Author Archives: nannyGOAT

Boardgames in the News: Boardgame Café New Year Round-up

More and more boardgame cafés are opening in the UK. One of the first, Thirsty Meeples opened in Oxford two and a half years ago, and since then, there have been a number of other boardgame cafés opening using a similar model, including the Games Hub in Edinburgh; Dice and Donuts in Preston; Counters in Cardiff; Dice in Portsmouth, and Draughts in Hackney, London.

– Image from dicecupcafe.co.uk

This month, Paradice Board Games Café in Bromley, London, and The Dice Cup in Nottingham are opening. Like Dice and Donuts, The Dice Cup was the result of a successful KickStarter campaign last year. Hoping to emulate their success, fund-raising for Chance and Counters in Bristol begins on January 11th. Bristol has something of a history of speciality pubs: last year their first and very popular “cat pub” was opened, so hopefully the KickStarter project for the games café will be just as successful.

– Image from bbc.co.uk

Next Meeting – 31st December 2015

Following the success of last year’s New Year party, we are having another one this year be on Thursday 31^st December. As it is New Year’s Eve we will be meeting at Barney’s Home in Stanford and starting slightly earlier at 7pm with food. Please get in touch if you would like to come along so we know how much pizza to make.

The plan is to start off early with the “Feature Game”, which, as has become traditional, will be the gorgeous, dexterity car-racing game, PitchCar. After that, we will be eating, playing more games and maybe set off some fireworks at midnight, depending on how cold it is!

– Image by BGG contributor visard

And talking of cars…

A policeman sees an elderly woman driving incredibly slowly on the motorway, so he pulls along side and notices her knitting in the driver’s seat. She remains focused on the road and keeps knitting and driving.

He beeps his horn to get her attention, but she is oblivious and carries on.

Getting more frustrated, the policeman turns his siren on and, as she finally notices him, he signals for her to wind the window down.

After a time she finds the button and down goes the window.

Incensed, the cop yells, “PULL OVER!”

“Oh, no sweetie,” she replies. “It’s a scarf, see?”

Next Meeting – 29th December 2015

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 29^th December, 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 Broom Service which won the Kennerspiel des Jahres this year. The 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.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

And speaking of brooms…

It was just before Christmas and Jeff and his wife had to have that conversation.

“My mother is coming to stay with us for a few days over Christmas,” said the lady of the house, bracing herself for Jeff’s protests.

Much to her surprise, however, Jeff sounded positive, “That’s good,” he said, “Seeing as the vacuum cleaner has just broken down.”

Jeff’s wife was a little offended by this. “Well, she’s not going to be doing any cleaning if that’s what you mean,” she responded.

“Oh no,” said Jeff, “But we can borrow her broomstick…”

15th December 2015

It was a bit of a disparate night: Blue was late thanks to a disastrous day at work and Black and Purple were able to come for the first time in ages, but arrived even later and hadn’t had any supper. So after Red, Burgundy and Magenta had finished discussing JunKing, Red, Burgundy, Magenta, Pine and Green played a quick game of The Game. This simple cooperative game has very simple rules: Play a minimum of two cards on any of the four piles following the appropriate trend – two piles must always increase, two decrease; the exception to this is if you can play a card where the interval is exactly ten in the wrong direction (known as “The Backwards Rule”). Players can talk about anything so long as there is no specific number information given and the aim is to cooperatively get rid of all ninety-eight cards by playing them on to the four piles.

– Image by boardGOATS

With a hand of just six cards and some players staring with nothing but high cards and others with only cards between forty and sixty, it was always going to be challenging. In our experience, playing with five is also more difficult, so as a result, at the start of the game expectations weren’t high. As usual, there were howls of horror as players were forced to play cards that others didn’t want. Magenta started out with a really nice combo of four cards, but after that everyone just stepped on everyone else’s toes. Eventually though, much to everyone’s surprise, the deck was gradually whittled down and before long the final cards were drawn from the deck and players were looking to maximise the number of cards they were going to play from their hand. With only one playable pile at the end it was always going to be difficult and unfortunately, Burgundy was forced to bring the game to a close leaving a combined holding of five cards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

