Author Archives: nannyGOAT

Next Meeting – 4th October 2016

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 4^th October, 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.

To celebrate our fourth birthday this week, the “Feature Game” will be Crappy Birthday. This is a silly little filler/party game that we can mess about with while people are eating allowing us to play something longer once everyone has arrived and finished the inevitable Essen discussions.

– Image by boardGOATS

And speaking of birthdays…

It was Jeff’s birthday and, as it was a special birthday, his brother had bought him a special present. Before opening the gift, Jeff shook it slightly, and noticed that it was wet in the corner. Touching his finger to the wet spot and tasting it, he asked, “Is it a bottle of wine?”

His brother shook his head, “No…” So, again, Jeff touched his finger to the box and tasted the liquid.

“A bottle of scotch then?” he asked, beginning to get all excited – this was way better than he’d expected. Again his brother shook his head though, “No, not a bottle of scotch…”

Eventually, Jeff said, “OK, I give in, what is it?”

His brother paused for effect, before answering, “A puppy!”

20th September 2016

Since the planned “Feature Game” (Cuba) was a long one and we didn’t want anyone to get stuck playing two-player games all evening, we decided to play a quick filler until everyone had arrived. After a brief discussion, we decided to go for Between Two Cities. This game is quite popular with our group as it is both competitive, and cooperative and, as such, is totally different to anything else we play. The idea is that, instead of each player having a personal player board that they work on in isolation, each player sits between two boards which they share with their neighbours. The game play is based on card drafting games like Sushi Go! and 7 Wonders with scoring taking elements from tile-laying games like Carcassonne and Alhambra.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is played over three rounds with players placing building tiles to construct cities consisting of sixteen tiles in a four by four array. Each player starts the first round with six tiles, of which they secretly choose two and pass the rest to the left. Once everyone has chosen their two, everyone reveals their choices and then negotiates with their neighbours to try to to ensure they get the tiles they want in the two cities they have a share in. Play continues with each player picking up the hand they were passed and choosing another pair of tiles etc. until there are no tiles left. In the second round players get three double tiles of which they choose two and discard the third. These double tiles contain two buildings in a vertical or horizontal arrangement.

– Image by boardGOATS

This is where things can get difficult, as the final city must form a four by four square and the location of buildings can be critical to their scoring. For example, a housing estate built in a city with lots of other different types of buildings is worth up to five points at the end of the game, unless it is next to a factory in which case it is only worth one point. Similarly, an isolated shop is worth two points, but a row of four is worth sixteen points. The third and final round is played the same way as the first, except that tiles are passed in the opposite direction. The winner is the player with the highest scoring second city. We had just begun getting the game out and revising the game play when Black and Purple arrived, the last two expected. So, in a quick switch, four jumped ship to play the “Feature Game” leaving Black and Purple to join Red, Magenta and Pine in Between Two Cities.

– Image by boardGOATS

The five cities all had very different characteristics, for example, Pine shared two contrasting cities with Magenta and Red. The city he shared with Magenta had a pleasing arrangement of houses around a large central park with a couple of shops, bars, offices and a factory. On his other side he shared the top scoring industrial town with Red which comprised a small housing estate buffered from factories by a row of office blocks. Red shared her second city with Purple. This was built round a large park with lots of offices some bars, but only the one housing estate which cost it points. Purple also shared a city with Black comprised two small parks surrounded by houses and bars with a couple of shops thrown in for good measure. The fifth and final city was another industrial conurbation shared by Magenta and Black with lots of factories, and offices interspersed with bars and restaurants giving it a high score.

– Image by boardGOATS

The key to the game is to build two cities with similar scoring, but ideally using different components. The other important factor, however, is the layout of the buildings and keeping them flexible for as long as possible. The most successful in this regard was Pine, who was sat between the first and third highest scoring cities shared with Magenta and Red, who took second and third place respectively. Filling in the log book was quite a pantomime, accompanied by photos and complicated diagrams before the group moved on to their next game, Pi mal Pfloumen, also known in our group as “Oh my Plums!”. We’ve played this a couple of times, most recently last time, but on both occasions we struggled with the clarity of the rules. This time, we finally managed to play it right (we think) and unsurprisingly, the game worked much better played correctly.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is one of set collecting built on a framework of trick taking. Each card has a value, a “fruit suit” and, in many cases, a special action as well. Players take it in turns to play a card, then, starting with the player who played the card with the highest face value, players then take it in turns to choose a card. These are added to their tableau in front of them. In general, any special actions are carried out when the card is taken, which can include taking “π cards” (which can be added to cards when they are played to increase their face value), taking cards from other players or claiming the Watchdog card (which protects from card theft).

– Image by boardGOATS

Some cards depict a “fruit mix” which lead to scoring opportunities, and can be claimed at any point when a player is taking cards at the end of the trick. It all made a lot more sense this time though Red still didn’t have a clue what was going on. It was quite a close game, but was finally decided when Red took a critical plum spoiling Black and Pine’s plans and with it taking the game, just ahead of Purple in second place. With Red and Magenta heading home for an early night and the game on the next table still going, Black, Purple and Pine were looking for something interesting to play. Blue suggested Oh My Goods!, which is a little card game, but as none of the others had played it (and Blue was engaged elsewhere), they settled down to decipher the rules. Meanwhile, the neighbouring table were just over halfway through their game of Cuba.

– Image by boardGOATS

Cuba is a fairly simple game mechanistically, but is deceptively complex thanks to the way actions interact and build on each other. Each player has a player board featuring a four by four array of plantations and/or buildings and a lot for storage. They also have a pack of five character cards each with an associated action. In the first part of each round, players take it in turns to play a character card until they have each played four of them. In the second part of the round, the remaining character provides the basis of each player’s votes in Parliament, with different characters providing different numbers of votes. This part of the game is vaguely reminiscent of voting for Laws in Lancaster. In Cuba, players can improve their position by buying more votes in a blind bidding phase with the winner choosing two which two bills Parliament will enact. There are a number of little features that give the game teeth, for example, any money spent on buying votes goes to the bank, regardless of whether the player wins or loses. Similarly, the start player (which decided based on the final character card played) can be critical as it is the tie breaker in the voting phase as well as giving priority in the next round.

