought, a new location is introduced, and once all the cards for one location have been bought, that location and therefore that action is no longer available. The really clever part of the game is the “Legacy” element: the end game condition, becomes the start condition for the next game. For this reason, we decided to play the game three times so we could see and appreciate how it evolves. The rules were easy enough to explain and Turquoise, Magenta and Burgundy were keen to give it a go, so they joined Blue and Pink leaving Black, Purple and Pine to find something else to play. It wasn’t long before the Fabled Fruit players were happily collecting fruit cards and occasionally turning them into juice by buying location cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

It is a game of very fine margins, though and it wasn’t long before almost everyone had two Location cards tucked away and were fighting for one more to win. In truth it wasn’t a long fight as Pink made his experience with the game tell and took the first round. Then instead of resetting the game, we checked we still had the right number of cards out, and started again with the new set up. So this time, we started with the market which had been introduced during the first round. This is a face up display of five cards that players can interact with. The Locations that were available allowed players to trade cards with the market, but also trade one strawberry, for any three non-strawberry fruit cards in the market. This hugely increased the value of strawberries and, with the high value of pineapples (which could be traded for five from the deck) and bananas (which could be used to take cards off another player), it meant that players were holding more and more cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

This all changed in the third round, however, when Location Ten appeared which allowed the active player to take two fruits from the player with the most cards. Nobody liked falling victim to that one very much, but everyone took advantage where they could. With just Pink taking the second round as well as the first, it was all about trying to stop him taking a clean sweep. In the end it was really tight. Everyone gets the same number of turns, so when it was clear that Pink was once again in a position to trigger the end by purchasing his third card, it was a question of whether anyone could stop him. Although Turquoise who started the round had been steadily improving, there was nothing she could do, nor Burgundy who went next. As Pink then played his master-move and picked up third Location card, the question changed to whether Blue and Magenta would be able to join him. Both had enough cards, but but Magenta, was unfortunately standing on the only card she could buy, so in the end, the final round was shared by Blue and Pink.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, on the next table, Black, Purple and Pine had started off with Azul. This, like NMBR 9, has been an immensely popular game since it first appeared on the group’s radar at Essen last year. The game is almost entirely abstract, with a very loose “artists decorating a wall in the Palace of Evora” theme, but somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter as the game play is good and the production values very high. In summary, the active player can either take all the tiles of one colour from one of the factory displays (putting the rest in the central market) or take all the tiles of one colour from the market in the centre of the table. They then place the tiles they took in one of the five rows on their player board. The catch is that although they can add more tiles to a row later in the round, once a row is full, any left-overs go into the negative scoring row. The round ends when all the tiles have been picked up, and one tile from each full row is added to the player’s mosaic and scored.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Tiles placed singly score just one point, but if they become part of a row or column, they pick up points for each tile in the row or column, so clever players can make tiles score over and over again. The game ends when one player gets a complete row, so it takes at least five rounds, and then bonus points are awarded for completed columns or rows and full sets of five of a colour. Purple wasn’t concentrating, so failed to get any bonus points, while Black and Pine picked up a few negative points. Pin had a disastrous final round when he was forced to pick up six red tiles but could only place two of them meaning the rest all scored negative points, a total of minus thirteen for that round. It didn’t do him too much damage though as he finished with thirty-eight, ten points clear of the others who were in a battle for second that Black won by a single point.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Toynan