With Blue finished and Black and Purple just arriving, we decided that the week’s “Feature Game” Between Two Cities would be nice and quick. Sometimes (like last week) “nice and quick” turns out to be “a bit slow”, but this one has simple rules and rattles along at a good pace. The game is set in the early 1800s, a time of immense construction and urbanization with players designing new cities. It is an unusual game as players work in pairs building two cities, one with the each person they are sat next to. The cities are made up of square tiles and the final layout is a four by four grid. Since players gradually add tiles to their city, the amount of available space decreases and players have to be more discerning about where they build.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is played over three rounds. The first and third are tile drafting rounds, similar to games like 7 Wonders and Sushi Go!, except that players are drafting small square tiles instead of cards. So, in these first and last rounds, each player begins with seven tiles, everyone simultaneously chooses two, and passes the rest on. Once everyone has chosen, players can discuss what to play and where, before placing one tile in each of their cities and then picking up their next hand. In the first rounds cards are passed to the left, in the third round to the right. Between these two rounds, players are dealt three double sized tiles each from which they choose two to play. Since these must be placed the right way up and can be in either horizontal or vertical configurations, the choice and placement of these is quite critical, and are probably key producing the best city.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each city is scored separately at the end of the game and the winner is the player with who gets the most points for their lowest scoring city. Points are awarded to each city for each building in it, but the score depends on the type of building and where it is placed. For example, yellow shops score when placed in a row. A single, isolated shop will score just one point, but two adjacent shops score five and three in a row score a total of ten. Similarly, the first green park tile will score just two points, but if three are placed in a group, they will score twelve points. The scoring for some buildings depends on what else is present in the city however. Houses flourish best when there are a variety of other types of building nearby, so their score depends on the number of different buildings across the whole city. On the other hand, nobody likes living next to a factory, so a brown house tile next to a grey factory tile will score just one point regardless of everything else.

– Image by boardGOATS

Only Burgundy and Green had played the game before, but as Burgundy explained when people asked for advice, although he’d played well and even won in the past, he never had any idea how. So everyone was on their own pretty much, and when the first hand of tiles were dealt out, it felt like a bit of a lottery. As the game progressed, everyone discussed what they were trying to do with their neighbours and, before long players were struggling to find the best tiles to play to maximise their final scores. Magenta was trying to decide which of her two cities (shared with Blue and Red) should have the final entertainment establishment and a complete set, and Pine and Burgundy were busily industrialising their city to pick up a few extra points.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the final scoring, it was Blue and Magenta who’s city came out best with sixty-three, though the winning city is usually irrelevant. In Between Two Cities, players total up the points for both cities, but it is their lowest score that is compared and the higher is only a tie-breaker. Thus, players are trying to maximise both cities equally. In this case however, the second best city was built by Blue and Burgundy, so Blue took first, with Magenta in second place. This game was a win all round though as everyone had enjoyed it. The game was originally funded though KickStarter, and these games often feel a bit incomplete and lacking in finishing touches. This one, however, had a really good feel about it, the right amount of length for its depth and beautifully executed – definitely a game that will come out again.

– Image by boardGOATS

With Black and Purple finished and ready to play, there was some debate about what to go for. Green had been desperate to play Rockwell for about three years, so when he heard Blue had brought it, he was keen to give it a go. Meanwhile, Purple had been feeling aggrieved at the fact that Snow Tails had been shouted down at the previous Didcot Games Club meeting, so when Black said he would play it with her that pretty much set the games and everyone divided into two groups, with Magenta and Red joining Black and Purple to race dog sleds.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Snow Tails is a fun dog-sled-racing game where players built round a deck building and control mechanic. Each player starts with a sled drawn by two huskies. At the start of the game, each dog has a speed of three, and the break is also applied at a level of three. Thus, the sled-speed is the sum of the dogs minus the value of the break, i.e. everyone begins with a speed of three so and move three spaces forward. In addition, since the dogs are pulling evenly, this movement is in a straight line, but the also sled achieves a bonus equal to their position in the race. On the other hand, if the left dog had a speed of four and the right hand dog had a speed of two, although the sum would be the same, the difference of two means that the sled must also drift two lanes to the left. This “drift” can be applied at any point during the sleds move, so two of the moves are diagonal rather than just straight ahead.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Each player begins the game with the same deck of cards – five sets of cards numbered one to five, shuffled, from which they draw a hand of five cards. On their turn, the active player must play at least one card, but may play up to three cards, so long as they all have the same value. These cards are used to update either or both dogs, and/or the break. When they have completed their move, players draw cards from their personal deck back up to the hand-limit of five. Thus, players use their cards to navigate their sleds round the avoiding obstacles and attempting to observe the speed restrictions. Failure to do either incurs penalty “dent” cards which go into the player’s hand reducing the number of playable cards. This reduces their ability to control their sled and increasing the chance of them hitting obstacles and getting more dent cards, thus chaos reigns.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