– Image by boardGOATS

Getting these wrong can mess up plans spectacularly, but far more critical are the character cards played, the order they are played in and how they are played. For example, the Worker card allows a player to move their Worker to any plantation on their player board and then activate the plantation at its new location and all plantations orthogonal to it. Plantations can generate resources (rock, wood or water) or produce (sugar, citrus fruit or tobacco), but as the game progresses may be replaced by buildings. Buildings are placed over plantation spaces using the Architect card and exchanging them for resources. Like plantations, they are activated by playing the Foreman card who activates all buildings orthogonal to the Worker, but does not move the worker as part of the action. Thus, the relationship between playing the Worker card and playing Foreman card is very important.

– Image by boardGOATS

Furthermore, there is a significant distinction between resources (cubes), produce (octahedral blocks) and goods (rum and cigars created from sugar and tabacco): while resources and goods can be stored in the lot, produce will rot if left out overnight and must be moved to the Warehouse before the end of the round if they are to be saved. In order to move produce to the Warehouse, the Warehouse must be activated by the Foreman. This could be because it is one of the buildings orthogonal to the Worker or because the player sacrifices his positional advantage and activates the warehouse as a single building anywhere on the board. Thus, the position of the buildings is very important, not only because careful placement allows players to activate multiple buildings, but also because they are placed on top of plantations which are then no-longer usable. Produce can also be saved from rotting by either using buildings to turn it into goods or by playing the Mayor to place items on a ship. This last option can be difficult to rely on however as all merchandise must be placed on the same ship and spaces on each ship are limited.

– Image by boardGOATS

Thus, while Cuba relies on a good strategy, meticulous planning is also vital for success. Although we could all see this up front, only Green had played it before (albeit some years ago), so he was the only with an idea of the possible strategies. So, to give everyone else a few extra moments to familiarise themselves with their player board, Green was declared the start player and took the wooden blue sedan (pinched from the El Presidente expansion as a start player marker). Green began by building the Dam to increase his board’s water supply, while everyone else started with what appeared to be a more flexible opening by using their Worker to collect resources and produce. By the end of the first part of the first round, Burgundy had shipped a few goods, Green had collected a lot of water, and Ivory and Blue weren’t sure what they were doing, but had decided that collecting and storing produce seemed like a good base to start from. Then came second part of the round: bribing officials to decide which bills should be enacted.

– Image by boardGOATS

Since Burgundy had been the only one to ship goods he was the only one with fewer than five votes. Everyone secretly chose an additional amount, but as Green really, really, really wanted this one, he bid four of his ten pesos, while everyone else wasn’t certain how to value the bills and therefore didn’t bid. So Green chose his expensive laws for the round and in particular the water subsidy which would give him three points straight away. The second round mirrored the first with everyone choosing their “Worker” until Green played his “Architect”, building the Golf Course (which converts water into victory points). While everyone else could see what Green was doing, nobody else had worked out what was a good combination of buildings and therefore what strategy to play for. Blue made a mistake thinking the Bank she was would give victory points, but when she activated it she realised it gave her money. Still, it did give her an advantage during the bribing and in the second round was able to choose the laws. This time she changed the goods tax from citrus to sugar, and brought in the Harbour Act (this makes any fully loaded ships leave the harbour immediately with all remaining ships moving along accordingly).

– Image by boardGOATS

After taxes had been paid and subsidies received (Green had already converted his water and so did not receive the subsidy this time) the scores were evenly spaced with Green at the front, building a solid lead. Over the next few rounds everyone stumbled on, still not really sure what to do as Green developed quite a strong lead. Burgundy was the only one who was really doing any shipping while Ivory had managed to build a Rum Factory and was converting lots of sugar into Rum, which he was hoping to ship. Unfortunately, he really struggled since only the first ships seemed to required rum and the later ones all seemed to need cigars. By the time Ivory had given up and sold his rum, ships that did want it finally started appearing, but it was largely too late. It was at the end of round four when the game took a sudden turn though. Burgundy had worked hard on shipping, which the rest of us had mostly ignored. With the Harbour Law still in force, the ships moved on when full and nobody had noticed that Ivory had every piece of merchandise required for the top scoring ship. So when it was his turn he loaded it completely taking fifteen points, and with it, the lead. Suddenly everyone knew how important shipping could be.

– Image by boardGOATS

With only two rounds to go, it was a bit late to change strategies and only Blue made any inroads using her stash of pesos to win the laws and ensuring she could gather the full five points for fulfilling the taxes while everyone else struggled to get two points. This together with the Rum Café she had built gave her a sudden flurry of points, but it was too, little too late. In the final final scoring, Green was unable to catch Ivory who finished four points behind Ivory – not how anyone would have predicted from the early rounds where Green had been so dominant and everyone else had been learning. We had all enjoyed it though, especially once we’d got to grips with the difference between resources, produce and goods. The sudden change of fortunes as strategies clicked kept it interesting too, though in any future there may be more competition for shipping than there was in this one. It’s highly likely we’ll play it again soon though.

– Image by boardGOATS

As Cuba was coming to an end, Black, Purple and Pine were still making a bit of a meal of Oh My Goods!, getting bogged down in the complexity of the theory of “chaining”. Although this is the clever part of the game it is a complicated place to start in what is otherwise a simple game. Players start with a hand of dual purpose cards which can act as resources or buildings. They also start the game with a single card face up in front of them, a charcoal burner stacked with face down cards: charcoal. The idea is that this charcoal can be used as money to spend on building, or as charcoal to use as an input to other processes. At the start of each round players get an extra couple of cards before cards are turned over to make the morning market. This can consist of as few as two cards or as many as eight or more. The market provides input for buildings – there will be a second, evening market before the end of the round – but players have to use the morning market to provide a steer to decide which building they are going to activate and what they are going to build.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each player has one worker and must be assigned to the building he is going to activate. The worker can can work efficiently or lazily. If he works efficiently, he will need the necessary resources in full and will provide two items of produce. On the other hand, if he works lazily, he can manage with one less than the total necessary resources, but will only produce one item. The resources can come from the market, but can also be topped up from the player’s hand. Once each player has placed their worker, decided whether he will be efficient or lazy and chosen a card to build, the second market is revealed. Once this evening market has been completed, players take it in turns to carryout their production and, if appropriate, build.

