Author Archives: nannyGOAT

boardGOATS on the ‘Geek

The website, boardgamegeek.com (aka BGG, or simply “The ‘Geek”) is an excellent on-line gaming resource. It comprises a database of over 800,000 games including user provided images, video reviews, version details and fora where people can request rule clarifications, discuss strategies and obtain other information. Many of the people who read the boardGOATS website have a user account, indeed, the group even has one. We now also have a microbadge that BGG contributor Billythehut made for us so that GOATS and readers of our site can show their support. Thanks Billy!

– Image from boardgamegeek.com

Boardgames in the News: Regular Boardgame Coverage on the BBC

The popularity of modern boardgames is spreading, and with it, there is an increase in the media profile. There have always been occasional mainstream games articles (like those covering the legal case surrounding whether Bridge is a sport and the latest playing piece in Monopoly) and games have occasionally featured in TV programs too. These are relatively frivolous, but The Guardian has a regular, thriving games column which frequently includes items on boardgames, and even our local Round and About has had feature articles. Now, the BBC is getting in on the act.

– Image from bbc.co.uk

VideoGaiden was a BBC Scotland production covering computer games, that began in 2005. The program began as a series of ten minute shorts, growing to full half-hour episodes before it was moth-balled in 2007. Nearly ten years later, it is now being brought back for six online episodes and one televised special. Rumour is that it will also include a boardgame section.

Boardgames in the News: Playing with History at the Bodleian

The Bodleian Library in Oxford is one of the oldest and most respected libraries in the world: it’s holdings comprise more than 12 million printed items, over 80,000 e-journals and outstanding special collections including rare books and manuscripts, classical papyri, maps, music, art and printed ephemera. Last weekend they opened a small exhibition in Blackwell Hall in the Western Library, called “Playing with History”, to celebrate Richard Ballam’s donation of 1,500 games dating from 1800 to the John Johnson Collection.

Playing With History at the Bodeian Library

– Image from bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The exhibition is accompanied by a lunchtime seminar on Wednesday 20^th January. The seminar entitled “Games we Played” will be presented by Richard Ballam who will talk about the collections of games and pastimes in his donation to the Bodleian. The lecture starts at 1pm and the display will be on show until 6^th March 2016 (admission free of charge).

Winter 2016 Oxford Meeples Big DoG

On Saturday, February 13^th, Oxford Meeples is once again opening the doors of Wolvercote Village Hall to the general public once more and inviting people to join them for another Big Day of Gaming. As usual, the Oxford Meeples will be bringing a large number of their games, but everyone is welcome to bring their own too. The hall opens at 10 am with gaming starts from about 10.30 am and continuing ’til late. Entry is free, although donations towards rent of the hall and refreshments will be appreciated. Children are welcome when accompanied by an adult. These are great events, however, whether or not (m)any GOATS are there, will depend on other commitments as usual.

– Image from oxfordmeeples.org

Next Meeting – 12th January 2016

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 12^th January, 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 Las Vegas, which was once described as, “An easy, dice-rolling, fun-and-luck game with a lot of interaction and ‘schadenfreude’.” A shiny new “Christmas game”, being short and light this seems a nice gentle way to start the year. Or perhaps not quite so gentle…

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor jsper

And speaking of casinos…

It was his first time in Las Vegas and Jeff was doing the touristy thing visiting a casino. He passed roulette wheels and people paying Black Jack, and at the far table a poker game was under way. Upon taking a closer look he saw a dog sitting at the table. This peaked his curiosity and he walked closer and saw cards and chips in front of the dog.

When the next hand was dealt, cards were also dealt to the dog. Much to Jeff’s surprise, the dog acts in turn with all the other players, calling, raising, discarding, in fact, everything the other human players were doing. Jeff was spell bound, however none of the other players seemed to pay any attention to the fact that they were playing with a dog, they just treated him like any other player. Finally Jeff could no-longer hold his tongue so between hands he quietly said to one of the players, “I can’t believe that dog is playing poker, he must be the smartest dog in the world!”