The track is custom built, and we started off trees and finished with a sharp bend. Black got the best start and, got lucky through the pines giving him a healthy lead which he held throughout. The race for second place was very tight however, with Purple, Red and Magenta taking it in turns at the front of the pack. Eventually, Red lost ground round a sharp corner and Purple finally got her nose ahead of Magenta to take second place.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Meanwhile, it was quickly becoming clear that Rockwell was a much more complex undertaking. Not only were there an enormous number of pieces to sort out, it was also a few weeks since Green had read the rules. The rules were quite complex and Blue’s, Burgundy’s and Pine’s very puzzled expressions had changed to confused bemusement long before Green had finished explaining. The gist of the game is that players are the managers of a mining company, each with four drilling teams. Each round is made up of four phases: first players deploy their two managers, then they deploy their drilling teams, next they can sell or buy resources in the market and finally players can buy upgrades, for example, making their drilling teams more effective.

– Image by boardGOATS

Thus, at its heart, the game is a worker placement and it is all about how players deploy their managers and then how they use their resources once they have got them. These are just the sort of game Green likes best and also the sort of game Burgundy excels at. In the fiddling with the small rules, however, we’d sort of lost sight of how players actually win: basically there are achievement tiles and when people manage to fulfill the requirements of an achievement tile, they take the top one off the pile. Since these are sorted so that their value decreases, there is an advantage to getting there first. The achievements are a little strange and it took Pine a moment to grasp that, for example, players only needed to have eight zinc and eight copper to qualify for a tile; they did not need to actually spend the resources. Players can also trade resources for points in the upgrade phase, though in this case, the resources are returned to the main supply.

– Image by BGG contributor Rayreviewsgames

There are definitely a few very clever mechanics in the game and it is also beautifully produced with a lot of thought going into the design and rendition. The game board is circular, but is made of slightly curved tiles forming concentric layers so that the layout is different every time and players don’t know which resources will be produced where. Players move their mining teams around and between the strata and a layer is mined when an appropriate number of miners are there. Since each player starts with four teams of one spread out evenly around the surface and the first layers need a total of three or four, this means there is necessarily cooperation and player interaction in the game. Once the total for a given mine has been exceeded, the tile is turned over, and a corresponding card drawn indicating the resources to be allocated. Unusually, these resources are divided up equally regardless of the number of miners each player has contributed, however, the left-overs (dubbed “The Lion’s Share”) are given to the player with “priority”, a point we mostly never truly got to grips with.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was always going to be one of those games. The other table were well under way before Green had even finished reading the rules and once he had, everyone was still a bit clueless as to what to do, so it was largely through chance that Blue managed to pick up the first achievement tile. At which point, perhaps in shock, Green dropped a pale blue zinc cube on the floor and the next half hour was punctuated by people hunting for it. Black took a couple of breaks from the husky racing and made curiosity type noises as he passed and tried to work out how the game was going. After the first couple of rounds, players finally began to understand what they were trying to do, though the rules of who got “The Lion’s Share” remained pretty baffling right up to the end.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Before long, Burgundy was also picking up achievement tiles followed by Pine, but by this time Snow Tails was coming to an end. This led to a discussion about how much longer Rockwell was going to take, at which point, Blue realised her watch had stopped and it was nearly midnight… Yes, it was definitely one of those games! Green decided we were unlikely to make it to the end, the game would take some time packing up and his curfew was approaching. So in the end we just scored what points we had and left it at that. Everyone felt they were on the way to pulling in points, but it was Burgundy who had the most with fourteen, four clear of Blue with ten. Despite his confusion, Pine had picked up five points and only Green had failed to score, largely because he was focusing on the rules. It was a very unsatisfactory end and we definitely have unfinished business with Rockwell.

– Image by boardGOATS

Packing up didn’t take as long as predicted, and Pine did eventually find the missing zinc cube only for Blue to throw a white cube on the floor instead and the Great Cube Hunt to begin again. With Red and Magenta waiting for their lift, there was some discussion about starting a quick game of Bellz!, but despite its festive feel, there wasn’t really time even for that. So it was Christmas Greetings all round and time for home.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Don’t start long complicated games after 9.30 pm, especially if they are new!

Boardgames in the News: Will the Latest Consolidation Lead to Price Rises?

In February, following their acquisition of Esdevium Games, Libellud, Days of Wonder, Fantasy Flight games, Ystari Games, Asterion Press and Pearl Games we asked the question, “Are Asmodee Taking Over the World?” As if to answer in the affirmative, in April, Asmodee announced the start of a new contract with Queen Games for exclusive distribution rights in the USA. Since Asmodee has been the distributor for Queen Games in Germany, this made logistical sense. However, other consequences of these consolidations are now becoming apparent.