– Image by boardGOATS

A building only produces if the necessary resources (on the bottom left corner of the card) can be provided either through the market or from a players hand. If the worker is efficient, then he produces twice and two cards are taken from the draw deck and placed face down on the top of the card as produce. If the worker is lazy, only he only produces once. This is where the game gets slightly nasty: if the player cannot supply the required input, then the turn is wasted, though if they have sufficient money, they can still use it to build. If a building is activated, it can additionally be used to “chain” i.e. produce goods using input from other buildings (rather than the market) and it was this that was confusing people. The problem is that this is only possible once a player has several building and although it is a key part of the game, the ability to build good working chains is highly dependent on the cards drawn. As such, it is not something to worry about too much when learning to play.

– Image by boardGOATS

Ivory and Green left, leaving Blue to try to explain to Pine, Black and Purple, and Burgundy to spectate. Perhaps it was because it was late and people were tired, or perhaps it was because the players had confused themselves, but the game itself was still rather tortuous. Pine’s concluding comment was that if Room 101 existed, he knew which game he would be sending there… In this light the scores seemed rather irrelevant, though it was obvious that the player who understood best was going to win and that was Black who finished with twenty-two points. He agreed that it was a clever game and he might be interested in giving it another go, though sadly it is probably beyond Blue’s powers of persuasion to encourage Purple or Pine to try again soon.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning outcome: Sometimes, you don’t have to understand what’s going on, but it usually helps…!

Four Today – Happy Birthday to Us!

Let's Party!

BoardGOATS is Four Years Old Today!

At times it has been tough, but we are still here – the group is now bigger than it has every been, yet still has a lovely, friendly, social feeling. Thanks to everyone who has come along in the past and in particular, all those travel from further afield to make it the success it is – we really appreciate it.

Games Night at the Beacon, Wantage

Toy Planet Collectors of Wantage buy and sell toys, comics, and collectables from 1950 to the present. They are currently holding a monthly games night at The Beacon in Wantage. To date, the games have mostly been traditional fare. However, last time one of the gamers from the Didcot Games Club went with some local friends and some good, quick-to-learn-and-play games and began the battle for hearts and minds. There is a general acceptance of people bringing their own games, and one of the organisers joined in with others and expressed an interest in our sort of games. This time some of the GOATS are planning to go along and continue the “Good Fight” with a range of light-and-fun games.

– Image from beaconwantage.co.uk

The next Games Night will be Friday 23rd September from 7.30pm until 11pm (note that the Beacon Website has the times wrong). There is plenty of parking and the postcode is OX12 9BX; entry is free and the bar will be open. The coffee shop will also be open serving tea, coffee, soft-drinks, cake and snacks, though they ask that only food purchased on the premises should be consumed there.

Deutscher Spiele Preis – 2016

In 1990 the German magazine “Die Pöppel-Revue” introduced The Deutscher Spiele Preis, or German Game Prize, which is now awarded annually at the Internationale Spieltage, Essen. Whereas the Spiel des Jahres rewards family games, the Deutscher Spiele Preis is awarded based on votes from votes from the industry’s stores, magazines, professionals and game clubs, so it tends to reflect “gamers games” and is usually more in line with the Kennerspiel des Jahres. This year the award went to Mombasa with the Spiel des Jahres winner Codenames in second. Spiel des Jahres nominees Karuba and Imhotep also featured in the top ten as well as this years winner of the Kennerspiel des Jahres Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

In Mombasa, players acquire company shares with the aim of earning the most money. The game features a unique, rotating-display hand-mechanism that drives game play. Each round players choose action cards from their hand, then reveal them simultaneously and carry out the actions. These cards are then placed in a discard pile, and the previously played cards recovered for the subsequent round. The company boards are double-sided, so games vary quite a lot depending on which tracks are revealed and which companies they are asigned to.
.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Next Meeting – 20th September 2016

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 20^th September, 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 Cuba which is a longer game set in Cuba prior to the revolution where, under turbulent circumstances, the villages of the island strive for independent wealth and influence. Players earn points by shipping merchandise from the harbor, but also by erecting and using buildings, and by abiding by the law.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor jsper

And speaking of Cuba…

When Fidel Castro died he arrived in Heaven in front of the Pearly Gates. Saint Peter approached and said, “I’m sorry, but you will have to go to Hell.” So, off Castro went and when he got there, the Devil greeted him warmly, “We’re so glad to have you, welcome, welcome.”

Castro was just settling in, when he realised he had forgotten his suitcases, having left them at the Pearly Gate House. So the Devil said, “That’s no problem, I’ll send a couple of my minions to fetch it for you.”

Unfortunately, when the two minions got to heaven they found that Saint Peter was out and the gates were firmly closed with the suitcases visible just on the other side. So, they decided to climb the fence. Just as they started climbing, Saint Peter returned and saw them. St. Peter gave a deep sigh and commented, “Castro is in hell for just ten minutes and already we have refugees…!”

6th September 2016

Pink (making one of his rare appearances) arrived first with Red and Magenta, closely followed by Blue and then Burgundy. So, with the food order done, we scratched about for something quick to play when Red suggested a little card game called Unter Spannung (aka 7 Ate 9). This was a game she had picked up in Germany a week earlier when she’d been travelling and had found herself unable to resist spending all her money in a toy shop. Although the rules were in German, Red and Blue had managed to come up with a translation and had played it quite extensively when they had been away in Switzerland for work. Neither Red nor Blue speak any German, so they weren’t certain that they were playing correctly, but they had found it to be fun all the same and taught everyone else the same way.

– Image by boardGOATS

They described Unter Spannung as “Dobble with maths” and basically, the idea is that each player starts with a hand of four cards and a deck of cards that they must try to get rid of. Each card has a number on the corner (the face value) and a modifier in the centre (of the form ±1, ±3 or ±3). The game begins with a single face up card in the centre and simultaneously everyone tries to play a card where the face value matches the total for the centre card (i.e. the face value plus or minus the modifier). Thus, if the card in the middle is 8±1, players can play any card with a face value of seven or nine. The snag is that cards are only numbered one to ten, so the the maths gets a little more tricky. For example, 8±3 is five or eleven, but since there is no eleven, it becomes one. Simple enough, though at the lower end things become more difficult as negative numbers don’t simply become positive, rather, zero becomes ten and any negative must be subtracted from this. So, 1±3 is four or minus two which in turn becomes eight…

– Image by boardGOATS

Like Dobble, cards are placed simultaneously in a frantic rush and the card then played becomes the new top card, which causes mayhem when someone has just got there first. Unlike Dobble, players start with a hand of four cards but can add cards whenever they want, so as soon as there is a bit of a lull in placing cards everyone frantically draws cards from their deck. The first player to get rid of all their cards (hand and deck) is the winner. Although the game nominally only plays four, we added an extra and just played a slightly short round. Red and Blue had an inevitable advantage having played before, and everyone else struggled to get their heads round it. The first round went to Red who stomped her authority on the game early on. Then Burgundy’s food arrived which he used as an excuse to duck out of the second round which Blue took having warmed up a little.

