Author Archives: nannyGOAT

24th February 2015

We started out with a game that was new to the group, …Aber Bitte Mit Sahne (which means “…But Please, With Cream”, although the game is also known as “Piece o’ Cake” in English). This is a quick little set collecting game we’ve not played before with very simple rules. The game uses an “I divide, you choose” mechanism with points awarded to players with the most slices of the each different types of cake.

– Image by boardGOATS

The first player (the Baker) bakes a cake with the types determined at random. Each slice has a number of blobs of cream on it and a numeral demonstrating how many of that type there are in the game. The Baker then divides the cake up (usually so that there are sufficient pieces for everyone to have one), with each piece containing any number of slices of any type. Next, the player to the left of the Baker selects a piece of cake and chooses what to eat and what to keep. They can eat or keep as many slices they want. Any cake they choose to eat is turned face down and the total number of blobs of cream in the pile contributes that number of points to the the final score. Thus, each player takes a piece of cake and chooses what to eat and what to keep, finishing with the Baker. Then the next player takes a turn as the Baker and so on. The game continues for five rounds.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the end of the game, each type of cake is assessed and the player who has collected the most slices of a variety receives points. The number of points obtained is the same as the number of slices in the game and is written on each slice of that type of cake. For example, there are eleven pieces of chocolate cake in the game and the player with the most slices will win eleven points at the end. Crucially, in case of a tie, all tied players score the points. In general, players can only eat fresh cake (i.e. cake just served), the exception is that they can forfeit the opportunity to take fresh cake and instead eat all the stale cake of one type in front of them. This might be a good idea if a player can see that they cannot win a category and the number of blobs of cream will give them more points than they would get from the fresh cake.

– Image by boardGOATS

Burgundy started off as the Baker. Blue began modestly keeping a slice of apricot cake and eating her chocolate cake (having given up chocolate and cake for Lent, this was very appealing). Meanwhile, Cerise began collecting strawberry and chocolate, Grey went for gooseberry leaving Red and Burgundy to fight it our for cherry, blackberry and plum. In the second round, Burgundy set the tone by pinching the a slice of apricot cake from under Blue’s nose handing her a load of relatively worthless slices in the process. From then on, it was more about stopping other people from getting what they wanted than about collecting something useful, which meant that those who had picked up the start of a set in the first round were in the best position. The game ended with players sharing the top spot for a lot of the categories, but the strawberry and chocolate that Cerise had picked up early on gave her a massive number of unshared points. The title of Master Baker went to Burgundy, however, winning by a single point.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor GeoMan

By this time, Green, Black and Purple had arrived, so we split into two groups with the first starting off with the “Feature Game”, Niagara. This is one of the first games we played in the group back in October 2012, and it was certainly long overdue another outing. The idea of the game is that players are travelling up and down the Niagara River in canoes collecting gems. The river is the feature of this game as it is made up of plastic discs that actually move during the game carrying the players boats towards the falls. Each player has a set of “paddle cards” with numbers 1-6 and a cloud on them and each card must be played one can be reused.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Marsh

Simultaneously, all players choose a paddle card, then they take it in turns to resolve their card. Each player has two canoes which can either be on the bank or on the river. Any boat on the river must be moved and a boat on the bank can be moved if the player wants to (though if they are both on the bank, only one can be moved). Movement is exactly the number shown on the chosen paddle card, no more and no less (except when bring a boat home with a gem on board) and the boats cannot change direction during the turn. In addition to moving, players can also load or unload a canoe, which costs two movement points and must be done at the start or end of a move. An empty boat that is travelling up-stream and lands on a space occupied by another boat laden with a gem may also steal it for no charge.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor erfalucho

At the end of the round, after everyone has taken their turn moving their boats, then the river moves. It’s movement is dictated by the smallest canoe movement, modified by the weather. Each player has a weather paddle card and as one of their options, they can alter the weather setting from sunny (-1) to very rainy (+2). Thus if the lowest paddle card played was a three and the weather was very, very wet, the river would move five spaces. The winner is the player who has either four gems of the same colour, five of different colours or seven of any colour at the end of the game.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor William Hunt

The game started well, and “just to demonstrate to everyone how it was done”, Blue nicked one of Burgundy’s gems and then increased flow rate of the river. She got her comeuppance since she promptly ended up with two yellow gems. Meanwhile, Cerise had collected two clear gems and Red followed Blue’s example and increased the weather flow to it’s maximum. By the time everyone had been through their paddle cards once, everyone had moved on to trying to get the difficult pink and blue gems that are perilously close to the cataract. The inevitable happened then, when everyone played a “6” and one of Cerise’s precious canoes went sailing over the waterfall. Despite turning one of her boats into match-wood, she was still the first to get a complete set of five different coloured gems, giving her the win.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor cmessenger