– Image from escapistmagazine.com

This week, Asmodee issued a press release stating that from the 1st January 2016, games made available by its three main US operations, Days of Wonder, Fantasy Flight games and Asmodee Editions will be sourced from a single entity, Asmodee North America. Furthermore, in the New Year, Asmodee North America will be adjusting its sales terms and reducing the number of its primary customers in the USA to just five authorised distributors. From 1st April 2016, these authorised distributors will be restricted to selling Asmodee North America’s products to “speciality retailers” that have agreed to Asmodee North America’s “Speciality Retail Policy”.

– Image from Asmodee North America Press Release

This Speciality Retail Policy states that a “retailer must not sell or transfer … other than through face-to-face commercial resale exchange with end-users in retailer’s physical retail location(s) or at a physical extension of the retailer’s location at a consumer show/convention”. Thus, all future sales will be restricted to bricks and mortar stores, effectively preventing the selling of Asmodee North America‘s products online. This is not an end to online sales, however, as the press release goes on to say that “Asmodee North America will allow select merchants to service the online sales channel under a separate sales policy. Such select online merchants will either be supplied directly by Asmodee North America, or by appointed distributors acting under Asmodee North America’s related policy.”

Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 5 – United Kingdom & Pennsylvania

– Image by boardGOATS

Online speculation is rife that these measures have been put in place to prevent the deep discounting seen in the USA, and that the contracts the retailers will have to sign will include a commitment to sell at the list price, thus effectively price fixing by other means. This has been carried out in the past by both Mayfair Games (the Catan brand) and Games Workshop (Warhammer etc.) who both have strict Speciality Retail Policies that restrict distribution, maintaining high prices. This is all highly significant with the growth of modern boardgaming as Asmodee North America produce some of the most popular gateway games, in particular Ticket to Ride, 7 Wonders, Dixit, and Dobble as well as the newly reawakened Star Wars license. It is not yet clear whether this will also have any effect on the distribution of Queen Games products in the USA.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor adamfeldner

Asmodee North America has claimed these changes are because they are “committed to brick-and-mortar hobby market speciality retailers”. On the other hand, in the FAQ that accompanied the statement, Asmodee North America state that even physical stores with an online presence are “limited to the channel of sale involving physical retail stores only”, which appears to belie this, since online sales are often what keeps “Bricks and Mortar” stores afloat. The FAQ also states that “These policies currently affect our business in the US. Our Canadian operations will continue unaffected until notified otherwise.” There is no mention of the EU, but it is likely that Esdevium, who already have something of a strangle-hold on the distribution of games in the UK, will continue to assert pressure on the market as they did at the start of this year.

– Image from asmodee.co.uk

Boardgames in the News: What is a Meeple?

Reading our game reports, a fairly commonly used term is “Meeple”. The word is used so widely amongst Euro gamers, that it was adopted for the name of the Oxford boardgame café, Thirsty Meeples, however, non-gamers are completely unfamiliar with it. So, what does it mean and where does it come from?

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor wizardless

The term was allegedly coined in 2000 by Alison Hansel while paying the tile laying game, Carcassonne. In Carcassonne, players draw a tile and then add it to a growing map before placing a wooden figure on the tile. Thus, meeple was a conjunction of “my” and “people” and was used specifically to refer to the characteristic wooden people-shaped pieces used in Carcassonne and more recently, games like Keyflower. Since then, the range of game pieces available has increased hugely and the term has been adapted and broadened.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

For example, Agricola has a wide range of resource tokens, including sheep, pigs and cows, which are often collectively referred to as “animeeples”. Similarly, the wheat and vegetable resource tokens are often referred to as “vegimeeples” or even “vegeeples”. So, the suffix “-eeple” has now come to mean game token, interestingly, usually one that is shaped. Thus, people playing games like Ice Flow or Salmon Run might talk about “fish-eeples”, devotees of Caverna may discuss “dog-eeples” and “donkeeples”, and players of the Arctic Bounty expansion for Fleet might comment on “crab-eeples”, though they may also be collectively referred to, simply as meeples.

– Image by boardGOATS

So, generically, a meeple is a game piece, usually made of wood, and often, but not necessarily with two arms, two legs and a head…

– Image by boardGOATS

Christmas GOATS – 2015

For the last few years, on New Year’s Eve, we have had a bit of a party in a private house with a bite to eat followed by games. These things rapidly become “tradition”, so this year we are once again holding the now “traditional”, New Year’s Eve Games Night. In the past, because of the way the holidays have fallen, this has replaced a normal Tuesday games night, but this year, we will holding both! So the next two meetings will be, Tuesday 29^th December, at the Horse and Jockey pub and Thursday 31^st December, at “Barney’s House”. More details will follow nearer the time, but we look forward to seeing everyone then.