– Image by boardGOATS

With food and gamers arriving thick and fast, there was a brief hiatus, before we split into three groups. The first group (Black and Purple) began their belated supper while Red, Blue, Pink and Magenta began the “Feature Game”, which was The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction. This is a fairly short resource conversion card game based on The Manhattan Project boardgame. In this simpler, card game version, players are firstly mining to create yellowcake, then purifying the yellowcake to get uranium which they can then use to make a bomb. Players start with a hand of five cards, each of which is dual function, providing either an action or a people. In order to get the yellowcake players need people to do the mining and then a mining card. There are several different types of people: labourers, engineers, scientists, etc. These can be provided directly by cards, or using people and location cards to generate larger numbers or people with different skills. For example, a University can be used to create engineers or scientists. Combining these with enrichment plant cards and yellowcake gives players uranium which in turn allows players to claim one of the face up bomb cards. When acquired, these can be augmented by the addition of a bomb-loading card which also comes at a price.

– Image by boardGOATS

All the cards come in a range of input requirements and outputs, but in general, the more expensive cards give richer rewards. There are always several bomb cards available and the game end is triggered when one player achieves a total of ten megatonnes of bomb (including any bomb-loading cards). The rules were a little bit difficult to disentangle somehow so it took us a while to really get to grips with what should have been a fairly simple game and there was a high chance that the player who understood first would win. In the event, luck played a fairly large part too as there are additional special cards. These are important as the hand-limit of five cards is quite restrictive and the special cards can enable players to get extras. It was Pink who managed to get the first bomb card, although Red and Magenta both had substantial piles of uranium and yellowcake respectively. Then from no-where, Blue suddenly built a seven megatonne bomb, quickly followed by Red and Magenta. It was all too late though as Pink finished the game and with it comprehensively won. In truth this isn’t really the sort of theme our group usually go for, and with a fairly heavy slice of luck and slightly rough roles we made heavy weather of it. That said, we felt it was definitely worth playing again.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Green, Ivory, Pine and Burgundy played Imhotep, one of the nominees for the Spiel des Jahres this year. We played it a few weeks back in July and it went down quite well, so since Green wasn’t able to stay for long it was a good opportunity for a second outing. In this game, players take the role of builders in Egypt who are trying to emulate Imhotep. The premise of the game is very simple. On their turn, the active player chooses one of four actions: procure new stones (very large wooden blocks); load stones on a boat; sail a boat to a monument; or play an action card. Players can only store a maximum of five stones and when they procure stones they can collect a maximum of three. Stones are loaded onto ships one at a time, but which of the five possible destinations the boats end up at and the order they are unloaded in is vital, so timing and planning is everything and, as we discovered last time, other players have the ability to screw up even the best laid plans. Thus, the challenge is to work out how to accomplish strategies when the boats rarely go where you want them to. There were two players who were new to the game this time, but it is easy to explain and play, although it is much much harder to work out where to place cubes in the boats and when to move things. It usually takes a couple of rounds for the game to settle in and for patterns to emerge, and this time was no different.

– Image by boardGOATS

Once the dust from the early quarry blocks had settled, Green had a one block lead in the obelisk (he had used the Obelisk to good effect last time out and narrowly won that game), Pine already had a good area in the Burial Chamber, Burgundy was big in the pyramid and Ivory had a smattering of cubes in most places. When a boat with a single cube space appeared, Green decided to take a punt on it and see where he ended up. Surprisingly it stayed put until all the other boats had been docked, leaving it with just two choices: the Pyramid for four points or the obelisk to extend Green’s lead there to two cubes. Pine was first to have to make that decision, and chose to defer it by cutting more blocks from the quarry, Ivory and Burgundy followed and did likewise leaving Green with a free choice. His supply of blocks was looking a bit thin though compared to the others and so he also chose to re-stock leaving Pine no choice since his sled was full. After deliberation between the others (no-one wanted Green’s advice) he chose the obelisk and Green was pleased with two cube lead as he thought it would be quite easy to maintain.

– Image by boardGOATS

As the game progressed everyone became more wily at positioning stones on the boats, and Pine was prevented from increasing the size of his Burial Chamber group and no-one else could get a larger grouping than two either! The ‘Wall’ received a number of cubes this game, including quite a few of Ivory’s, and eventually it reached the third level. Burgundy continued to dominate the Pyramid, while the the obelisk continued to grow and Burgundy was began to make inroads to Green’s lead, while Pine kept a watching brief in third. By the latter part of the game everyone was so focused on their own strategies that they often failed to notice Burgundy attempting to dominate one particular boat. The first time he did this he managed to collect two purple statue cards in one turn and the second time he got two cubes into the obelisk (although Green jumped aboard at the last minute to limit the damage). In the penultimate round, Burgundy had got three stones on a four stone ship.

– Image by boardGOATS

Green was next and a quick count suggested that if this were to go to the obelisk it would lose him the lead. So, he felt he had no choice; that boat had to dock somewhere else and he chose the Pyramid as the least damage, though it still netted Burgundy six points. That gave Pine an opening to get a couple of his stones to the obelisk so that he overtook Burgundy, pushing him into second. Going into the final round, the writing was on the wall. Burgundy could no longer win the Obelisk win, and as long as Green placed a stone on the same boat as Pine, he was guaranteed the full fifteen points for first place (as last time). Otherwise it was mostly just a mopping up exercise to get the most points possible with the last stones. Both Burgundy and Ivory had managed two or three purple statue cards and so the final scoring was tight. Despite being the only one without a green bonus scoring card (which gives points for the total number of cubes in the different areas), Green still finished a couple of points ahead of Pine in what was another close and enjoyable game.