Next the trio moved on to Sagrada. This is another popular “game of the moment”, with very similar feel to Azul, but this time using dice and players are building a stained glass window by placing dice on a grid of dice on their player board. Each board has some restrictions on where certain coloured or numbered dice can be placed there and players take it in turns to take dice from a pool and add them to their window. Depending on the difficulty of the starting grid, players start with a small number of favour tokens which act as “get out of jail free” options and allow them to use special tools to manipulate some of the dice, either during the “drafting” phase, or sometimes those already in their “window”. Points are awarded for fulfilling certain criteria, depicted on cards drawn at random at the start of the game. Although completing the window can be challenging in its own right if the dice don’t roll well, it is the objective cards that are the key to the game.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Each player has their own private objective which scores for the number of pips displayed on dice of a given colour in that player’s window. There are also three public objectives which everyone can use to score points; this time these gave points for complete sets of all five different colours, complete sets of all six numbers, and for columns that contained different numbers. The game starts with each player choosing a window from two double-sided cards dealt at random. The hard ones come with a lot of favour tokens and these can be critical as they can be used to move and re-roll dice or other special actions depending on what special tools are available. This time they were particularly important, as everyone kept rolling sixes which wasn’t what they really needed. Purple in particular made full use of all her favour tokens which helped keep her in the game. When it came to scoring, it was quite close, with players taking similar scores on the separate public objectives. The small differences added up, however, and Pine finished in front with a nice round fifty, a handful of points ahead of Black in second place.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Fabled Fruit still hadn’t finished, but was well into its third round, so Purple, Black and Pine, looked round for something familiar and quick to play, and their collective eye fell on Kingdomino. The rules didn’t need much recap: take a domino and add to the kingdom and then place a meeple on one of the dominoes on display for the next round. When placing the dominoes, one of the two ends must connect to terrain of the same type already in the kingdom, or connect directly to the start tile. Points are awarded at the end of the game by multiplying the number of tiles in an area of terrain by the number of crowns in the area. All dominoes must fit in a five-by-five space (or be discarded) and bonus points are awarded for successfully placing all tiles and finishing with the start tile in the centre.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

It is a very clever little game, and tile placement is clearly critical, but one of the most important aspects is the trade off between turn order and tile value. Each domino has a numerical value and they are set out and taken, from low to high, so players going for the more valuable tiles are trading this value against their position in the turn order. This was key for Pine who failed to get the crowns he needed and when he did couldn’t add them to the terrain he wanted. This was exacerbated by the fact that with only three players, some tiles never appear which can upset the balance of the game. All in all, Pine had a complete “mare” of a game, crowned by the fact that he failed to place all his tiles and didn’t get his castle in the centre of the kingdom either. It was a game he wanted to forget, but was close between Black and Purple. Black had the edge though and finished with a grand total of seventy.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Nobody wanted a late night, but everyone fancied finishing with something light, and with so many people Las Vegas is always a good option. This light dice game is really easy to play and doesn’t require much in the way of concentration, so is great to wind down with. On their turn, each player begins by rolling their dice, then assigning some of them to one of the six casinos. Each casino is numbered one to six and has a jackpot drawn at random from a deck of money; the catch is that to place a “bet”, the player must use all the dice of one number that number. Once everyone has placed all their dice the player who placed the most dice on a casino takes the highest value currency card. The really clever bit is that before any money is handed out, any “draws” are removed, which leads to a lot of barracking.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor joeincolorado

We also always add the Slot Machine from the 2015 Brettspiel Advent Calendar, which is like a seventh casino, except that it can hold dice of any number, but each number can only be added once (though a player must add all the dice they have of that number). We also add some elements from the Boulevard expansion, including extra high value money cards, the “biggun” (which replaces one die per person with a larger, double weight die worth two of the little ones) and extra dice so more people can play. Finally, we always house rule the game so we only play three rounds instead of four—although we love it, with four rounds it can outstay it’s welcome for those who feel they can’t catch up.

– Image by boardGOATS

It’s never easy to tell how people are doing as the money is stored face down and the denominations vary from $10,000 to $100,000, so someone with a large pile may be very rich or just have a lot of “notes”. And Purple certainly had a lot of notes as she popped out to the conveniences and came back to find a massive money pile. Everyone was so impressed that several others optimistically tried the same trick, but unfortunately they didn’t quite have the knack. It was an exciting game though; with so many people playing there were a lot of draws and lots of bids ended up cancelling out others, often with three people involved and a fourth very lucky “loser” picking up the spoils. In the final counting, Pink proved that while he was good at collecting fruit, he was rubbish at collecting money. At the other end of the scale meanwhile, Black and Purple were again fighting it out for first place, but a tie on $340,000 each was eventually resolved in Purple’s favour.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ckirkman

Learning Outcome: Aesop doesn’t have a monopoly on Fables.