– Image from christmasquotescards.com

Next Meeting – 15th December 2015

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 15^th December, 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 Between Two Cities. Set in the early 1800s, a time of immense construction and urbanization, this is an unusual game as players are paired with a partner with whom they discuss and execute their grandiose development plans. We chose this quick, interesting, partnership-driven tile-drafting game as it should leave us with plenty of time to play other games.

– Image by boardGOATS

And speaking of city planners…

A judge, a bishop, and a city planner were having a discussion. All three were rather vain , and their talk soon turned to the question of which of them was the greatest.

“Well,” said the judge, “my position is one of dignity and power. When I walk into the courtroom, the bailiff says, ‘All rise!’ and all the people stand to pay me honour.”

“That’s very nice,” responded the bishop. “People stand in your honour, but when people have an audience with me they kneel, kiss my ring, and they address me as ‘Your Eminence.'”

The city planner snorted and said, “I think I’ve got you both. When I walk into any room as a consultant, the people look down, put their hands over their eyes, and say ‘Oh, my God!'”

1st December 2015

Red and Blue were late thanks to a ridiculous queue at Frilford Crossroads, so food had only just been ordered when Green and Pine turned up. We hadn’t seen Grey and Cerise for a while, so when they arrived the evening descended into gossip. Pine manfully resisted the chips, but when he eventually succumbed, he ended up with more than he bargained for as they’d all stuck together… Amid chips and chat, eventually, someone suggested a game and everyone else agreed, so we started with the “Feature Game”, Pandemic: Contagion. The original game, Pandemic, is a very well known cooperative game where everyone plays together to defeat the tide of disease that is overcoming the world. Pandemic: Contagion is a lighter game and almost the complete opposite: players are the diseases and compete against each other to be the most effective and take over the world.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game itself is fairly straightforward. Cards are drawn to represent cities – these are coloured and are under attack from disease. On their turn players can do any two of three possible actions: place cubes or “infect” a city, draw cards or mutate their disease. Placing cubes cost cards and the cards must match the colour of the city they are infecting. The number of cubes they can place or cards they can draw depend on the characteristics of their disease, and both can be increased by mutation. Like infection, mutation must be paid for with cards, though the number of cards used depends on the level, thus going from an infection level three to level four is much more expensive than going from level one to two.

– Image by boardGOATS

A city becomes overrun with disease when the total number of cubes placed on the card equals or exceeds the population. At this point, the city is scored and the players with the most cubes get points (in the event of a tie, the disease to infect it first wins). The person who placed the last disease cube additionally gets a bonus action that depends on the city. At the start of each round an event card is drawn which either alters the rules of the game for the duration of that round, or otherwise disrupts everyone’s plans, by for example, causing them to lose cards or reduce their infection rate etc. etc.. Some of these cards also have a symbol on them either a city indicating that a new city should be added, or a skull and crossed bones after every second of which points are awarded to the player with the most disease cubes in each city. The game ends when either, there are only two cities left, or the game has proceeded through all twelve event cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game went very slowly with everyone falling for “group think” and going for the cities with the largest populations which therefore score the most points when completed. Unfortunately, this left the game somewhat mired in treacle as everyone did pretty much the same thing for the first three rounds collecting cards and infecting cities. Blue picked up a few points at the first interim scoring, but otherwise it was pretty dull and we were all wondering what we were doing wrong. Then it dawned on us that our disease cubes weren’t doing very much: for all the large cities, one player had a significant majority, so there was no incentive to compete for it; worse, the winner was reluctant to commit more resources to the cause, but that meant their cubes were just sitting there, waiting.

– Image by boardGOATS

Burgundy tried to get things going by increasing the number of cards he could draw, but that back fired when an event card forced him to dispose of half his cards (much to his horror, rounded up!). It was then that everyone began to look for other things to do and attention turned to finishing off some of the smaller, weaker cities. We’d sort of forgotten about the bonuses that come when cities are scored and it turns out that some of them are very powerful indeed. This was amply demonstrated when Blue finished Milan that gave her a card for every city she had infected, which turned out to be quite a few.

– Image by boardGOATS

With a little grease to oil the wheels, she was now able to use her newly liberated disease cubes to infect other cities in an effort to finish them. Everyone else joined in and finally the game began to look a little better, however, before we’d had time to really start to appreciate it, the game was over and it was time to score the remaining cities. Blue took the win with sixty-one points with Cerise some fifteen points behind behind just fending off Burgundy and taking second place, but everyone was frustrated at what had looked like a promising game, but had fallen so spectacularly flat.