The player smiled and replied, “He isn’t that smart, every time he gets a good hand he wags his tail.”

Boardgames in the News: Mayfair Games – Is there a Future without Catan?

Mayfair Games began in 1981 as a small US games company based in Illinois. One of their first games was Empire Builder, their first and now the flagship of their “crayon-rails” series of games where players, using washable crayons, draw their train routes over a map of North America. Building on this success, Mayfair then went on to play a pivotal role in bringing Euro games to the US and wider English speaking markets.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Billythehut

In 1996, Mayfair Games picked up the license to produce an English edition of Die Siedler von Catan, The Settlers of Catan (now known simply as “Catan”). With the huge success of the game world-wide, over the next twenty years, Mayfair brought out multiple new editions of the base game modernising and updating it, English editions of all the expansions, variants and spin-offs. Mayfair (with Kosmos) were also behind the release of Star Trek: Catan in 2012, the first Catan game with a licensed theme. For many, Mayfair Games has become synonymous with Catan, in the English speaking world in any case. As such, the news yesterday that Asmodee has acquired the rights to produce the English language version of everything “Catan”, has left a lot of people wondering where that now leaves Mayfair Games.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

With the shear quantity and popularity of the Catan games it was inevitable that Catan would dominate the catalogue of Mayfair, but is this the beginning of the end for Mayfair Games? Well, it’s true that no company can take such a major amputation and come out unscathed, so the loss of this part of their portfolio has inevitably led to major restructuring. The former CEO of Mayfair, Pete Fenlon left to become the CEO of the new Asmodee owned “Catan Studio” taking a bunch of other people with him including the Director of Marketing,. This left a hole that will be filled by a the current President, Larry Roznai; the head of Acquisition & Development, Alex Yeager; and a lot of chair shuffling. Aside from that, shareholders received healthy payouts and there’s been a major contraction in the size of the company, to something similar to where it was in 2007-2008.

– Image by boardGOATS

It may be that the fact that Asmodee only took the rights to the Catan empire rather than buying the company out wholesale is indicative, and could be viewed as asset-stripping. In which case, there is probably little hope for what remains of Mayfair Games. If the whole-sale purchase scenario had played out, it is almost certain that the rest of the Mayfair catalogue would have been shelved and the company would have de facto become “Studio Catan” by another name. The fact that this has not come to pass suggests that the personnel remaining believe there is more to the Mayfair than just “Catan”.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Zoroastro

So, what is Mayfair left with? Well, there are a hundred odd games currently produced by Mayfair including some of the popular 18xx series, Martin Wallace’s Steam, the massive Caverna: The Cave Farmers and Nuns on the Run. In 2013 Mayfair also acquired a controlling interest in the German company, Lookout Games, who historically have produced some fantastic games (including Agricola). This partnership has already produced Grand Austria Hotel; Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King; and Patchwork. This suggests that where the “Old Mayfair” had stagnated a little, becoming somewhat dependent on the Catan franchise, the New Mayfair might be forced to change direction for the better, forming a leaner, more innovative company producing exciting new games. Perhaps the future is not so bleak for Mayfair after all, but only time will really tell.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Boardgames in the News: Asmodee Update – Taking Over Catan and Other Stories

A year ago, following their acquisition of Esdevium Games, Libellud, Days of Wonder, Fantasy Flight games, Ystari Games, Asterion Press and Pearl Games we discussed the sudden expansion of the hitherto small French games company, Asmodée. More recently, following a new contract with Queen Games for exclusive distribution rights in the USA and the ensuing restructuring of its three main US operations, Days of Wonder, Fantasy Flight games and Asmodee Editions to form a single entity, Asmodee North America, we wondered whether this growing monopoly would lead to price rises. This concern arose, in particular, as from January 2016, distribution would be restricted to “speciality retailers” that have agreed to Asmodee North America’s “Speciality Retail Policy” including the prohibition of online sales.