Next Meeting – 3rd April 2018

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 3^rd April, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. 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 Fabled Fruit. This is a very light, but innovative little card game with elements of worker placement and set collection. The interesting part of the game is the “Legacy” element where new cards are introduced during the game and the end state becomes the starting state for the next game. These keep the game fresh and interesting as the game changes as it is played. For this reason, we plan to play this a few times so that everyone gets a chance to see how the game evolves.

– Image by BGG contributor Hasematzel

And speaking of fruit…

Jeff and his two friends got captured by native Americans who wanted to kill them, but the Europeans begged to have their lives spared. After some discussion, the natives agreed to not kill them on one condition: the Europeans must go into the forest and bring back a fruit and they would be informed what to do with it on their return.

So the first of Jeff’s friends came back with a peach. On his return, the native said “Shove it up your bottom, if you laugh we kill you.”

So, he shoved the peach where the sun wouldn’t shine and, as he did so, he couldn’t help laughing, so the natives killed him.

The second of Jeff’s friends came back with a grape. On his return, the native told him the same thing. Jeff’s friend couldn’t help himself and laughed so again, the natives killed him.

Jeff’s two friends met at the pearly gates and Jeff’s first friend said to the second, “I had a peach and peaches are furry, so that’s why I laughed, but you had a grape, what went wrong?”

The second friend replied, “Oh, well, I was doing just fine until I saw Jeff coming back with a pineapple!”

20th March 2018

Unfortunately, ordering dinner was delayed due to a birthday party on the other side of the room, so Blue, Pine and Burgundy decided to get in a quick game of NMBR 9 while they waited. Despite the fact that it isn’t a top game for anyone and takes up a lot of room in the bag, it is is rapidly becoming a very popular filler. This is because it is nice and short, has a enough bite to keep everyone interested for the duration and, as it has almost no set-up time, the activation energy barrier is particularly low (find and open the box, take out the deck of cards and turn over the top one…). The game is a bingo-type tile-laying game where each person plays a total of twenty tiles, numbered zero to nine, with each one appearing twice. The deck of cards dictates the order they appear in and tiles must be placed such that at least one edge touches a previous tile. Tiles can be placed on top of other tiles as long as there are no overhanging parts, and the tile sits squarely on more than one other tile. At the end of the game the number of the tiles are multiplied by the level they sit on minus one. So, a five on the third tier scores ten points (5 x (3-1)).

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

This time, everyone started off with the same placements albeit in a different orientation. It wasn’t long before first Burgundy and then the other two diverged though, with slightly different strategies. There is a bit of knack to the game with two basic competing requirements: getting strong continuous layers without gaps, and placing numbers, ideally high numbers, on the highest tiers possible so they score more. Blue and Burgundy concentrated on getting a really solid zero level with Burgundy even sacrificing his first “nine” to the cause. Pine on the other hand, succeeded in placing both his “eights” on his third tier scoring a thirty-two points for those tiles alone. It was a very close game, but the difference was when, towards the end of the game, Burgundy managed to squeeze a “three” onto the fourth layer. This gave him nine points and victory with a total of sixty-three points, just five points ahead of Blue and Pine, who tied for second place.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

By the time NMBR 9 was finishing, everyone else was arriving and the group split into two, with one group playing the “Feature Game”, Boomtown and the other playing Yokohama, a game which Ivory had been hankering after playing since he first saw it long before Christmas. With food due for Blue and Burgundy at anytime, Ivory had to wait another twenty minutes or so, and to try to keep his mind off the delay, the trio decided to squeeze in another filler, Coloretto. This is a light set-collecting card game that everyone in the group is familiar with: on their turn, players can either pick up a chameleon card from the face down deck and add it to a truck, or take a truck (passing for the rest of the round). The innovative part of the game is the scoring which uses the triangular number sequence (one point for the first card, three points for two cards, six points for three cards etc.), with positive points for three sets and negative for the rest.