– Image by boardGOATS

On reflection, as Blue commented (much to Green’s amusement as he listened in from the next table), “If we’d played it differently it would have been a very different game.” Although that sounds like a stupidly obvious thing to say, the problem was that everyone tried to play the same way and everyone fell into the same trap which dragged the game down badly. If we’d realised the value of the bonuses and gone for some of the smaller cities first, the game wouldn’t have dragged so much and would have been much more enjoyable and interesting. Unfortunately, as Pine succinctly put it, he’d enjoyed everything he’d played with us and would be happy to play any of them again, “except that.” Which means it’s unlikely to get a second chance very soon.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Green and Grey had decided they fancied playing something a bit more “piratey” together. With Pandemic: Contagion supposedly taking “just half an hour”, they decided to give Port Royal a go. Although Green had played it a couple of times, Grey was completely new to the game. We’ve played it quite a bit recently, but in summary, the game combines “push your luck” with strategy, the idea being that players turn over cards until there is something they want, or they go bust. Once they’ve taken a card, the other players have their pick of what’s left (for the cost of one coin). This means that in a two player game, the strategy changes quite a bit as players have to watch what they leave as well as be careful about taking a card and paying their opponent for the privilege.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor joeincolorado

Green decided to aim to complete “expeditions”, while Grey took a more tactical approach, just doing what seemed best at the time; neither player decided to protect themselves by picking up pirate cards. Both players really enjoyed it and the fickle hand of fate was much in evidence: there was much hilarity when three of the four tax cards came out in the same round. Fate wasn’t done yet either and when Green pushed for four ship cards (in order to be able to buy two cards in the round), almost two dozen cards had been drawn before he finally went bust by revealing a second of the same colour. With no pirates in his arsenal to repel the attack, the whole lot was wiped out, much to Grey’s annoyance as he had his eye on a particular card. In the end Green won convincingly with his expedition strategy, but he had the advantage of having played it twice before.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Since the larger group were still playing Pandemic: Contagion and only about half way through, Grey and Green decided to give Port Royal another go. This time both players decided to mitigate some of the luck by picking up pirate cards and it was generally a very close game. Pirate ships were repelled left, right and centre and more than once two cards were purchased in one round. In the end Grey brought the game to an end by exchanging cards for an expedition causing him to exceed the magic twelve points, finishing on fourteen. Since Grey had started, Green got one more round. With eleven points, Green needed four to win. As only two card purchases would do, he went for a four pirate line. With a fighting total of six he could easily repel anything except the skull ships. With the odds in his favour managed to get to the necessary four ships so that he could buy two cards, but his meagre finances stopped him getting the four points and had to settle for three, leaving him with fourteen points, level with Grey. Unfortunately for Grey, he had no money left to buy anything, and it all went down to the tie-breaker. The rules state this is by money, and since Green had just one coin left, he took his second victory of the night.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

With Pandemic: Contagion STILL going (yes, it really DID drag on, though it was near the end by this time…) Green and Grey decided to play a very quick game of Pick Picknic. This is another game that was new to Grey, but he proved to be a natural at. A sort of early version of one of our current favourites, Om Nom nom, the game combines simultaneous card selection with bluffing and a good slice of luck. The idea is that there are six farm yards of different colours, if someone plays the only chicken card of a given colour, they get all the grain at that coloured farm. If multiple players go for the same coloured yard, then players can either agree to share the corn in any way that is mutually acceptable or roll the die for all of it. Foxes don’t eat corn, however, they only eat chickens, so if someone plays a fox card, they will eat any chicken cards of that colour, and before long Grey was happily gobbling his way through Green’s chickens adding to his pile of captured corn. In the end Green managed to get more corn, but the birds captured by Grey’s hungry foxes more than made up for the missing corn and Grey ran out a clear winner. Both players agreed that they preferred Pick Picknic to Om Nom Nom. Although it doesn’t have the great dice of the newer game, they game doesn’t have the feeling that it’s all over after one poor move.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

With Pandemic: Contagion finally finished, Cerise and Grey headed off, leaving Burgundy, Green, Pine and Blue with a little over an hour to play. After a little bit of thought, we decided to continue Pine’s “boardgame education” and introduce him to The Settlers of Catan (or simply “Catan” as it is now known). Playing with Green’s fourth Mayfair edition, there were the inevitable comments on the new colour scheme. Blue outlined the rules to Pine while Burgundy and Green set up the board. At its basic level, the game is one of resource management and civilisation building.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