– Image from Asmodee North America Press Release

Asmodee followed the initial press release with a second press release clarifying their position, in the form of a series of questions with answers. This did not completely allay many of the concerns, however, to the specific question, “…will you institute or impose official price floors or “minimum advertised price” policies”, they responded, “No”. There has been a considerable speculation, but it seems clear from this “clarification” that although they intend to restrict “speciality retailers” to face-to-face transactions, this will not affect mass market outlets, such a Amazon, Target, or Barnes and Noble. Another way of looking at it is that the medium-sized online vendors including, CoolStuffInc and Miniature Market (who are popular with US Geeks thanks to generous discounts), will no longer be able to sell Asmodee North America products, however, players like Amazon etc. are too big to be susceptible to their bully-boy tactics. We will see what happens in the long run, but for the time being, so much for the end of 2015 press releases.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the new year, there are new take-overs, and unsurprisingly, Asmodee are at the centre once again, this time announcing that they are taking over the production of the English language edition of Catan (formerly known as “The Settlers of Catan”). Celebrating its twentieth anniversary last year, The Settlers of Catan has been translated into thirty-five languages and is reported to have sold over twenty-three million copies worldwide. As such is it one of the biggest names in the world of modern boardgames. With this acquisition from Mayfair Games, Asmodee have also announced that they will launch a subsidiary, “Catan Studio”, dedicated to the creation of content for different media for the “Catan Universe”. Catan Studio will be headed by Peter Fenlon, former CEO of Mayfair who will work with Catan GmbH and its partners on this development.

– Image by boardGOATS

With this acquisition, it brings Catan, Ticket to Ride and Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game as well as the very popular card game, Dobble, all under the same roof. So, what next? Surely bringing together such a large slice of the modern gaming market makes Asmodee themselves a potential take over target. In fact, perhaps the only question is whether the likes of Hasbro will make a move before or after Asmodee make their next acquisition. Any bets on the future of Filosofia/Z-man Games with Pandemic and Carcassonne…?

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor adamfeldner

31st December 2015

As people arrived, we began setting up the “Feature Game”. This, as has become traditional at these New Year events, was the gorgeous, dexterity car-racing game, PitchCar. Burgundy and Pink built a fantastic figure-of-eight track that made good use of the ⅛ turns from the second expansion and made a really fast compact circuit. Before long, Black and Purple had arrived and had introduced themselves to the furry host, followed by Grey and Cerise who were armed with Champagne and Polish delicacies.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is quite simple, players take it in turns to flick their small wooden cars once, starting with the player at the front of the pack. If the car leaves the track or rolls over, the player forfeits stroke and distance (though any collateral gains by other players stand). We usually have a single solo lap to determine the order on the start grid and to allow new players to get their eye in, before racing two laps of the track. While Blue and Pink occupied themselves in the kitchen, everyone else began their practice run.

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor kilroy_locke

Cerise went first and set a very competitive bench-mark of ten flicks mastering the bridge from the first expansion on her second attempt. Asked whether she’d played it before, she replied, not since she was tiny, playing with bottle-tops. It turned out that Grey had also had a similarly mis-spent childhood and this with his competitiveness made him a formidable opponent. Black and Burgundy gave them a run for their money, but Grey took the lead and held off the competition to take first place, with Cerise close behind, a worthy second.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor garyjames