– Image by boardGOATS

With both games finishing, Black and Purple having consumed their supper and Green heading off, it looked like it was change. However, in the event, Green was directly replaced by Black and Purple and the other group began another game of Imhotep. The game has an in-built expansion as each location board has a second side with slightly more involved building options. For example, while Side A has just one large Pyramid, Side B has three smaller Pyramids and players choose which one to add their cube to. Pink, who had played Side A at the UK Games Expo, was keen to give the alternative options a try. It turned out that these actually add quite a bit to the complexity as they add another layer to the decision making. This is because instead of just considering what everyone would get at each location, players have to consider what everyone will do at each location and what this will give them.

– Image by boardGOATS

So for example, instead of just looking at where all the cubes will go in the Pyramid and what they will score, the active player now has to consider which Pyramid each player will pick and what that leaves for everyone else. For this reason, it possibly wasn’t the best choice for a first game. As a result, as they had not played it before, both Red and Magenta struggled with trying to work out what they were trying to do and what strategies would work best. In the early stages, it was all very tentative. Instead of just building the highest, on Side B, points are awarded throughout the game for “mini-obelisks” containing just three blocks, though the early mini-obelisks are worth more. Blue got an early start with Pink following in second place. Meanwhile, Red and Magenta scooped up some of the early Market cards, correctly thinking they were important, hoping that it would allow them to learn what else might be a good strategy.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was in the third round it became apparent that we had a problem on our hands as Pink had taken a bit of a run-away lead in the Temple. When playing with Side A players add cubes to a row of five blocks, with additional blocks going into the second and eventually third rows. Points are scored at the end of the round for each stone delivered that is visible from above. With Side B, blocks are added in the same way, but the bonus are different. Thus, the first “space” on the alter will give one point or two extra wooden blocks. Other spaces give Market cards and even two points making it quite lucrative. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, Pink had somehow managed to steal a march on the rest of us. He then made a point of sending a small boats there which meant his early blocks continued to work for him well beyond their usual lifetime. This was not helped by the fact that Pink also contrived to ensure that the little boats contained his blocks, so any that were covered were covered by his own blocks so he continued to benefit. Blue, having played the game before could see the problem and managed to muscle in a little, but it was slow and Pink stormed into the lead with nothing anyone else could do about it.

– Image by boardGOATS

Eventually, Blue and Magenta managed to break Pink’s strangle-hold on the Temple, while Red began to fall behind but continued to collect purple Statue cards stacking up points for the end of the game. Magenta gradually began to dominate in the Burial Chamber too. With Side A, the blocks are placed in position in strict rotation and the each player scores points for their largest contiguous area according to the Triangular Number Series. With Side B, however, each row of blocks is evaluated independently and eight points awarded to the person with the most blocks in the row, with four points for second place and two for third. With three rows, a player who goes into this heavily can pick up a lot of points which is exactly what Magenta did, winning two and coming placing on the third as well.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the game coming to a close, we all thought Pink had it in the bag, but we still had the end game scoring cards to count up. Sadly, Red’s Statues didn’t get her quite as many as we thought, but it was very close with both Pink and Magenta finishing with forty-two points. Blue just managed to squeak ahead though finishing with forty-three in what turned out to be yet another tight game. So that was three out of three as it had been close first time we played as well when Green had won, taking the Obelisk. This led some of us to speculate whether the Obelisk is perhaps a little too powerful. Although it has featured heavily in all three games, the games have all been exceptionally close so the jury is still out. Now that we know it is a potential game changer though, next time there might be more blocks placed there and a greater battle for supremacy. In turn that could let someone else slip through and score heavily elsewhere which could make it interesting. It’ll probably get another outing soon as we can’t let Green remain unbeaten.

– Image by boardGOATS

While the second game of Imhotep was going on, at Blue’s suggestion, the other group got on with Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King. This won the Kennerspiel des Jahres this year and has proved very popular with our group as there is quite a bit of variability in the set up ensuring the games remain interesting. Despite the fact that she wasn’t playing, it was Blue’s suggestion as she knew that Black, Burgundy and Pine liked it a lot and thought that Ivory might appreciate it too. Borrowing heavily from tile-laying games like Carcassonne, Isle of Skye is a much deeper game without adding an awful lot to the rules. The idea is that players draw three tiles from a bag and and then secretly choose one to discard and set prices for the other two. This is done by placing the tiles in front of a screen and a discard token and money for the player’s stash behind. The money remains in place for the duration of the round, unless the corresponding tile is purchased by another player.

– Image by boardGOATS

This mechanism is very clever as if nobody else wants the tile, then the player uses the money to purchase it themselves. Thus, it is critically important to correctly evaluate the worth of the tile, depending on whether it is most desirable to sell it or keep it. The other clever part of the game is the scoring: This is mostly carried out at the end of each of the six rounds. At the start of the game, four scoring tiles are drawn at random and these are used in different combinations at the end of the rounds in such a way that each appears a total of three times, but only one is used in the first round while three are used in the final round. This time, the first two scoring tiles drawn both rewarded mountain ranges, so although this could have made for an interesting, competitive game, in the interests of balance, we decided to chuck them back and start again.

– Image by boardGOATS

The four scoring tiles were: five points for the player with the most money and two for the player with the next most (A); two points for each cow on the road connected to the castle (B); three points for each vertical row with more than three tiles (C) and one point for each completed terrain (D). Burgundy started collecting cattle while Black went for sheep. Maybe it was because Black got there first, or perhaps it was because someone misheard, but Pine (who can usually be counted on to go for a woolly fleece) tried to use ships to build his score. Purple isn’t a great whiskey drinker, but as usual, she built her strategy on a foundation of barrels. This didn’t leave much for Ivory, but there is always someone who struggles with a lack of cash and someone else who seems unnecessarily flush. This time it was Ivory who made a killing on his tiles and with money in the scoring tiles it guaranteed him a solid number of points to build on. It was a another close game with only five points between first and third. It was Burgundy who just pipped Black to finish in front however, with Pine a close third.