Meanwhile, the other group were showing no signs of finishing, so since Cerise had never played it, the group moved on to one of Red’s favourite games, Bohnanza. Cerise was very generous which meant everyone else followed suit and the game wasn’t as tough as it has been when we’ve played it recently. Burgundy went for the “high value” market, but suffered and Red and Blue’s mixed bean strategy and Blue finished just two coins ahead of Red.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor spearjr

The other group were still what seemed like hours from finishing, so the first group tried decided to move onto their third game. Burgundy expressed an interest in playing Blueprints, a cute little dice stacking game. However, just as Blue was getting it out, Black suddenly commented that their game was coming to an end. Blueprints can be a little lengthy, so it was quickly replaced with Tsuro, which turned out to be just the right length.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor aleacarv

Tsuro is a very simple tile laying, path making game, that has the advantages of playing a range of numbers reasonably well, as well as being very quick to play and extremely easy to teach. The idea is that players have a stone which is located on the board and a hand of three tiles. On their turn, they have to place one of the tiles on the board next to their stone such that it extends it’s path and remains on the board, then they replenish their hand. Players continue until their stone collides with another player’s stone or it is forced off the board (by another player or because they have no choice because of the tiles they have), in which case they are out. The game started slowly, but Red was the first to go, when she lost a tussle with Burgundy. Burgundy didn’t last much longer, leaving just Cerise and Blue to tough it out. Blue was forced to place a tile that left her at the mercy of Cerise, but Cerise had no choice and collided with Blue, ending the game.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

By this time, the other group were just adding up their scores, but what was it that they had been playing that took so long? Well, they had been playing Village with The Port expansion. In Village, each player takes the reins of a family striving for fame and glory. The game is full of difficult decisions, however, it feels like it moves quite quickly. What is particularly unique though, is the way the game uses the delicate subject of death as a natural and perpetual part of life in the village and a mechanism for dictating the flow and duration of the game.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

Each player starts the game with a personal farmyard board and the four members of the first generation of their family. There is also a central village game board which depicts the different locations players can go to carry out different actions. At the start of the game/round influence cubes are drawn at random from a bag and placed on these locations. During the round, players take it in turns choosing a location and taking one of the cubes and then (optionally) carrying out the action. There are a range of actions, from “building a family”, to “crafting goods” or “going to market”. Some of these (like visiting the “well”) give resources of some kind, while others (like going “travelling” or “entering the church”) are primarily a means to obtain points.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

While the action is optional, taking a cube is mandatory. If there isn’t a cube available at the location, then the action cannot be taken. Cubes are then used to pay for some of the actions. In addition to the cube cost, some actions also have a “time” cost: around the edge of the players farmyard, there is a time track and once a player’s token has been round the board one of their meeples dies.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

When one of their meeples dies, the player has to choose one of their oldest generation family members (i.e. those numbered “1”, or in the event that they are all deceased, one numbered “2”) kill them off. These meeples are then either laid to rest in the Village Chronicle or in one of the anonymous graves behind the church. Family members placed in the Chronicle will score victory points at the end of the game, however, if there is no room in the relevant section of the Chronicle, the family member is placed anonymously in the unmarked graves behind the church where they do not score. The game will end when either the last empty space in the Village Chronicle is filled, or the last anonymous grave is filled. The winner is the player with the most points at the end.

– Image by BGG contributor jardeon

It took a little while to set up and revise the rules and to work out how the new Port expansion fitted in. Basically this replaces the original travelling option with the ability to board ship and travel the seven seas. Players hire a captain, and then use the ship to sell domestic goods and pick up foreign commodities. Family members can be sent as missionaries to far away islands and dig up treasure chests.

– Image by BGG contributor Grovast

Eventually the game began. Black started out collecting green cubes, aiming for a market based strategy. Grey was attracted by the large number of points provided by the expansion and decided to pop down to the port and start sailing almost immediately. Meanwhile, Purple and Green were a little less certain of their initial direction and just built up a small stock of tiles (namely ox and plough to maximise wheat production). By the end of the first round, both Purple and Green had sent family members into the church bag, and, by pure chance, both Green’s came out. In the second round Purple joined yellow at sea, Green fumbled over getting his first meeple to work a second time in the craft halls without dying while Black (a hard task master) worked his first meeple into an early grave without shedding a tear!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Club Amatent

