Author Archives: nannyGOAT

27th January 2015

We started off with our “Feature Game”, which was the card game, Saboteur. We’ve played it a few times before, but basically the idea is that the group is split into two teams: Dwarves and Saboteurs. The aim of the game for the Dwarves is to lay cards forming a tunnel that leads to the gold, whereas the Saboteurs job is to stop them. So players take it in turns to play cards. These cards could be tunnel cards, which are added to the play area and, although they generally extend the tunnel, there are also dead-ends which can be used by Saboteurs to upset the Good Little Dwarves’ plans. Alternatively, there are action cards, which come in several types. There are broken tool cards, which allow players to prevent other players from laying path cards (useful if you suspect there is a Saboteur about); mended tools which are used to repair broken tools (useful when a Saboteur has been trying to slow everyone down by smashing up their tools); map cards (useful when a nasty Saboteur has been misleading everyone telling them the gold is in the wrong place), and rock-fall cards which can be used to remove tunnel cards (useful when an evil Saboteur has been causing havoc). The round ends when the draw deck is depleted and gold cards are allocated to the winning side.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mikehulsebus

As people arrived, Blue explained the game to the people unfamiliar with it and pointed out that, despite his protestations, Green was always a Saboteur. At which point, in walked Green, commenting, “Whatever Blue may have said, I’m NOT always the Saboteur…!” Needless to say, it quickly became apparent that Green was very definitely a Saboteur, but despite his best efforts (assisted by Yellow and Cerise), the dwarves found the gold, though it was pretty close at the end, coming down to the last few cards. The second round was under-way with Burgundy indicating that the central target card was gold (a fact disputed by Grey) when Black and Purple arrived. Since they’d missed the start they began a game of Patchwork. This is a recently released two-player game where players compete to build the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt, buying Tetris-like patches with buttons. The patches are laid out in a circle round the central time board, with a cotton reel marking the start. On their turn players can purchase one of the three patches immediately following the cotton reel; they then pay the cost in buttons shown on the patch, and then add it to their personal “quilt board”. In addition to the cost in buttons, the player must also advance their time token on the central time track: if the active player’s time token is behind or on top of the other player’s time token, then they take another turn, otherwise play passes to the opponent.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Percatron

Instead of purchasing a patch, players can also pass, in which case, they move their time token to the space immediately in front of their opponent’s time token and take one button from the bank for each space moved. Players can place their patches anywhere on their quilt so long as it doesn’t overlap any other patches. This is not the only way to get buttons; in addition to a button cost and a time cost, each patch also features 0-3 buttons. When a player moves their time token past a button marker on the time track, they sum the number of buttons on their quilt and get this number of buttons from the bank. The game ends when both players are in the centre of the time track. Each player then loses two buttons for each blank square on his game board and whoever has the most buttons wins.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor
greetingsfrombergen

Meanwhile, on the first table, the second and final (third) round of Saboteur had both finished with the Saboteurs making almost no impact on Dwarves’ ability to find the gold. When the teams are drawn, there is always one card more than there are players, so one card is always left out. The idea is that this introduces an element of ambiguity, however, we felt that this also unbalanced the teams. For example, with eight players, the teams go from five Dwarves and three Saboteurs to six Dwarves and two Saboteurs, making it almost impossible for even a vaguely competent team of Dwarves to lose. We discussed the options including whether it would be better to have a set-up phase where the everyone closes their eyes and the Saboteurs open them and look at each other (similar to Werewolf or The Resistance), but we felt this would give a large team of Saboteurs too much power. In the end, we decided it would be better to remove the spare card and ensure there was the maximum number of Saboteurs. Since Black and Purple were still going, we decided to play one extra round. This worked much better, and thanks to a horrid distribution of cards for the Dwarves and some brilliant play by the team of Saboteurs led by Burgundy, there was nothing the Dwarves could do. It was fitting therefore, that Burgundy finished one gold ahead of his closest competition. On reflection, we decided there were definitely a couple of House Rules we would implement next time we play. Firstly, we would remove the extra card when allocating players to teams, this definitely seemed to create a much more balanced game. Secondly, we would probably also play several separate rounds and not worry about allocating gold at the end of the game. This way, we could play one or two rounds and stop when the game had outstayed its welcome, rather than feeling that we should play to the end.

– Image by BGG contributor ckhiew

Patchwork was also coming to a close; scores there were quite close until the final scoring, when it turned out that Purple had more “gaps” in her quilt which lost her more points, leaving Black to take the victory. With both games finishing we had a slight shuffling of seats, with the first group playing Mascarade. This is a “micro” game, albeit with big cards. The idea is that each player begins the game with a character card, but after a brief spell with them face up, everyone turns them face down and that’s the way they remain for the rest of the game. So, the game is all about deducing which player everyone is, while trying to collect enough money to win the game.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

After some initial trading, on their turn, each player can do one of three things. Firstly, the active player can declare that they are a particular character, say, The King. If nobody objects they can then carry out the action associated with The King, unmolested (in this case, take three coins). On the other hand, another player may protest and claim that they are actually The King, in which case all players claiming to be The King must show their cards and whoever is correct, gets to take three coins from the bank, and all the others pay a fine of one gold coin. A player’s second option is to “swap” their card with that of another player; since the actual exchange is done under the table, it is possible that there is no swap at all, and only the active player will know either way (or not, since everyone always seems to immediately forget which card is which). The final option a player has, if all is complete confusion, is to look at their own card.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