– Image by boardGOATS

Red and Magenta were about to make a move, but with Isle of Skye still going, they stuck about for a couple more rounds of Unter Spannung, which Red and Blue took again, though it was a bit closer this time. As the other group finished and Ivory headed off too, the rump were left to play one last game. Black had been keen to play Pi mal Pflaumen, but had missed out when it was the “Feature Game” a few weeks back, so he was very keen to give it a go. This game is a relatively simple little card game, but one that we struggled with the rules for last time and contrived to make a bit of a mess of this time too. Pi mal Pflaumen (or “Oh my Plums!” as we call it in a sideways reference to another little card game, Oh My Goods!), is a trick taking game with elements of set collecting and lovely artwork. The idea is that each card features a fruit, a number and most also have some sort of special action. Each player begins with a hand of cards and, starting with the start player, everyone takes it in turns to play one card. Then, the player who played the highest value card chooses one of the cards which they place face up in a tableau in front of them, before they carry out the action associated with the card.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are several different special actions, it could be steal a card from another player; take the “watchdog” card (which guards against other players stealing cards), or take three “pi” cards. Instead of an action, some cards indicate a scoring condition and the points awarded for achieving it. These are of the form of, for example, ABC or AAA, indicating three different fruit or three identical fruit respectively. The more fruit involved and the more similar the fruit, the more points they are worth. When a player owns both the scoring card and the matching Fruit cards, they are all removed from their display and put to one side to score at the end of the game. The game is played over three rounds and winner is the player with the most points at the end.

– Image by boardGOATS

Last time we played, we had a fairly extensive discussion about the rules. The rules are a little unclear: they clearly state that “when a card is taken you must immediately carryout its action”, but they don’t make it clear whether this applies to claiming points on “Fruit Mix” cards as well. We couldn’t remember how we played last time, but this time we played that points could only be claimed when the card was taken (with cards in the player’s tableau used to fulfill the condition). In an added complication, we also had to decide what implications this had for cards that players have stolen. The rules state that “you can immediately use a stolen card to create a Fruit Mix”. Initially we presumed that this applied only to the fruit mix cards, but a little doubt began to set in. Checking the rules fora online after the event suggested that Fruit Mix cards from the tableau could also be claimed, and the key phrase in the rules stated that “one or more Fruit Mixes” can be claimed when a card is taken, which is only possible if cards in the tableau are used, but this only became apparent some time after the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was another tight game with everyone claiming some low scoring Fruit Mixes in the first round, but Burgundy took a slight lead making him a target for the rest of the game. In the second and third round, the value of the fruit mixes on the cards increases adding a bit of all or nothing element to the game. For example, Blue had spent much of the game with low cards and, as a result had ended up taking the last card more than her fair share. The last card comes with a bonus “Plum” card though, so if she had managed to pick up the twenty-five, she could have claimed a massive twelve points for a total of four Plum cards. Purple did her best to help Blue out, but Black had a large pile of π cards and with Burgundy and Pink’s help was able to control things. In the end it was Pink who finished with the most points, just three clear of Blue with Black in third place.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning outcome: Well balanced games also make for tight results.

Next Meeting – 6th September 2016

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 6^th September, 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 The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction which is a quick little filler card game where players are trying to design bombs using scientists to convert yellowcake into pure uranium. We have chosen this lighter game so that we have lots of flexibility in choosing what to play for the rest of the evening.

– Image by boardGOATS

And speaking of scientists…

A group of wealthy investors asked three scientists to help them predict the outcome of a horse race. First they asked a biologist who said they could genetically engineer an unbeatable racehorse, but it would take two hundred years and £100bn. Next they asked a statistician who reported that he could predict the outcome of any race, at a cost of £100m per race, and they would only be right 10% of the time.

Finally, the investors asked a physicist. He said he could also predict the outcome of any race, and that his process was cheap and very simple. The investors listened eagerly to this proposal. The physicist went on, “We have made several simplifying assumptions: first, let each horse be a perfect rolling sphere…”

23rd August 2016

A little unsure as to who was coming, we decided to start with the “Feature Game”, which was the filler, Abluxxen (also known as Linko!). This is a “get rid of all your cards” type of game, and although it is initially a little confusing to understand, it mostly became clear as we played. On their turn, players play any number of cards as long as they are all the same. The cards are then sequentially compared with the last cards played by all the other players: if the number of cards played is the same, and the face value of the cards played is higher, then the other player’s cards are “snatched”. They can either be “snatched” by the active player (the “snatcher”) who takes them into their hand, or alternatively the “snatchee” has to do something with them. The “snatchee” can either choose to take them back into their hand or discard them. If they decide to discard, then they must replace the cards with the same number from the face up display in the centre or drawn blind from the draw deck.

– Image by boardGOATS

Thus, the idea is that players are trying to get rid of cards and force other players to pick cards up, however, picking up cards an also be a good thing as it can be an opportunity to improve the cards in hand. Better, having a lot of identical cards in hand means that when they are played they go on top of any cards previously played making it more difficult for anyone to “snatch” them or force them to be picked up. The game ends when either one player runs out of cards or the draw deck and central pool has been depleted. Just to add to the the confusion, however, the winner is then the player who has played the most cards, but any cards left in hand give a penalty of minus one.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Although it was a simple game and everyone knew what they had to do, at first nobody really understood what they had to do to win. Gradually people began to work it out though, starting with Burgundy who had watched a video of the game online, then Ivory who was new to the group, but had played plenty of games before. Pine and Blue eventually joined the “in the know” club, but Red continued to struggle. Every time it was her turn, Red said, “Sorry, I know I keep asking, but if I play two sevens what will happen?” Despite this apparent lack of understanding, Red was the first to check-out and with a huge pile of cards too. This was particularly amusing as Red had just been explaining to Ivory that he shouldn’t believe Burgundy and Blue when they claim to be doing badly or have no idea what they are doing as they usually go on to win. Inevitably then, although most people were only one or two turns away from finishing, Red was miles ahead much to Burgundy’s chagrin as he needed just one more turn and was left with six cards in hand compared with the seven in his pile. Blue who had just played seven “fives” and had only a couple of cards in-hand was second, just ahead of Ivory and Pine.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Black and Purple had walked in just as Abluxxen started, so amused themselves reading game rules and trying to work out what everyone else was doing. Abluxxen had taken a little longer than expected so with everyone present and a group of seven, we decided to split into two. Red was keen to play Niagara, a really unusual game with a moving river. It won the Spiel des Jahres in 2005 and still holds up as a good family game more than ten years on. The group has played it before, but in summary, players have two boats that they move up and down the river, trying to collect gems and return them home, to the top of the river. There are a couple of catches. The first is that each player has a set of Paddle Cards and must play each one once before they can play any of them again. These Paddle Cards dictate how far they can move on the river, but can also affect how much the river will move. Paddle Cards are selected simultaneously at the start of the round, so there is an element of programming involved, though not as much as in games like Colt Express or Walk the Plank!, but it does mean there is an element of anticipation.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Marsh