With pizza already over-cooked, everyone helped to quickly pack up and then sat down for dinner. Once everyone had eaten their fill, Pink began tidying while everyone else began the next game, Ca$h ‘n Guns. This game combines gambling with a little chance and a dash of strategy, based round the theme of gangsters divvying up their ill-gotten gains by playing a sort of multi-player Russian Roulette. For some reason, setting up degenerated into a discussion about the offensive weapons act and Tony Martin and the debate was still going by the time Pink had finished what he was doing, so he joined in.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Black, (playing “The Hustler”), chose to enact his special power by trading a bullet card for one of Blue’s blanks, much to her delight. Then, Pink (playing “The Doctor”), started as the Godfather, so acted as caller. So, once everyone had “loaded” their weapon with blanks or bullets, on, the count of three, everyone pointed their foam gun at someone. Pink chose to invoke the Godfather’s Prerogative and decided Purple looked most threatening, so directed her to point her gun at Burgundy. The Godfather then counted to three to give everyone a reasonable chance to withdraw from “The Game”, but also relinquish their claim to a share of the loot for that round.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Throughout, everyone was feeling quite brave, but it was Burgundy (“The Cute”) who had a particularly strong incentive to stay in, as his special power allowed him to take $5,000 before anyone else got a look in. It was a power he used to great effect taking an early obvious lead. Meanwhile, Blue (“The Vulture”) was the first to draw blood, defending her property against Grey (“The Greedy”). Like The Vulture she was, when Grey picked up a second wound, Blue finished him off and took two pictures from his still warm, lifeless hands. With, Burgundy clearly in the lead, Blue had help taking him down, and Pink got caught in the cross-fire.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Picking the pockets of two corpses in the same round made her something of a target and in the next round she found the staring down all three remaining barrels which effectively put her out of the game. Purple (“The Collector”), began collecting diamonds, but, it was Cerise (“The Lucky Man”)’ who picked up the $60,000 for getting the most diamonds. As “The Collector”, Purple managed to score a staggering five pictures netting her $100,000 giving her a cool $156,000, $6,000 ahead of Black in second place, with Cerise a close third with $146,000.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

With seven of us, we’d normally split into two groups, but the party atmosphere had got to us a little, and with limited table space we were keen to stick together. With the majority of Blue and Pink’s not inconsiderable game collection at our disposal, we eschewed the usual go-to seven player game, Bohnanza, and decided to play play Between Two Cities. We played this a few weeks ago, but in essence, it is a draughting game, but one that has the depth of 7 Wonders, but with the simplicity of Sushi Go!. As before, we didn’t use any of the seating randomisers, but since we were all sat in different places and three players were new to it, this didn’t matter.

– Image by boardGOATS

Burgundy and Black began to build up a large number of factories and thought they were in with a chance of scoring heavily with them, but didn’t notice that Grey and Pink, had more, as did Blue and Pink. Blue and Black began with a complete row of shops, and followed it with extensive white collar employment opportunities, but were unable to expand the park as much as they wanted.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Grey and Cerise had developed a retail outlet centre with no fewer than seven shops and a number of conveniently situated houses and office blocks. Cerise’s other city, shared with Purple began as a paradise with parks and entertainments, until they added a factory to increase the value of their housing stock. Parks had been popular at the start of two other cities too, with Purple starting her other city the same way with Burgundy, and Blue and Pink doing something very similar.

– Image by boardGOATS

After three rounds we began the complicated matter of the scores. It was quite close, but Blue and Pink’s City was disproportionately ahead, a problem that was rectified with a quick recount that left two cities jointly leading on sixty. In the normal way, the winning city can only ever be important as a tie-breaker since it is the city with the fewer points that makes each players’ score. In this case, however, Pink owned both, with Blue and Grey. Since Blue’s other city (shared with Black) had fifty-nine points, that put her a close second.

– Image by boardGOATS

A quick interlude followed for non-alcoholic Champagne, alcoholic Prosecco, white chocolate, pistachio and Diaquiri fudge, with the chimes of Big Ben and fireworks. Once the New Year greetings were complete, it was onto the important matter of what to play next. Such a large number of players meant the choices were limited, so we went with a couple of old favourites. Tsuro was first, a quick fun game that we all know well and that featured on our list of ten great games to play with the family at Christmas.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

A game that anyone can play, in Tsuro each player has a “stone” dragon and on their turn places a tile in front of it and moves the dragon along the path. As the board becomes increasingly crowded, the tiles form a maze of paths that the stones must navigate, staying on the board without colliding with anyone else while trying to eliminate everyone else. Grey and Cerise were the first to go out by collision, followed by Burgundy who was ejected from the board by Purple. Black eliminated both Pink and Blue with one tile, before winning the game by dealing with the only remaining competitor, Purple.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor zombiegod