– Image by BGG contributor SergioMR

We’d just started when food arrived and it quickly became apparent that Blue was concentrating more on her pizza than the game as she just stared collecting almost anything that came her way. Everyone started collecting light blue/white cards and this was a mistake because it meant that everyone was going to struggle to get lots of them. In the end, three things made the difference: the jokers that Blue picked up; the bonus point cards that Blue and Ivory collected, and the negative points that Burgundy ended up with. As a result, despite her lack of concentration, Blue finished with forty-four points and a sizeable lead, with Ivory in second place. Meanwhile, the next table had started the “Feature Game”, Boomtown, which is a fairly light card game where players are mining moguls and each round is divided into three parts, auction, selection, and production.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the start of the round one card is drawn per person and placed face for bidding. Players then, in clockwise order, take turns bidding for who gets to choose a card first. Bidding continues round the table; when a player passes then they are out of the bidding and the auction continues until there is one person left. While the auctions are fun, the real twist in the game is what happens as a result of the auction. Winning the bidding has two consequences: first pick from the cards available, but also payment of the bid to the other players. So, the winner of the auction pays his winning bid to the player on his right who then gives half of that sum to the player on his right who, in turn, gives half of that amount to the player on his right, and so on in anticlockwise order, stopping just before the player who won the bidding. The winning bidder chooses first and selection then passes to the player on his left and continues in clockwise order (i.e. opposite to the order of the money route).

– Image by boardGOATS

There are two types of cards in Boomtown, mine cards and special cards. The special cards typically provide a one off action that must be used straight away while others can be saved for later in the game. Some help the owner, but most target one, several or all of the other players destroying or stealing mines, changing dice rolls or the order of a result of an auction. Mine cards provide victory points and can also be a source of income throughout the game (especially valuable as money enables players to take control during the auctions). Each mine card has a number of gold coin symbols on it as well as a number between two and twelve. The gold coin symbols correspond to the number of victory points the card is worth at the end of the game and the number of chips a player will receive should the card’s number be rolled during the production phase (like in The Settlers of Catan).

– Image by boardGOATS

Each mine card also has a colour and these can be critical as the player with the most cards takes the mayor who is worth five points at the end of the game. Perhaps more importantly, the player who owns the mayor receives payment from the other players when they take (build) a mine of that colour. Mayors can also be a deciding factor in how one bids for first choice in a round and some of the special cards can provide an edge in the contest for mayors, as well. This means that fights over mayors can get very, very nasty indeed. The game ends when the deck is exhausted and everyone then adds their number of chips to the value of their mines and any mayor bonuses, the player with the highest total wins.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was a slow start with no-one really bidding very high. Most people were not sure quite how the game would work so did not want to commit too much at this early stage. In the very first round, the “aggressive” nature of the game quickly reared its ugly head when four of the five cards in the auction were mines and one was Dynamite. Green won the bid and since Red was sitting on his right, she was left with the final card, the Dynamite. There was really only ever one choice as to who’s mine would go…the person who had played it many times before, Green. A couple more rounds on and the players were still only tentatively feeling their way. Red had chosen to diverge from the other player’s tactics slightly by going for a Saloon rather than mines and before long she was able to add the Saloon Girls to double its effect.

– Image by boardGOATS

When Pine won a bid and started the next round of bidding, he did not know what to choose, not really wanting to win the bid at all. So he bet one, When nearly everyone had passed and he looked like he would win the bid on one, he commented that it seemed unfair that he would be forced to pay some money, thinking that if everyone passed he would be the winner anyway. A quick check of the rules confirmed that indeed the player starting didn’t have to bid and could pass, and in the unlikely event that everyone passed, they would win. So everyone agreed to start the round again. Pine passed, Red Passed, Green, with an eye to the main chance then bid one—Oh the shouts of disgust that followed—he had passed last time so why bid this time? Well, it wasn’t worth two, but it might be worth one, and with that he won the auction.

– Image by boardGOATS

About a third of the way through the game, there were a couple of Mayors out and Red’s yellow Saloon was bringing in some income from Pine’s growing number of yellow mines. It was about this time when Pine decided he’d had enough and took the next dynamite card and, much to her disgust, blew up Red’s Saloon, taking the girls with it! In the meantime, Purple was trying to corner the green and red mines, while Black was settling himself strongly into purple mines. At this point Red decided that she was so far behind in the mining stakes there was little point in switching to that route so decided to stick to the “money by other means” strategy. She managed to get a second saloon and this time chose Black’s purple mines to be the target for her custom. This seemed to regularly provide income, but without the girls it was only two gold at a time, barely enough to cover costs.