Blue was also heading deeper into the town hall, piling up extra bonus green cubes and tiles to enhance his market buying opportunities. Grey continued a balancing act at home while slowly filling his boat. Green joined Grey and Purple and took to the seas with the highest level captain and rapidly made his way round to collect the various goodies. Purple decided that she did not like the apparent slight by the God(s) and placed even more into the church, and paying for them to be taken out and so gaining the end of round church bonus.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

Everything was looking rosy for Black, producing quite a pile of market chips, until the sailors began to return, and were able to swap their bounty for lots of points, saoring into the lead on the victory point track. Black was still confident, if a little nervous now, especially since Green had managed to plant one of his meeples in the far corner of the sea for a huge haul of points at the end. The books of remembrance were slowly filling, as was the grave yard. Black then took a late plunge into the waters, while Green started sending family members to join the local council in the Town Hall. Purple collected cubes a plenty (enabling her to make some free actions of her own choice to her advantage) and Grey was really getting to grips with the game and was making good use of his second trip to sea and happily killing meeples left, right and centre, like mad despots!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

There was a close finish in the final round. Initially everyone thought it was going to be the last round, but then it started to look like the grave spaces would not be filled after all and another round would ensue. Then, out of the blue, Green used three cubes to visit the market place, which had otherwise been empty of action cubes. Buying twice killed off another meeple, which filled the last space in the graveyard and the game was suddenly over (leading the other group to change from Blueprints to Tsuro). With one last turn each, only Black was able to do anything to increase his score at this point. Before the final scoring it was very unclear who had won: Green and Grey were far in front on the victory point track, but Black had a lot of market chips. It turned out, Black had just done enough, pipping Green by a couple of points with Grey and Purple not far behind in what had been a very close and enjoyable game.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

Learning Outcome: Killing meeples is great fun, if a little time consuming!

The Passing of a Little Friend

Anyone who came to meetings while the pub was closed (due to the fire), will remember Susie. She was the grumpy little cat who grudgingly put up with our visits and, in time became almost friendly with people. Sadly, Susie passed away this morning, at home in the arms of her faithful servant.

– Image by boardGOATS

Boardgames in the News: Are Asmodée Taking Over the World?

Asmodée is the French translation for Asmodeus, and according to Binsfeld’s classification of demons, Asmodeus is the demon of lust and is therefore responsible for twisting people’s sexual desires. In the boardgame world though, Asmodée (originally known as Siroz) are a small French game publishing and distribution company, specialising in the family market. For example, they are well known for Dobble, Dixit, Time’s Up! and Ca$h ‘n Guns, but they also publish some more challenging games including Snow Tails, Mr. Jack, Formula D, Takenoko and 7 Wonders.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

Asmodée was started in 1995 by Marc Nunès, a self-trained entrepreneur developing role-playing games, but quickly became France’s foremost games publisher and distributor. One of the big early successes was Jungle Speed, launched in 1998, which has since gone on to be one of the top-selling titles in France, rivalling Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and Pay Day. The real turning point came in 2003, however, when Asmodée obtained the French licence to distribute Pokémon collector cards, which opened up the mass retail sector. This development led to an 18% investment from Naxicap in 2005. Naxicap’s stake was bought out two years later by Montefiore who acquired 60% of the company as part of a deal with management worth €40-50 million. Montefiore invested €120 million to finance Asmodée’s international growth, funding the acquisition of the Belgian game distributor Hodin in 2008, the Spanish games developer Cromola and the German Proludo in 2009, followed by the purchase of a 60% stake in the UK-based distributor, Esdevium Games in 2010. Asmodée also strengthened it’s portfolio with the acquisition of Abalone and partnership with Libellud (leading to the distribution rights for Dixit) in 2010.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor msaari

In 2012, Asmodée branched out further, setting up a subsidiary in Shanghai, China, with the intention of expanding “into a new market taking advantage of Asmodee’s extensive line-up of games and the existing relationships with partners, thus promoting the brand in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan”. This ambition brought Asmodée to the attention of the Eurazeo, a European investment company and a deal was announced in November 2013 that valued Asmodée at €143 million. In January, 2014, almost exactly a year ago now, Eurazeo bought 83.5% of Asmodée through an equity investment of €98 million while Asmodée’s management team and original founders reinvested €14 million of their own money.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor garyjames

With the backing Eurazeo provided, Asmodée then went big: in August last year it was announced that Days of Wonder would be “merging into the Asmodée Group of game companies”. Days of Wonder are one of the biggest names in modern boardgaming, and are often credited with the growth of the modern boardgame industry, thanks largely to their flagship Ticket to Ride games, which have sold well over two million copies to date. This is not the only “big game” in their catalogue either, they are also responsible for Memoir ’44 and Small World, both of which are popular games, demonstrated by the number of expansions they support and which take Days of Wonder’s total number of games sold to over five million since their founding in 2002.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor crosenkrantz