With that over, there was just time for another of our favourite games of 2015, 6 Nimmt!. For a reason none of us understand, this mixture of barely controlled chaos is strangely compelling, so it is a game we keep coming back to again and again. Despite the number of times we’ve played it as a group, somehow Grey had missed out, so we had a quick summary of the rules: players simultaneously choose a card, then starting with the lowest value card the players take it in turns to add their card to the four rows on the table in ascending order. The player who adds a sixth card, instead takes the first five cards to score and the sixth becomes the first card in the new row. As well as the face value of the cards, they also have a number of bulls’ heads (Nimmts) mostly one or two, but some as many as five or even seven.

– Image by boardGOATS

The aim is to minimise the number of Nimmts picked up, so things went horribly wrong from the start, with everyone picking up plenty in the first round, though it remained close aside from Purple who picked up nearly twice what anyone else took. The second round was made especially difficult by the fact that three of the four rows were effectively out of commission. Blue struggled with four cards with a value below ten as well as the highest card in the deck. Purple managed to exceed her score in the first round, giving her a near record- breaking fifty-one. Grey and Burgundy both managed a clean sheet in the second round, so it was Burgundy’s better score of just seven, that gave him the win. So with 2016 started in fine style, we decided it was time for bed.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning outcome: Although seven is a difficult player count, there are some excellent games available when everyone is in the right mood.

Boardgames in the News: How to Get a Publication in Nature by Playing Games

With an Impact Factor of over thirty-six, the academic journal, Nature, is one of the leading sources of information on current science. Many academics would give their eye-teeth to publish in such a high profile journal, yet Stuart West, a Professor of Evolutionary Biology in the Department of Zoology, Oxford, has done just that¹ simply by playing boardgames!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Prof. West wants to use boardgames as a teaching tool and needs a game that models the process of natural selection that takes place in a dynamic ecosystem. The group of two twelve year olds, a sixteen year old, three graduate students, two post-doctoral researchers and three professors evaluated three games: Evolution, Evolution: Random Mutations, and Terra Evolution: Tree of Life. Although they enjoyed all of them, they comment that “Evolution is our favourite by far. It looks amazing, with evocative artistry in everything from the cards to the little animal drumsticks that the predators eat.”

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Prof. West goes on to say, “The game play is simple to grasp, but can get very tactical. In particular, as with real evolution, the best strategy depends on what everyone else is doing. If there are a lot of herbivores, there is an advantage to being an efficient forager, with traits such as cooperation, but lots of herbivores also means a big advantage to becoming a carnivore. When carnivores appear, herbivores need defences, which carnivores try to get around — and so on, in a co-evolutionary dance.” He concludes by adding, “All the games, and especially Evolution, deftly capture how natural selection produces organisms adapted to their environments.”

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

¹ West, S., Nat. (2015), 528, 192; doi:10.1038/528192a.

29th December 2015

The pub was very busy, and with one chef down with the lurgy (which had got four of us as well), food was delayed. So, unusually, we started off with a quick game. Expecting more people, we decided to play something short, and opted for Qwixx. This game was designed by Steffen Bendorf who also designed The Game (which has been popular with the group this year) and was nominated for Spiel des Jahres in 2013. So, it has a good pedigree, however, when it was nominated there were a lot of comments about its suitability and eventually, it was beaten by Hanabi, which most people agreed was a better game. We finally got the chance to give it a go in October and generally felt that although the rules made for a promising sounding filler, the resulting game was disappointing. Given how some people continue rave about it though, we’d were keen to give it another try and see if we’d been mistaken.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Qwixx is a very simple game: each player has a score card displaying the numbers two to twelve in the four different colours, red and yellow ascending and blue and green ascending. On their turn, the active player rolls six dice, two white, and one of each of the colours, red, blue, green and yellow. Every player may cross out the number corresponding to the sum of the white dice. The active player may then also cross out a coloured number corresponding to the sum of one white die and one matching coloured die. If the active player cannot or chooses not to cross off a number, then they must tick a penalty box, which costs them five points at the end of the game. The snag is that although numbers can be skipped, they must be crossed off in order, red and yellow ascending, blue and green descending.