The second “catch” is the river. The river flows after everyone has moved their boats and the rate is dependent on the lowest Paddle Card played in the round and the weather. Each player has a weather Paddle Card, which they use to speed up or slow the river down, however, as this has to be played instead of moving boats, this can be a trap for the unwary. In the worst case this can lead to the loss of a boat and its contents with a penalty to get the boat back. The game ends when one player fulfills one of three criteria: four gems of the same colour, one gem of each of the five colours or any seven gems. Gems are limited, and this leads to the third “catch”, which is that once a player has picked up a gem and has it safely in their boat, another player can steal it so long as they are paddling up stream and land on the same river segment. So a nice little game with a nasty edge.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor erfalucho

Red was joined by Pine, Ivory and Burgundy in what was to be a very close game. With four players, each boat should only hold one gem at a time, but a minor rules malfunction meant that everyone played with the double boats from the Spirits of Niagara expansion. Red and Burgundy took full advantage of this collecting the difficult blue and pink gems first and in one trip. It quickly became clear that five unique gems was going to be difficult so everyone went for the slightly easier seven random gems. Pine was the only “proper adventurer” exploring the limits of the river. Misinformed by Burgundy with respect to the effects of the weather, Pine become intimately acquainted with the waterfall, turning one of his boats to matchwood, but he was the only one to experience the long soggy drop. Otherwise, the weather was fairly muted and everyone was fairly close to getting a full set of gems when Red, kicking on from her successful start got her nose over the line first, finishing with a total of eight gems.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor William Hunt

With Niagara done, the group moved onto Splendor. In this game, players have just three options on their turn: collect gem tokens, buy a gem card using gem tokens (and/or cards), or reserve a gem card and receive a gold (wild) token at the same time. Players can have a maximum of ten tokens, though unlimited cards and the cards act as permanent tokens. Thus, at its heart Splendor is an engine building game built on a set-collection mechanism. Players score points when they buy some gem cards and for attracting Nobles which are awarded to the first player collect certain combinations of gem cards; the game end is triggered when one player reaches fifteen points and the player with the most at the end wins.

– Image by boardGOATS

Despite being a very simple game, it is one we still enjoy as a relaxing little filler. Indeed, it got an outing last time when Blue succeeded in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory when Burgundy came steaming through from nowhere to win. It could have been this, or perhaps it was previous alleged trouncings that inspired Blue and Purple to let out an emphatic war cry from the neighbouring table exhorting everyone to stop Burgundy at all costs. So, Burgundy did lots of sighing as everyone rallied to the clarion call and went out of their way to bring him down. Pine had been one of the victims last time and, understanding his likely fate commented that he wished he could record all of Burgundy’s deep sighs and general moaning and then play it back to him when he won.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

The tactics appeared to be working, however, as about half way through, Pine had eight points as Burgundy took his first. It wasn’t long before Burgundy took the first Noble too, but he was still some way behind and nobody was terribly concerned. Meanwhile, Ivory was quietly building his engine taking lots of freebees, looking like the new threat. Red was enjoying herself hoarding rubies just to annoy Burgundy even though she was well aware that it wasn’t actually doing her any favours. Then suddenly, Burgundy took his second Noble and the writing was on the wall: everyone knew they were doomed. It wasn’t long before Burgundy took his third Noble and nobody had an answer as he repeated the trick he’d pulled off so successfully last time winning from the back of the pack.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Meanwhile, on the next table Black, Blue and Purple were engaged in a slightly protracted game of Castles of Burgundy. This is a game we’ve not played before with the group, though Blue had played it a few times as a two player game and Black had played it quite a bit online. It is one of those games with fairly simple mechanics, but a lot of complexity in the game play. The idea is that each player has two dice which they roll at the start of the round. On their turn they then spend the two dice, trading them for two separate actions. Players can take a building from the pool on the central player board that matches the number on their die, for example, if a player rolled a six, they can take any of the buildings in the “six” poll and place it in their own supply. Their supply is limited in size and there must be space for them to be able to do this.

– Image by BGG contributor thatmadgirl

Alternatively, the player could take a building form their supply and place it on their personal player board on a space that matches both the number of the die and the colour of the building. Both of these actions are quite restrictive, so players can instead choose to collect two worker tiles and add them to their store. These worker tiles are the oil that greases the wheels a little, since they allow players to alter one of their dice by one for each tile used (e.g. spending two worker tiles will allow a player to change a five to a three or a one). The last action is selling goods. Players can acquire goods tiles during the game, but can only store three different types. each of the six types correspond to a different number and, on their turn, as an action players can sell all their goods that correspond to the die (modified by workers if they choose). In return they get a silverling and some points. Silverlings are a form of currency and can be used to buy one extra building per round. These are taken from a special pool, though there is nothing particularly special about the buildings themselves except that they are harder to obtain and therefore are generally only taken by players that really want them.

– Image by BGG contributor verminose

Points is what the game is all about, and being a game designed by Stephan Feld, there are lots of different ways to get them. Although the actions within the game are simple, how points are achieved is where the complexity of the game really lies. Each building placed on their board gives the active player a bonus. Sometimes it is a bonus action, sometimes it is bonus points and sometimes it is a strategic advantage; it is the player that makes the most of these bonuses that will win the game. Players then also score points for placing buildings to complete regions on their own board. The larger the region, the more points they get, however, there are also bonus points for completing regions early. Extra points are also available to the first players place the maximum number of each type of building in their province.