– Image by boardGOATS

As the game drew to a close, it was looking like a two horse race between Green’s extensive pile of cash and Black’s almost as large pile and growing number of mines. Pine decided he wanted a piece of the action and chose to hold up Black opting for a 50/50 and said he’d try to roll a seven or higher. He failed, as did Red when she tried the same thing, with Black again the target. As everyone tallied up the scores, it became apparent that the failed hold-ups had had a significant impact on the outcome. Red’s strategy had totally failed and Purple had been unlucky with the mine production rolls, but it was quite close between the other three. In the end, Black finished just five points ahead of Pine who pipped Green to second by two points—if Black had lost those hold-ups the game could have gone to Pine…

– Image by boardGOATS

On the next table, Yokohama had barely started, so the group found something a little longer to play in Jórvík. This is a viking re-themed version of The Speicherstadt, which was a very popular game with the the group a few years ago. Last time we played the expanded version (corresponding to the original game with the Kaispeicher Expansion), but this time we did not want it to go on too long, so played the base game rather than the fully expanded one. Pine remembered it as the game where Vikings queue up, and called it “The Queuing Game”, and that sums it up pretty well. Players take it in turns to place their meeples in queues next to the laid out cards. Once everyone has placed their cards, each card is “sold” and the first player who placed their meeple next to the card has first dibs.

– Image by boardGOATS

The snag is that the cost depends on the number of players who joined after them. So, if the queue consists of three people, the first player can pay two for it, but if they turn it down, the next player can pay one. This makes the game evil. It is an auction game in which players can increase the value and, once the other person drops out, can drop out as well, no strings attached. A kind of, “Well, I didn’t want it, but I just didn’t want you to have it…” This lack of control didn’t go down well with Ivory, who saw the game and commented, “If we were playing “Snog, Marry, Avoid”, that would definitely be “Avoid”!” Curious, Blue asked him whether Yokohama would be “Snog” or “Marry”, to which Ivory emphatically responded, “Snog” and added, “”Marry” would require investment…”

– Image by boardGOATS

The cards come in varying types, starting with contracts and goods – contract cards give victory points, but only if they have been fulfilled by collecting the correct goods. On the other hand, Market Cards allow players to sell goods and get a better return than usual, enabling the owner to build a supply of cash giving them power in the “auctions”. One of the most important cards are the viking fighter cards. When the “Attack of the Picts” come up at the end of each season, the player with the most viking fighters gets a bonus, but woe betide the player that has the fewest viking fighter cards as they will lose points in a “Devil take the hindmost” mechanism. The game ends when all the cards have been auctioned and the player with the most points is the winner. It only took one round for everyone to take up their differing strategies. Red, having not played the game before, had gone for a couple of market cards, enabling her to sell goods for one coin each rather than the usual two goods for one coin. Green had started a collection of Viking fighters to ward off the Pict raiders, Black collected the only artisan card, Purple went for the feast and Pine wasn’t really sure where he was going so had taken another market card.

– Image by boardGOATS

By the end of the second round Red had acquired three of the market cards, Green another fighter, Black and purple both had artisans, and Pine had taken the valuable warehouse. Black was dubious of Red’s strategy for so many market cards, as experience had shown that these cards were generally not that valuable as you did not often have the required resource to sell. Green was reserving judgement thinking that with three she could almost guarantee being able to sell something. Then the goods started to arrive. Everyone seemed frustrated at what they could actually get and money soon ran very low, except for Red however, who always seemed to have more than anyone else; those markets were beginning to prove useful. Pine’s warehouse seemed pretty empty however and although Green’s defense of the Picts was mighty, there wasn’t a lot he was defending in the early stages.