According to Forbes, Days of Wonder generates between $10 million and $20 million in revenue annually, not bad in such a niche market. From Eurazeo/Asmodée’s point of view, such an acquisition makes sound financial sense, not just because of the commercial value, but because they already provided a lot of the distribution for Days of Wonder games. This wasn’t enough for Asmodée however, and three months later, they acquired the U.S. publisher Fantasy Flight Games.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor adamfeldner

This was a bit of a change of direction for Asmodée: hitherto, all the acquisitions had been firmly in the family boardgame and distribution markets. Fantasy Flight games are a very different animal and their headline games, Twilight Imperium and Arkham Horror are much less family friendly. Even their X-Wing Miniatures Game which is very popular with fathers and sons, is a long way outside the normal scope of Asmodée, since it is essentially a two-player war game with a Star Wars theme. However, there are considerable benefits for both parties, since the merger will enable Fantasy Flight to improve its distribution in Europe, while simultaneously giving the growing Asmodée Group access to Fantasy Flight’s North American sales and marketing teams.

– Image used with permission BGG contributor Toynan

Asmodée weren’t stopping there, however, with Ystari Games, Asterion Press and Pearl Games also becoming “part of the Asmodée family” late last year. The link with Ystari Games almost certainly comes from their mutual interest in Space Cowboys. Space Cowboys is a game creation studio created in 2013 by Marc Nunès (who started Asmodée way back in 1995, remember?), Philippe Mouret and Croc (both of Asmodée), Cyril Demaegd (Ystari) and Sébastien Pauchon (GameWorks). Space Cowboys is a very small outfit, but already has one Spiel des Jahres nomination under its belt in Splendor and looks to be trying for a second with Black Fleet, the gorgeous pirate game released at Essen last year.

– Image from eurazeo.com

So, what are Asmodée up to? The concern is that gamers generally like the current diversity in the market and fear that this succession of mergers and partnerships will mean a homogenisation of the games available. The November 2014 Eurazeo “Investor Day” report spelled out the current state of Asmodée in detail and the good news is that this does not seem to be Eurazeo/Asmodée’s intention. The report states, “Each studio has its own DNA,” and goes on to say, “Repeated success lies in the full independency granted to these studios, to keep innovating.” So it seems the diversity is valued, however, by acquiring mid-sized publishers like Days of Wonder and Fantasy Flight, Asmodée is positioning itself to compete more effectively with multinational toy giants like Hasbro and Mattel, who publish top board game brands including Monopoly and Scrabble.

– Image from eurazeo.com

So, is it a good thing that Asmodée are setting themselves up to rival the big boys? Well, Asmodée is not the only company to engage in mergers: in 2011 Filosofia purchased the U.S. publisher Z-Man Games, and U.S. publisher FRED Distribution (which releases games under the Eagle Games and Gryphon Games brands), acquired U.S. publisher Face2Face Games. More recently, in late 2013, Mayfair Games (the U.S. partner for Catan) bought a controlling interest in Lookout Games (the company who first brought Agricola, Caverna, Le Havre and Ora et Labora to the market).

– Image from escapistmagazine.com

Clearly a large stable company provides security for designers, as well as providing support for the individual studios who know that one poor decision is no-longer likely to bring about the end of the company, both of which have to be A Good Thing. However, companies like Eurazeo invest for only one reason: financial return. With an effective monopoly, Asmodée are now in a position to squeeze the market, indeed we may already be seeing the evidence of this in the price rises announced at the start of the year. With this in mind, it will become clear in due course whether Asmodée is good for boargaming in the UK or whether it is genuinely the demon of lust responsible for twisting our gaming desires…

Next Meeting – 24th February 2015

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 24^th February, 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 Niagara. This is a slightly more in-depth “pick-up and deliver” type game with players constantly fighting the movement of the river as well as each other. Basically, players are trying to collect gems by travelling up and down the river, however, they must beware of the ever-changing flow of the river, which can carry little canoes over the falls and turn them into match-wood…

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor William Hunt

And talking of Niagara Falls…

Jeff and his cousin Joe were on holiday together in the USA, and decided to go and see Niagara Falls. During the day they had a ride in a little boat and admired the spectacular cataract and they finished the day in a bar. After a few drinks, Jeff issued his cousin a challenge, “I bet you £500 that you can’t carry me across the falls using a tightrope.” Now Joe never could resist a challenge and, since he had been learning to tight-rope walk (and he’d also had a few drinks of course), he accepted the challenge.