– Image by boardGOATS

Points are scored for the number of each colour crossed out and penalties subtracted; the game ends when one player has picked up four penalties, or players have crossed off the last number for two colours locking them for everyone. Scarlet, an experienced local gamer who is usually unavailable on Tuesday evenings, commented that it was a bit like Yahtzee, but with slightly more decisions to make. This didn’t further endear the game to Blue, who has bad memories of playing Yahtzee as a child. Scarlet did manage to demonstrate a modicum of strategy when he chose to cross off a sixth red number rather than his first green number since that would give more points at the end. His discovery clearly gave him a bit of an edge as he took second place, eight behind Burgundy who won with eighty. We had a bit of discussion about what strategy there was, but it was not really enough to rescue the game in anyone’s eyes and it now faces donation to a worthy cause.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Meanwhile, Grey and Cerise had arrived and seeing everyone else engaged decided to play a quick game of Hey, That’s My Fish!. This is a cute little abstract with a penguin theme, and, in common with games like Carcassonne, although it plays more, in many ways, it is at its best as a two player game when it is most vicious. The game is played on a grid of hexagonal tiles, with each player starting with four penguin figurines which players take it in turns to move in straight lines across the tiles. When a penguin is moved, the active player gets the tile it was sitting on, leaving a gap that cannot be crossed. Thus, the ice flow progressively melts away trapping the penguins in increasingly smaller spaces.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor aleacarv

A number of fish is depicted on each tile, and the player with the most fish at the end of the game, i.e. when there are no more valid moves, is the winner. This is just the sort of game that Grey likes, deliciously savage with plenty of opportunity to go for the jugular and for a while he had Cerise under the cosh. Her delight at the end was obvious though when the final reckoning put her four fish clear. With food imminent for those who hadn’t yet eaten, and Green expected, we decided to split the group and start the “Feature Game”, Broom Service. This game uses the role selection mechanic from Witch’s Brew (a game we played a few weeks ago), but adds much more with a board and a delivery mechanic. Witch’s Brew was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres in 2008, but was beaten by Keltis (a boardgame equivalent of the popular two player card game Lost Cities), but its reincarnation, Broom Service, won the Kennerspiel des Jahres this year.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Like Witch’s Brew, players start with a hand of character cards from which they simultaneously choose a subset in secret. The start player then chooses a card and announces they are that character declaring they are either “brave” or “cowardly”. The other players then must follow suit if they hold that card. If a player is cowardly they take a lesser reward immediately, but if they are brave, they must wait until the end of the round to see if they get a reward. Once everyone has declared their position, the last brave player takes a greater prize and anyone who was brave earlier in the round gets nothing. The character cards come in three types, Gatherers (who provide ingredients), Witches (who allow players to travel to an adjacent region) and Druids (who deliver potions to the towers). There is also the Weather Fairy who charms away clouds using magic wands.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

The rules are modified by event cards that are revealed at the start of the round, and with less than five players, the game is also made tighter by the inclusion of “bewitched” roles (cue Burgundy and Pink demonstrating how to wiggle-twitch their noses like Tabitha). The game is considerably more complex than the cute theme and artwork imply. Compared with Witch’s Brew, there are also a number of small rules that it is difficult to remember at the start, though they are in keeping with the theme. The game ends after eight rounds, and, although points are awarded for delivering potions during the game, there are extra points for weather clouds and sets of potions collected.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Grey quickly got his nose in front delivering potions early, but Scarlet and and Cerise followed suit and kept the points difference down. It didn’t last however, and before long, Grey had moved his witches away from everyone else’s into the south-east corner of the board where he was able to score heavily without competition. Despite Cerise’s best efforts with the Weather Fairy and Scarlet’s set collecting, Grey had an unassailable lead and finished nearly thirty points clear with ninety-three points. Second place was much closer, however, Scarlet taking it by just two points from Cerise.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Meanwhile, once the matter of food had been dealt with, Blue, Pink and Burgundy were debating what to play. It had been narrowed down to Snow Tails or Snowdonia (with Pink requesting an expansion to add interest), when Green appeared, newly arrived from visiting relations over Christmas. He was keen to play Snowdonia, so that sealed the deal, with the Jungfraubahn expansion added as a sweetener.