– Image by boardGOATS

As the game wore on, Green inched up the score track as Pine, Purple and Red slipped back, due to Pict raids. By the last round, almost everyone was spent up with no more than one or two coins each, except Red who seemed to have a stash of seven or eight. This meant that she was able to hoover up both the end game scoring bonus cards (the ships and the coins) and this left an odd position that didn’t seem to be covered in the rules. The very last card in the Winter deck was the attack of the Picts card, which meant that all the other cards had been out and selected, and only two cards remained, both attack of the Picts cards. Normally, the Attack of the Picts card would have been enacted as soon as it was revealed and then discarded, which is why the cards fit the slots perfectly. Pine felt the game should end there without activating them, but since we did need to have the final attack card everyone else felt that the game probably meant both attacks should happen, one after the other. Considering that there is a one in fifteen chance of this happening, it really should have been mentioned in the rules.

– Image by boardGOATS

It quickly became clear why Pine wasn’t keen on activating the Pict cards: he had seven points to lose and Green had seven to gain! It didn’t matter though, because in the final scoring Red trounced everyone, proving that some cards are more powerful than we could ever imagine. Black and Green were tied in second place, much to their chagrin, as both had thought it would be one of them in first place; checking the tie breaker, it was Green took a somewhat Pyrrhic victory. While all this was going on, after some four or five months, Ivory was finally getting personal with Yokohama, and it seamed he was finding that it had been worth the wait. It had taken quite a while to set up and was quite a “table-hog”, but it looked much more complex than it appeared to the players on the neighbouring table.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Yokohama has a lot in common with Istanbul—although it is unquestionably a deeper game, the principle is very similar. In Istanbul, players take it in turn to move their Merchant around the bazaar to locations where he can carry out specific actions. Merchants can only carry out actions at locations where there is one of their Assistants or where they can drop off one of their Assistants. Yokohama has a similar travelling Merchant mechanism, but before he moves, the active player places Assistants, three in different locations or two together at the same location. The difference is that in Istanbul the distance the Merchants can travel is limited, whereas in Yokohama, they can travel as far as they like, but can only travel through locations that are occupied by one or more of their Assistants.

– Image by BGG contributor cmarie

One of the most significant differences between the two games is that the action a player can take depends on the “Power” they have at their Merchant’s location. The Power is the sum of the number of number of Assistants, Stores and Trading Houses present, plus one for the Merchant. The nature of the locations are more complex too, some just provide resources or money, but others provide opportunities to get Contract cards, victory points or even technology cards that can be used during the game. Another key difference is that each player is provided with a small number of Assistants at the start of the game. Although any Assistants are returned when their Power is used to carry-out out an action, players inevitably need more, which they must obtain by visiting the Employment agency (where players can also buy Stores and Trading Houses).

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Despite the similarities, the games have a very different feel about them, though they are both very smooth to play with very little down-time. Yokohama has a number of end conditions, including drawing the last contract card, filling a given number of spaces in the Church, or Customs locations, or if one or more players has built all their Trading houses or Stores. In this way, it is up to the players how long the game goes on, which was definitely something that affected the way Blue, Burgundy and Ivory played. The game began with Blue picking off the highest scoring Contracts while Ivory decided to build some technology, in particular the ability to place a fourth Assistant, something that proved it’s worth as he used it extensively throughout the game. Burgundy followed Blue with the Contracts, but was generally beaten to the most valuable cards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor HedgeWizzard

As the game developed, all three players began to get into their stride a bit more, and when pine looked on in horror at all the pieces and commented that it definitely looked like an “Ivory sort of game”, all three agreed that it was no where near as complex as it looked. And that was just as well, because Yokohama has a lot of fiddly pieces and does look especially complicated. Up to this point though, everyone had been hitting the Contract cards quite hard, when Burgundy suddenly pointed out that there weren’t many left and if we continued that way, the game would be over quite soon. Clearly nobody wanted that, because everyone switched their attention to other sources of points. It quickly became clear that all three players had spotted the value the Customs house could provide, and since everyone was beginning to build up a small stack of valuable “Import” crates, it became a race to get there first.