Players start with two roads and two settlements. These are placed along the edges and on the corners of the hexagons of the modular board. Each hexagon has a number on it, and on each player’s turn, first they roll both dice and resources are awarded to players with settlements on the corners of the hexagon that corresponds to the total rolled. Once the resources have been handed out, the active player can trade resources with other players and use them to build more roads and settlements, develop their settlements into cities or buy development cards. Victory points are awarded for settlements, cities and the longest continuous road as well as via development cards (both as straight victory points and for the player with the most soldier cards, i.e. the Largest Army). The random set up had the desert off centre and almost all the specific ports a very long way from good supplies of the necessary resources. After much debate, we decided to let Pine go first and try to make sure he ended up with decent starting positions. Green, who went third, decided to try something different and explore the coast hoping there would be less competition there, leaving Blue two reasonable positions in the centre of the board.

– Image by boardGOATS

As usual with “Settlers”, resources were poorly distributed amongst players and after a brief flurry of wood, it disappeared for the rest of the game. On the other hand, Green was awash with ore, and Blue, who had quickly upgraded one of her settlements to a city after an early glut of wheat, suddenly found she had more brick than she could possibly work out what to do with. Pine, once more attracted animals and had an enthusiastically breeding flock of sheep while Burgundy persistently rolled sixes – just about the only number he didn’t have a settlement on. We had a big debate as to whether a four-for-one trade with the bank had to be four identical cards. After checking the rules, we found they should be identical, though neither Burgundy nor Blue remembered playing that way in the past. Since we were a little tight on time, we decided to house-rule it to “any four resources” this time, though on reflection, it probably wasn’t really necessary.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor
thephantomhennes

Burgundy picked up the Longest Road tile and joined Pine in the sheep farming business. Having ensured Pine’s starting placements were reasonable, he was making an excellent job of building on it and had found a nice little bit of space to work in, building a couple of new settlements and threatening to take the Longest Road card. Meanwhile, Green discovered that he was a bit stuffed, with few good options despite having tried to place his starting settlements to avoid being cut off. With good access only to ore and occasional wheat, he started buying development cards and used the robber effectively to cut off the wood supply. Blue, with a sudden influx of cards, managed to get her nose in front with a couple of settlements which she was able to upgrade quickly when she got another sudden influx of grain and brick.

– Image by boardGOATS

Just passing the hour mark, Blue hit eight points and was looking to extend her road and take the Longest Road from Burgundy, or build a couple more settlements. In the event, the dice rolled in her favour and she picked up a stack of cards with no sign of the robber, which meant she was able to do both giving her eleven points. This brought the game to a swift and sudden end and the score belied how close the game actually was. Since we’d finished a little quicker than expected we decided to play something quick. The suggestion of Red7 scared off Burgundy, but after some consideration, Blue and Green decided to continue Pine’s boardgame education with a quick game of Love Letter.

– Image by boardGOATS

Love Letter is a game we played a lot a year or so ago, but not so much recently. The first of the so-called “micro games” it is played with just sixteen cards. Each player starts with one card and on their turn, draws a second card and then plays one of them. Each card has a value (one to eight) and an action (discard a card, swap cards with another player, compare cards, etc. etc.). The object of the game is to have the highest card when the deck has been exhausted or, be the last person remaining, which ever is soonest. The rules say the winner is the first player to take a set number of hands, however, we tend to play far a few rounds and then decide how far to take it. In this case, Green, Blue and Pine had one point each, so we went for one final round, which Pine took with much aplomb.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor thatmadgirl

Learning Outcome: Sometimes it is the way that you play that makes a game enjoyable.

Boardgames in the News: Ten Great Games to Play with the Family at Christmas

With the nights drawing in and the weather becoming increasingly wet and wintery, what could be nicer than an afternoon playing board games in front of the fire? If you are new to the hobby, here are ten great modern boardgames to play over the Christmas holidays. These are all readily available online and/or in dedicated boardgame shops.

PitchCar – This superb car racing game is guaranteed to get kids of all ages playing together; the winner is the person who manages to flick their car round the track first. The game plays six people, but you can get more cars from the Ferti website and play a pursuit type game which is also good fun. You can also get expansion packs to make your track longer and more interesting if you really like it.
Target Audience: Families & parties; ages 2 to 102…
Game Time: From half an hour tailor-able to the group, plus time to build the track.
Price: Approximately £45 from amazon.co.uk for the base game (also available in a slightly cheaper mini-version for those without a large table).