The next morning, still hung-over, Jeff and Joe got up early to make the crossing. After a bit of head-scratching, they managed to set up the tight-rope and Joe began to carry Jeff across the river. After a very scary half hour, Joe managed to stagger safely across carrying Jeff, and Jeff grudgingly paid the £500.

“That was very close,” Jeff said. “When you wobbled at about halfway, I was sure I’d won; the car is on the other side of the river, double or quits?”

It’s the Year of the Goat – Happy New Year!

Although China has used the Gregorian calendar since 1912, Chinese New Year is based on the ancient Chinese lunar calendar, and it falls on the second new moon after winter solstice – somewhere between 21^st January and 19^th February (which means it changes from year to year). So, Thursday was the first day of the new Chinese year, and 2015 is the year of the goat!

– Image from feng-shui-consultants.com

So, Happy New Year, or “Gong Hey Fat Choy”!

10th February 2015

Getting into the mood for Saturday (St. Valentine’s Day), we started out with just a couple of quick hands of the old favourite, Love Letter. Blue took the first hand and Grey the second, however, we were still expecting a few more, so we decided to play another quick game and after a little discussion, we went for Coup.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

This is a light little card game with a lot of similarities to Mascarade, which we played last time: on their turn, players declare they are going to take an action and other players can either claim they are a specific character and counter or challenge the active player to prove that they are who they say they are. Basically, the actions are either: take money in various different amounts (with different risks); spend money to assassinate or perform a coup, or trade a card with the deck. Players have two character cards face down in front of them, and when challenged correctly or assassinated/subjected to a coup, they turn one face up. When both of a player’s cards are face up, they are out; the winner is the last man standing.

– Image by BGG contributor jerome75

Unfortunately, Blue, who had played it quite a bit in the past got horribly muddled with the rules, largely due to the similarity between this and Mascarade, so consequently, forgot a small but quite critical rule: when a challenge is made and the challenge is unsuccessful, the player should exchange their card with one from the deck. Although this obviously had an impact, since everyone was playing by the same rules, it wasn’t too drastic.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

Before long, Cerise and Grey were outed as Dukes and Indigo was claiming to be a Captain and was stealing from Cerise. “Burgundy the Brave” kept challenging, but unfortunately was wrong more than right and was soon out of the game. When Cerise claimed to be the yet another Duke nobody believed her. Meanwhile, Indigo was building up quite a store of cash, so Green decided it was imperative that her money supply should be cut off and assassinated Cerise proving that she had been holding two Dukes at the start. Green’s unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Blue (who was the Contessa) left just Indigo, Grey and Blue in the game. Indigo’s successful coup was rewarded by a prompt assassination of her final character by Blue, leaving just Blue and Grey. Grey, as a captain was trying to collect enough money for a coup, while Blue needed just one more coin for the assassination. So, Blue kept taking two coins in Foreign Aid and Grey immediately stole them. It looked like Grey had it, but since Blue still had two character cards, that gave her an extra chance to collect money the game ended when she mercilessly stabbed Grey’s captain in the back.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor nad24
and nonsensicalgamers.com

We then split into two groups with the first playing the “Feature Game”, Takenoko. The back-story for this game is that a long time ago, the Chinese Emperor offered a giant panda bear as a symbol of peace to the Japanese Emperor. Since then, the Japanese Emperor has entrusted the members of his court (the players) with the difficult task of caring for the animal by tending to his bamboo garden. So the players have to cultivate the different plots of land, irrigate them and grow one of the three species of bamboo (Green, Yellow and Pink) with the help of the Imperial Gardener. The winner is the player who grows the most bamboo, managing his land plots best while feeding the Panda.

– Image by BGG contributor woodenbricks

The play area starts with one single hexagonal “pond” tile with two characters on top: the Imperial Gardener and the Panda. On their turns players first determine the weather, then perform their actions. The weather is determined by a roll of the weather die, which give the active player some sort of bonus. For example, when the sun shines, the payer gets an extra action, and rain stimulates the bamboo of their choice to grow.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Oceluna

Once the weather has been determined, the player can perform two actions. These must be different and the player can choose freely from the five available. Firstly, the player can add a new bamboo plot, by drawing three hexagonal tiles from the face down stack and choosing one to place. This tile must be placed next to the starting “pond” tile or adjacent to two plots already in play. There are also “improvements” which are sometimes built into the plot, but can also be obtained by rolling the weather die and can be played at any time. The second option is to take an irrigation channel. These can be played straight away or stored for later use, but bamboo only grows on irrigated plots. The main way to irrigate a plot is by connecting them to the pond via channels.