– Image by BGG contributor 3EBC

Black, by far the most experienced, began by investing in the special buildings that give one off strategic bonuses (e.g. an the opportunity to place an extra tile or take another from the central board). Blue began without a strategy and, as is her wont played very tactically, without a real strategy and see what unfolded. Purple, on the other hand, went for animals early. These give points, but in an unusual way: every time an animal tile is added to an area, all the other animals of the same type score again. Blue picked up four pigs in the first couple of rounds, then added two, then three then another four more, and before long she was following Purple down the animal route. Their strategies were very different, however, with Purple taking anything she could get while Blue was much more targeted. So, as Blue went heavily into pigs, she was able to keep re-triggering their scoring building a tidy number of points. Purple could have made up for with the yellow knowledge tile that rewards players with four points at the end of the game for each different sort of animal they have, but Blue had her eye on it too and got there first.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

While Blue and Purple were engaged in a agricultural battle Black was able to continue with his plan pretty much unchallenged. So he moved into shipping and completed lots of areas picking up the corresponding bonuses. Purple took the bonus for finishing the farming tiles first and picked up points for finishing several others too including mining – quite an achievement since she was the last to get a mine at all. It was the compound scoring for the animals that clinched it though coupled with the knowledge tile that enabled Blue to place her green farming tiles more flexibly and she ran out the winner with one hundred and eighty-five points, nearly twenty ahead of Black in second place.

– Image by BGG contributor Korosu_Itai

Ivory headed off, and Castles of Burgundy was still well under way, which gave Red an opportunity to suggest one of her favourite games, Bohnanza. The original bean-trading game, this is a staple family game and is still very popular with the group as it keeps everyone involved throughout and is usually very popular as a “gateway” game. Last time he’d played it, Pine had really struggled, which both surprised the rest of the group and caused us a certain amount of consternation as it should have been a game Pine would have enjoyed. It seemed he couldn’t remember the disaster last time though and he was happy to try again.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor spearjr

The game is very simple, but players have to keep their eye on what is going on around them. Players start with a hand of cards and are not allowed to change the order – a simple mechanic that is the critical part of the game. In front of each player are two “Bean Fields” and on their turn, players must plant the first card in their hand and may plant the second. Thus, the key to the game is managing the order of cards in their hand, as they cannot be rearranged and must be “planted” in the order they arrive. However, it is possible to remove unwanted cards by trading them away. Once the active player has planted the card(s) from their hand, then they turn over the top two cards from the draw deck: these must be planted by the end of the turn, though not necessarily in one of the active player’s fields if they can be traded. Once all these cards have been planted, the active player can then offer to trade any unwanted cards in their hand before their turn ends with them replenishing their hand from the draw deck.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are lots of different strategies players use: the cards have different values which reflect their rarity so some go for high value rare cards and others for more common cards that are easy to get. The best players are usually the most flexible and those that fit in best with what other players around are trying to do. Another aspect players need to keep an eye on is harvesting. Each field can only contain one type of bean and when they are harvested some of the cards are kept as profit. In this way, the rare cards (which are also the most profitable) are gradually depleted from the deck. So towards the end of the game, they become increasingly difficult to find. Worse, sometimes there might only be one card left and woe-betide the player that gets stuck with it in a field as there is a nasty little rule that says players can only harvest a field with one bean card if all their fields have only one bean card.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor spearjr

This time, Pine began well offering lots of generous donations which earned him lots of good will as well as getting him off to a flying start. In contrast, Burgundy was repeatedly forced to plough up fields before promptly picking up the beans he had just disposed of. The first trip through the deck always seems to take ages, but as usual, the second time through was much quicker. With three players, everyone got a couple of turns in the final, third pass and everyone was looking nervously at each others’ piles of “coins”; it looked very close. In fact, there was only one point in it as Red finished just ahead of Pine who finished with a very creditable twenty-seven.

– Image by boardGOATS

With Castles of Burgundy finally over, Blue was keen to play something quick and light to finish the evening and, knowing how much Purple likes it, suggested Om Nom Nom. This is a really sweet little game with elements of double-think. The idea is that there are three food chains each with three tiers, a primary predator, a secondary predator and pray. Each player has a hand of cards representing the top two predator tiers and dice are rolled to represent the bottom two tiers. Once the dice have been rolled and assigned to their spaces on the board, everyone simultaneously chooses a card and the food chains are resolved starting from the top. Any predator with no prey (or where there is insufficient for all the animals played) goes hungry and is discarded. Otherwise, prey is divided equally amongst its predators leaving any left-overs for later.

– Image by BGG contributor jancis

A bit like 6 Nimmt!, it is all about synchronising with everyone else, or rather in this case, getting out of synch with everyone else. This is because everyone has the same set of cards, so if every player except one plays the same cards, all the players who played the same cards will likely cancel each other out and get no reward. On the other hand, irrespective of whether they get any reward for playing something different, the very fact they did not play the same card means they have it to play later when there is no competition. This worked particularly well for Blue in the first round, when she managed to pick up lots of carrots and cheese uncontested. Since prey at the bottom of the food chain are worth two point, this netted her a massive seventeen points. In contrast, the second round was very low scoring with lots of animals going hungry. Blue was less effective this time, but still won the round so going into the final round the game was hers to lose, and she tried her best.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine struggled throughout and Red couldn’t get to grips with the double think aspect so was curious as to whether random draw would work better Since she won the final round it is possible that it did. Meanwhile Blue was doing her best to throw the game, demonstrating that while it was important to be out of synch with everyone else, it was important to be out of synch in the right way. First her rabbit got eaten, then her cat went hungry, but somehow she managed to scrape together enough points to ensure she ran out the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: You don’t have to know what you are doing to win.

Next Meeting – 23rd August 2016

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 23^rd August, 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 Abluxxen (also known as Linko!), which is a quick little card-collecting filler game, with foxy art-work and plenty of opportunity to have a go at other players. We have chosen this lighter game so that we have lots of flexibility in choosing what to play for the rest of the evening.

– Image by boardGOATS

And speaking of foxes…

On his way home from work, Jeff found a fox cub on the side of the road. It wasn’t going to survive the night on its own so Jeff picked it up and put it in his pocket and took it home. When he got in, Jeff’s wife noticed the little creature straight away and he had to ‘fess up, telling her he was going to keep it as a pet.

“But where are you going to keep it?” she asked.

Jeff thought for a moment, and then replied, “Why, in the bedroom.”

His wife wasn’t pleased, “What about that horrid smell though?” she asked.

“Oh,” answered Jeff, “I got used to it, I’m sure he will too…”