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor garyjames
Tsuro – Players take it in turns to build a path for their “dragon”, creating a maze for everyone else at the same time. The game lasts just fifteen to twenty minutes and plays up to eight people. It combines just enough strategy and luck that if you get knocked out early, there is always time to try again. Don’t be tempted to get Tsuro of the Seas though, it takes all the really good things about Tsuro and makes them slightly less good.
Target Audience: Friends & Families with ages 8+
Game Time: 15-20 mins with almost no set up time.
Price: £20-25 from amazon.co.uk.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor aleacarv
Bohnanza – This one sounds really uninspiring on reading the rules: players have to trade beans to make the most money from the biggest and best bean fields. Despite the unpromising sound, you only need to play it once with a couple of other people and before you’ve gone far you will agree it is one of the best games ever made – never has bean farming been so much fun!
Target Audience: Older children and adults; ages 10+
Game Time: 45-60 mins
Price: Readily available for around £15-20.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor spearjr
Dobble – With five games in the tin, this Snap-inspired game is excellent value. Since it relies on reactions, it is also one of those games where children are often genuinely better than adults. And it is so quick to play that it is an ideal game to squeeze in while the kettle is boiling or tea is brewing.
Target Audience: 3 and up
Game Time: 2 mins per round
Price: Readily available for around £10 or less.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor msaari
Escape: The Curse of the Temple – While most Euro Games don’t use dice, in this game players have five each. This is a team game that is played against the clock, so has the advantage that everyone wins or loses together. The team of five players simultaneously roll dice to explore the temple and activate gemstones and then try to escape together before the temple collapses around their ears. This is also ideal for children to play with adults as they can work in pairs or groups learning communication and team working skills. If the game seems too difficult for the group, it can also be made a little easier by reducing the number of gems the group have to activate.
Target Audience: age 5+ as long as there are understanding adults playing
Game Time: 10 mins per game plus a few minutes setting up
Price: approximately £25-30 from amazon.co.uk.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mikehulsebus
Survive: Escape from Atlantis! – This is good fun and really, really nasty. Not quite so easy to learn, but really not that difficult either and great fun with four people who have a competitive streak. Each player has a number of pieces that they are trying to get from the central island to the mainland. Players take it in turns to move a person or boat, then they take a piece from the island, finally they roll a die to move a whale, shark or sea-monster, with potentially devastating consequences…
Target Audience: Teenagers; not recommended for children under 12 or people who can’t take getting picked on
Game Time: 40-60 mins
Price: Approximately £25-30 from amazon.co.uk; a 5-6 player expansion is also available which makes things even nastier…

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ckirkman
Dixit – This is a great game to play with the mums and grannies in the family. Players take it in turns to be the “story teller” who chooses a card from their hand and gives a clue that everyone else tries to match. Everyone then has to guess which card belonged to the story teller, with points awarded for good guesses as well as cards that mislead other players. The original base game plays six well, but Dixit: Odyssey plays up to twelve with a slight tweak to the rules. Extra decks of cards are also available.
Target Audience: Friendly groups and parties.
Game Time: 30-45 mins
Price: Approximately £15-30 from amazon.co.uk, depending on the version.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor lacxox
Colt Express – For older children and younger adults, this game is a glorious mixture of controlled chaos. Players are bandits attacking and looting a fantastic 3D train. Rounds are broken into two parts, first players take it in turns to choose the cards they will play placing them in a communal pile the centre of the table. Then, once everyone has chosen, players carry out the action on each card in turn. The problem is by the time they get to the end, the plans they had at the start have gone terribly awry… A similar feel can be got from the pirate themed Walk the Plank! which is a cheaper, smaller, easier game that packs a lot of fun into a shorter playing time.
Target Audience: Young, and not-so-young adults.
Game Time: 30-60 mins
Price: Approximately £25 from amazon.co.uk; Walk the Plank! is available for £15-20.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman
Ticket to Ride: Europe – Players are collecting coloured cards and spending them to place plastic trains on map/board with the aim of trying to build routes across Europe. This game has been around a little while now and is available in several different flavours: for the typical UK family, the Europe edition is probably best (plays up to five players), but for a couple, the Nordic edition with its gorgeous festive artwork might be more appropriate (only two to three players though). If it is popular, there are also a number of expansion maps available.
Target Audience: Age 10+.
Game Time: 30-60 mins
Price: Readily available for available for £25-40 depending on the version and vendor.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke
No Thanks! – A quick and simple little betting game anyone can play. The game consists of a deck of cards and some red plastic chips. The first can take the top card, or pay a chip and pass the problem onto the next player. The aim of the game is to finish with the lowest total face value of the cards, but if woe-betide anyone who runs out of chips as they will be left at the mercy of everyone else.
Target Audience: Friends and families; children aged 8+.
Game Time: 10-15 mins
Price: Readily available for approximately £10.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ckirkman