– Image by BGG contributor woodenbricks

Alternatively, a player can move one of the characters, either the Imperial Gardener or the Panda. Both move over any number of plots, in a straight line, but when they reach their destination, their action is different. The Panda cannot resist bamboo, so will eat one segment of bamboo from the plot he lands on (the pieces are stored on the player’s individual board); the Imperial Gardener encourages the bamboo to grow, and the bamboo on the plot he lands on grows by one segment as does every adjacent tile growing bamboo of the same colour (as long as they are irrigated).

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor lacxox

Finally, the active player can draw an objective card and add it to their hand; there is a hand-limit of five and these are the only way to score points. There are three types of objectives, those related to Plots, the Gardener and the Panda. Plot objective cards yield points to players when certain plot configurations are irrigated; Gardener cards are achieved when bamboo of given height are grown in the right spaces and points for Panda cards are awarded when a player has managed to encourage the Panda to eat the requisite number of coloured bamboo segments.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ObeyMyBrain

When a player completes one of their objectives, they show everyone and the card is placed face up in front of them. They can complete as many objectives as they like on their turn and end of the game is triggered when one player full-fills a set number of objectives, after which, everyone gets one last turn. The game was really tight from start to finish and every time one player got a nose in front, the others seemed to catch up and over-take, only to be leap-frogged themselves. The game finished with just three points separating first and last place, with Burgundy just pipping Indigo.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

While half the group were Playing with Pandas, Green persuaded everyone else to give Lancaster another go. This is a longer game which embodies a few very clever ideas and that we played for the first time a few weeks ago. The basics of the game are that players take it in turns to place their knights in the shires, in their castle or send them off to war. They then vote on and evaluate “the Laws” which give players a benefit. They then get their their rewards for knight placement. After five rounds, the player with the most points wins.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

One of the clever things about the knight placement is the way that players can usurp a knight that has already been placed, by supplementing him with a number of squires. So, a knight of level two can be replaced by a night of level one with two squires. However, squires are “single use”, so should the original player decide to respond with a level four knight, the other player’s squires are lost. This is a very clever way of speeding up the bidding. For example, in Keyflower, two players can keep bidding in increments of one which means it may take several turns for the outcome to be resolved. In Lancaster, a failed bid that is repeated at a higher level may turn out to be considerably more costly than bidding higher the first time round. This encourages players to be a smarter about their bidding and changes the dynamics a little too.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

One of the key parts of Lancaster is “the Laws” and managing them. On our previous play, we didn’t really get to grips with them at all. Although it is now clear to us how important they are, we are still only just getting to grips with them. The game starts with a set of three Laws, with three to be voted on during the round. Since there is a conveyor-belt system, it is possible that some Laws will remain in place for several rounds. This means even if a particular Law does not reward a player during the round it becomes active, they may benefit in subsequent rounds.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

This game was quite different to the last: firstly, as a group, we had a better idea of rules, and secondly, there were only three of us compared with five before. Blue was too busy worrying about the game on the next table to concentrate on the rule-reminder, and paid for it in the first round when her plan relied on the rewards coming before the Laws. Green tried to increase his force and then generate benefits by fighting the French, however, with fewer players, it is much more difficult to win the battles which means your knights are tied up for a lot longer. Having screwed up the first round, Blue didn’t bother trying to increase all her knights to full force and tried to be a bit more canny about how she used them instead and pick up upgrades by other means. Meanwhile, Grey, who had not played the game before, tried to build up his stack of noblemen and played the laws. Blue and Green were far too bothered with their own games to notice, but Grey managed to get the eight point Law for having three knights in the shires voted in. More importantly, he managed to keep it there, and this combined with a respectable number of nobles and a few uncontested visits to Somerset (giving him six victory points each time) eventually gave him the game by a sizeable margin from Blue.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Meanwhile, the Panda Players had finished so Burgundy and Cerise squeezed in a quick two player game of Coloretto. Cerise and Burgundy had played this last month with Blue and Indigo, but it is not generally thought of as a good two player game. Nevertheless, they gave it a go and found it much more enjoyable than expected.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Bizowikc

With Grey and Cerise’s departure, that left just time for one last, shortish game, Taluva. This is a fairly simple tile laying game with a surprising amount of depth. The idea is that on their turn, players place their tile, then place a building then replenish their hand. This procedure is to that of Carcassonne, but that is where the comparison ends. The tiles are a strange dodecagon made of three hexagonal regions or fields, one of which is always a volcano. When placing tiles, they can be adjacent or on top of other tiles so long as the volcano sits on top of another volcano (the tile must also cover more than one tile and there cannot be an overhang).