– Image by BGG contributor duchamp

The base game is not that complex and we’ve played it a few times, however, it is one of those games that somehow everyone struggles to remember how it works. With both Burgundy and Blue suffering with Seasonal Lurgy, adding the expansion was always going to make things more complicated too. The idea is that players take it in turns to place their workers in the seven possible actions, which are then activated in order. These actions include, visiting the stockyard; converting iron ore into iron bars; digging to remove rubble from the track-bed; laying track; building part of a station; taking contract cards; and surveying the route.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor aleacarv

There are two twists: the weather and the game. The stockyard is refilled from a bag, and there are small number of white cubes in the bag which, when drawn cause the game to play itself. This mechanism came about because the designer dislikes players who hoard resources, so in this game, if people don’t keep things moving, the likelihood of white cubes coming out increases and the game moves along on its own. The other interesting mechanism is the weather which increases and decreases the digging and track laying rate making players’ timing key.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor winterplum

Green, Pink, Blue and Burgundy were still setting out the game and trying to work out what modifications the Jungfraubahn expansion made, when Broom Service finished, so Grey, Cerise and Scarlet played a quick game of Cosmic Encounter. This is a game they were all familiar with, though we’ve not played it on a Tuesday night before. The game is reasonably straight forward, with each player leading an alien race trying to establish colonies on other players’ planets with the winner the first player to have five colonies on planets outside their home system.

– Image by BGG contributor RRunner

On their turn, The active player becomes “The Offense”. The Offense encounters another player on a planet by moving a group of his or her ships through the hyperspace gate to that planet. They draw cards from the destiny deck which contains colors, wilds and specials. The Offense then takes the hyperspace gate and points at one planet in the system indicated by the drawn destiny card. The Offense and The Defense both commit ships to the encounter and both sides are able to invite allies, play an encounter card as well as special cards to try and tip the encounter in their favour. The game was close with lots of too-ing and fro-ing, but Cerise was the one to finally successfully establish five colonies, with Grey and Scarlet finishing with four and three colonies respectively.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

By this time, the other group had finally sussed out what they were doing and had got under way with Snowdonia. The Jungfraubahn expansion changes the game quite considerably replacing fog with snow which adds rubble to the track that must be cleared again before track can be built. It also introduces dynamite which can be used to remove large amounts of rubble as well as being used to initially clear a route through the mountains before the track-bed is prepared. Added to these, the new contract cards, seemed to introduce even more bad weather than “north-wet” Wales!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor winterplum

Blue and Burgundy were both a bit slow off the mark and struggled to really get going. In contrast, Green quickly picked up an engine and Pink got a couple of valuable contract cards. With Grey and Cerise leaving, Scarlet was left as an interested spectator. Eventually, Blue and Burgundy got going, but it was a bit of a rear-guard action. With the expansion, the game was taking slightly longer than expected, so Green, decided to take the opportunity to play Scarlet as a substitute and went home leaving the rest to finish the game without him. He had set out his plan and Scarlet did an excellent job executing it, however, Pink just had the edge.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ansi

Green/Scarlet took a massive seventy-nine points in bonuses and with twenty-nine points for station building together with the maximum for his surveyor, they finished with one hundred and twenty-two. The break down for Pink was nearly completely reversed with him taking seventy-eight points for station building and nearly sixty more in bonuses, giving a total of one hundred and thirty-eight, and the game.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor winterplum

Learning outcome: Lurgy does not improve gaming ability.