– Image by BGG contributor Roger_Jay

Inevitably, Ivory got to the Customs house first, followed by Blue and Burgundy. Blue had more Import crates though and was able visit several times and hold the majority. Ivory spotted that there were points to be had by visiting the Church, which the others had completely neglected and Burgundy took one of the achievement bonuses for having built in three commercial and two production areas. This was something that everyone had tried to go for, but had been sidetracked from. Ivory snaffled the bonus for being the first to achieve six bundles of silk with an extremely clever move, while Blue who had always had more money than anyone else picked up the bonus for being the first to have ten Yen. It was clear that the game wasn’t going to go on much longer, but everyone was concentrating on trying to eke out those last few points in what felt like a close game.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor HedgeWizzard

It was about this point that Red asked to borrow Blues car keys, only to return a few minutes later, much to everyone’s amusement, asking how to use them as she had been pushing the car boot open button without success. Obviously that wasn’t the right button, so with new instructions she tried again, only to return after another couple of minutes still defeated. In the end, Green went to her rescue, though even he took several tries to get it to work. On their return Yokohama was coming to a close and the players were working out the final scores. It was close, but despite Blue’s obstructive tactics at the end, Ivory still finished five points clear with one-hundred and twenty-two. It was clear that everyone had enjoyed the game: Burgundy’s comment was that he’d struggled from start to finish, but loved every minute. Ivory had clearly enjoyed it too, and was making appreciative comments about variable setups as he helped pack away, though it remains to be seen whether he will invest in an engagement ring…

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor punkin312

Learning Outcome: Some games are worth the wait.

Boardgames in the News: So, What’s the Big Deal with “Legacy Games”?

Legacy games were the latest, greatest thing in boardgames in 2011, when the first “Legacy Game”, Risk Legacy, was first published. Although Risk Legacy, was the first of this style of games, it was the arrival on the scene of Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, four years later, that really raised their profile, and with it’s arrival, there was a lot of debate. Legacy games are board games where changes are made as players play; think “Choose Your Own Adventure“, only with a boardgame instead of a book. The difference is that the changes that are made are permanent and affect game play the next time. Examples of these changes include permanently marking cards, adding stickers to the board, destroying components, opening sealed envelopes, and so on.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

These changes are designed to be permanent and are typically part of a campaign that can only be played through once. And this is where the controversy lies: hitherto, boardgames have been toys that provide entertainment time and time and time again, and have a resale value, Legacy Games can only played through once and have little or no resale value once the campaign has been started. There are other issues too, for example, for the best experience, these games need to be played with the same group every time, and as such, are not ideal for games groups where different people attend each time. Designing them is considerably more complex than normal games as well, as all the alternate paths have to be balanced and every possible eventuality play-tested.

– Image by BGG contributor Six8

There has been a lot of demand for the development of Legacy Games with a reset capability, and games like Fabled Fruit and Charterstone have been produced with this in mind. Unfortunately, this completely misses the point: the excitement of the true Legacy Games generate is precisely because they cannot be reset. This is not to say that “Fabled Games” and other reset-able “Legacy-style” games are poor games, in fact, because they need more play-testing than most games, the opposite is often true. And these games still have the feeling of exploring the unknown, but there is something they cannot reproduce. The fact is, boardgames are very precious to gamers, and as a society people are taught to take care of games, so permanently damaging them is something everyone is taught not to do, a bit like permanently damaging a book. For this reason, there is a frisson of excitement that comes with permanently changing a game and that is the true mark of a Legacy Game; love it or loath it, the knowledge that the game can be reset removes this defining aspect.

– Edited from image by BGG contributor Muse23PT

Next Meeting – 20th March 2018

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 20^th March, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. 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 Boomtown. Although we’ve played this before, it was a very long time ago and we thought we’d give it another outing. The game is set in the Wild West, where players are prospectors bidding for mining concessions. It is a fairly quick game, which should give us plenty of time decide what longer games we would like to play once everyone has arrived.

– Image by boardGOATS

And talking of the Wild West…

The swing doors of the Wild West saloon crashed open and in came Jeff, black with fury. “All right!” he raged, “All right! Who did it? What darned varmint painted my horse bright blue?”

The huge figure of Black Jake, a notorious gunfighter and town baddie rose from a chair by the door. “It was me, shrimp,” he drawled, bunching his gigantic fists, “What about it?”

“Oh, well, er,” stammered Jeff wretchedly, “All I wanted to say was… er… when are you going to give it another coat please?”