– Image by BGG contributor Purple

Buildings can be placed anywhere, provided that they obeys certain rules. Unfortunately, although the game is beautiful, the theme is a bit sparse making these rules appear very arbitrary which has the consequence that they are quite difficult to remember. A hut can be built on any unoccupied level one terrain that isn’t a volcano. On the other hand, an existing settlement can be expanded by placing huts on all adjacent terrains of one type, with more huts placed on the higher levels (two on the level two etc.). There are also three temples and two towers to place which can only be added to existing settlements: temples must be added to settlements covering at least three fields, while towers must be placed on a level three field adjacent to a settlement of any size.

– Image by BGG contributor Moviebuffs

The game ends when there are no tiles left and the winner is the player to have placed the most temples at the end of the game. In case of a tie, the number of towers built counts and then the number of huts. However, if a player succeeds in building all buildings from
two out of the three different types before the game end, then he immediately wins the game. On the other hand, any player who squanders his building pieces and is unable to build any more is immediately eliminated.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

We played this a while ago as a two player game, so it was interesting to see how it played with more. As last time, we had a thorough going through of the rules with all the weird exceptions and special cases (e.g. players cannot build a temple in a settlement that already has one, however, it is OK to join two settlements with temples together; you can place a tile on top of huts, but not towers or temples etc.). The game was very close and it looked like Blue was going to make it, however, Green and Burgundy ganged up on her and Green managed to sneak the win with the last tile.

– Image by BGG contributor Moviebuffs

Learning Outcome: Two three-player games are sometimes better than one six-player game.

Boardgames in the News: 20 Years of Catan and El Grande

It seems to be the year for anniversaries: arguably 2015 celebrates significant anniversaries for two of the greatest games in boardgaming history. We are not talking about Monopoly here (though there has been a lot written about the 80th anniversary of the brand). The games in question were both released in Germany in 1995: The Settlers of Catan and El Grande. The first of these, Klaus Teuber’s The Settlers of Catan, is widely known amongst gamers and many non-gamers, and is often cited as being responsible for the “gaming revolution”. The base game of “Settlers” (or “Die Siedler”) and its expansions have appeared in thirty languages and sold more than twenty-two million copies worldwide. At Spielwarenmesse, The International Toy Fair at, Nürnberg, Kosmos and Mayfair unveiled a new look for the entire line of Catan games.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

The press release explains, “The new look will strengthen the Catan brand both domestically and internationally. The new cover art utilized by all partners will provide a visual continuity throughout the world. This new look is more vibrant and alluring with overall improved presentation and splendidly clean branding. The new packaging cries out… CATAN!” It goes on to say, “As part of the growing expansion of the Catan^® family of products, the base game will simply be called CATAN^® in all countries and languages, along with a unification of the game’s graphic design in all territories and languages.”

– Image by BGG contributor herman_the_german

There are a couple of curious things about this, firstly, when Kosmos released the game twenty years ago, it was just going to be called “The Settlers” (or rather “Die Siedler” since it was released in German first). That was until Blue Byte published a computer game by the same name, so Kosmos decided they wanted something more unique and identifiable and made up “Catan”. Secondly, aside from the the editions released in English by Mayfair Games (who went its own way with original art and component design), the brand has already been “unified” in its look!

– Image by BGG contributor degamer

The second of the games mentioned above is El Grande, which was first published in Germany by Hans im Glück. Like “Settlers” the year before (or “Catan” as we must now call it), in 1996, Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich’s El Grande was awarded both the Spiel des Jahres and the Deutscher Spiele Preis. Although it is less widely known than its predecessor, El Grande is hugely respected by gamers often cited as “still the best area control game”. It is so highly thought of that it continues to be higher on the BoardGameGeek ranking than The Settlers of Catan and many other well known and hugely popular games including Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic and Dominion. These games are all continuously reprinted, but sadly, the nature of boardgames means that many good titles go out of print. Unfortunately, El Grande is one such game; it had fallen out of favour with its publishers and has not been reprinted in English or German since the Decennial Edition, ten years ago.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor garyjames

There are a number of reasons why games like this go out of print. Firstly, much as we hate to admit it, boardgaming is a niche market: Hasbro recently proudly announced that Monopoly has sold 275 million copies over the eighty years, but compare this with the estimated 450 million Harry Potter books sold in a fraction of the time. In turn, these make Catan’s 22 million copies look positively paltry by comparison and for games that fail to make the jump to the wider market, the first print run is often only a few thousand. Whether or not one of these games gets a second print run depends on demand and sale-speed of the first impression, and ultimately, whether or not the publisher thinks it can secure a good return. Factors that affect this, obviously include the mark-up and the Recommended Retail Price (or RRP, sometimes known as Manufacturer’s Recommended Sale Price or MRSP). Games that have language dependent components usually suffer here.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor DrGrayrock

There are two main markets: Germany and USA. We in the UK benefit from the fact that the USA nominally speak the same language as us, but otherwise, the UK boardgame market is relatively small-fry. Anyhow, for this reason, games are commonly released primarily in English and German, however, the margins are clearly much larger if the same game can be released to both markets with minimal reworking, and companies like Z-Man Games have made a name for themselves translating the best European games for the English market. Other companies (e.g. Zoch, Queen and R&D Games) release games as “international” editions which include language independent components and rule booklets in multiple languages.

– Image by BGG contributor Domostie

Obviously, it is much more difficult to release a multi-lingual edition if key components include significant text. It is also much easier to translate a game if the only change needed is the box and the rules; El Grande clearly fell foul of this. However, so did The Settlers of Catan, and that didn’t do so badly. So there are obviously other factors, including game play, accessibility, approachability, appearance and marketing. There is no question that the trading dynamic and controlled randomness in Catan are key parts of its success as they keep everyone involved between turns, but timeliness is probably the real key: it was perhaps just the right time for a family game that felt a bit different. So, by the time El Grande came along, well, everyone was playing Settlers, and as a result, El Grande didn’t make quite the same impact.

– Image by BGG contributor Bernaar

That doesn’t mean it is less of a game though, so it is great news that Hans im Glück has recently announced the long-awaited return of El Grande, this time in the form of a Big Box with upgraded components. The Big Box is a collection that, like the Decennial Edition ten years ago, will contain all the expansions that have been officially released over the years. Z-Man Games has also confirmed that it will release a parallel Big Box in English; Dutch publisher 999 Games will be doing the same in Dutch and have also mentioned a “Jubileumuitbreiding”, or “anniversary extension”. Clearly anniversaries are to be celebrated, especially if it means older, well-loved games become available once more.

Next Meeting – 10th February 2015

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 10^th February, 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 Takenoko. The story goes that the Chinese Emperor offered the Japanese Emperor a giant panda bear as a symbol of peace, so the Japanese Emperor entrusted his court (the players) with the difficult task of caring for the animal by tending to his bamboo garden. So players have to cultivate and irrigate land and grow bamboo with the help of the Imperial gardener. The winner is the player who manages the land best and grows the most bamboo to satisfy the panda’s appetite.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor nad24
and nonsensicalgamers.com

And talking of Pandas…

Jeff walked into a bar with his pet panda. It was about 5 pm, but Jeff liked his drink and was ready for a good night. They started off slowly, watching the sport on the TV, drinking beer and eating peanuts. As the night went on, they moved on to mixed drinks, and then shots, one after the other.

Finally, the Landlord called, “Last orders!” So, Jeff asked for one last drink for himself and one for his panda. The landlord duly set them up and Jeff and the panda knocked them back. Suddenly, the panda staggered and dropped down dead. Jeff, more than a little tipsy, threw some money on the bar, put on his coat and started to leave.

The bartender, yelled, “Hey, you can’t just leave that lyin’ there.”

Jeff replied, “That’s not a lion, that’s a panda.”

Save the Date: Mixing it in Wantage

The Mix in Wantage town centre is a community space that can be booked for use by local groups, organisations, businesses and individuals for activities, fund-raising, meetings, workshops, and presentations etc. For four days a week The Mix is used as a ‘hot desk’ area for local people to use as a space to work from in town, however, Saturdays and evenings are available for local groups and community events.

– Image from thewantagemix.wordpress.com

We will be holding a gaming session from 10.30 am until 2.30 pm on April 18^th 2015. There isn’t an awful lot of space so the idea is to encourage people to drop in and play a short game or two, so we will be bringing along things like PitchCar, Riff Raff, Dobble, Turf Horse Racing, No Thanks!, Walk the Plank!, The Great Balloon Race and some of our other favourite filler games.

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor punkin312

Boardgames in the News: How to Choose the Perfect Game

We’ve all been there: everyone’s got together, but you don’t know what to play. So, then there’s a half hour discussion where, instead of playing, you talk about what you could play. So, perhaps this little flow-chart from Silver Oak Online Casino might help…?

– Image from lifehacker.com.au