It always takes a little while to get the hang of the characters in play, and with people unfamiliar with the game, it was slow to get going. Orange was happy to be The Queen and collect her two gold each round, as did The King. After a couple of turns, however, Red realised the power of The Witch and swapped her somewhat diminished fortune with that of Blue, who, as The King had managed to build a reasonably sized pile. Meanwhile, the fines had built up and then the Judge became of interest and suddenly, the game clicked with everyone around the table, and people tried to manipulate the card they got and call others on their declarations. Gradually, some of the piles started to get perilously close to the magic thirteen coins, especially since The Cheat was in play (if declared correctly, that player needs only to have ten coins to win). The game finished somewhat abruptly, when Red declared that she was The Bishop and, as everyone knew she was right, there was nothing we could do. And then it was home time for some.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor pan_satyros
and pelnapara.znadplanszy.pl

Meanwhile, the second game was still going. They were playing Colors of Kasane, one of our “Essen Specials”, but one we’ve not got round to playing until now. It is a Japon Brand game, and they have a bit of a reputation for creating little, yet interesting games: as Black commented, “They have a different way of thinking.” They also have a bit of a reputation for rules that are difficult to understand; even when they seem clear, it often turns out that they aren’t, and we’ve fallen foul of this one before, most noticeably with Secret Moon (the sequel to Love Letter). Colours of Kasane was no exception in this regard which may go some way to explaining why its taken so long to play it!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Nevertheless, the game itself is reasonably simple and beautifully rendered with pretty little Japanese fabric buttons used as player markers, reflecting the theme of a festival held at the Emperor’s court for which the players must make their own beautiful robe. The game play is a mix of hand management and set collection. The idea is that players take one card from the four available, and then, from their hand the active player may lay cards. However, the cards can never be rearranged (similar to Bohnanza) and sets can only be laid from the most recent end (i.e. a “last in, first out” system) and may also include the last card laid. Any cards laid must meet the requirements shown on one of the target cards, which also indicate the amount scored: the more challenging the target, the more it is worth. These target or scoring cards allow players to place of groups of even numbered cards, groups of odd numbered cards, melds with the same number, ascending or descending sets of cards, cards summing to ten etc. etc.. The key thing is that once a specific combination has been played, a glass bead is placed on it and no other player can score it. This means it becomes increasingly difficult to play cards and score points, worse, someone else might claim something you have been building towards and render all the hard-work useless. This is one way that players can mess with each-other’s plans, another is when picking up cards: cards are laid out in columns so that players can see all the cards, but only the card at the bottom of each column is available to take. Since the cards laid must necessarily include the card just picked up, a player’s plans can easily be blown out of the water by an opponent who watches carefully. The winner is the player with the most points, with bonuses awarded for players who succeed in playing more than eight cards and either used a lot of different colours or who colour coordinated their “robe” and also for any players who managed to play all twelve of their cards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

The game began with everyone groping their way through the the first round trying to get an idea of how the game played and how players and cards interacted and what strategies should be employed. By the time Blue joined to sneeze and spectate, it was clear that all the best plans had gone horribly awry. Black, who had brought the game and taught everyone the rules, was struggling, but he was not alone in that. Green and Purple were also finding other players obstructing their plans, and even Burgundy (the eventual winner) was having difficulty placing the cards he wanted. The challenges posed by the game were reflected in the fact that nobody got the bonus for playing all twelve cards: definitely a game that requires a second try.

– Image by BGG contributor matador

We finished with Istanbul, a game we’ve played a couple of times recently, so didn’t require too much in the way of rule revision. Since Burgundy was the only person who had not played it before and everyone else had previously played it with the “short track layout”, this time we used the “large number layout”. This puts all the Warehouses together and a long way from the Mosques, and puts the money making a long way from the Wainwright. Black started and went straight to the Post Office before expanding his cart with a trip to the Wainwright. Purple also made several visits to the Post Office, coupled with a few trips to the Warehouses while Burgundy and Blue attempted to improve their success rates with visits to the Mosques. Green on the other hand, paid several trips to the Caravansary to collect bonus cards in the hope that a few of these would help him out later on. It is unquestionably a more interesting game with five players and useful things further apart, but that didn’t stop Black delivering the rest of us a sound thrashing. All of a sudden, he ended the game as he collected his fifth gem when nobody else had more than two. On inspection, other players were closer than it seemed: Green collected his third gem on his final turn, Burgundy had loads of Lira and everyone else was well on the way to getting everything they needed, however, they needed several more turns to do it.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor duchamp

Learning Outcome: It’s true, Green always IS a Saboteur!

Boardgames in the News: How Old is Monopoly Really?

There have been a number of articles in the popular press regarding the 80^th Anniversary of Monopoly this year, but what are the origins of Monopoly and how old is it really?

– Image used with permission of
BGG reviewer EndersGame

The boardgame, Monopoly is actually based on a 1904 game called “The Landlord’s Game” designed by Elizabeth J. Magie. Magie was inspired by American political economist Henry George, who championed progressive property taxes and the game was meant to illustrate the harm caused by land monopolies. The game, which Magie released herself, spread by word of mouth, becoming popular in the Delaware community of Arden.

– Image by BGG contributor sfessy

Thus, Upton Sinclair and Scott Nearing came across the game and introduced it to others throughout the north-east USA. Nearing began calling it “Monopoly”, later writing, “the game was used to show the anti-social nature of monopoly.” The Landlord’s Game continued to sell, and concurrently, Monopoly spread as well, with other players players making changes along the way. For example, in the 1920s, after buying miniature houses on a trip to the Ukraine, Daniel Layman and brothers Ferdinand and Louis Thun at Williams College in Massachusetts, introduced the idea of using physical houses to mark one’s ownership. They had a go at marketing their version of the game which they called “Finance”. Charles Darrow heard about it from his friend Charles Todd, and further developed the game. Darrow eventually released his version of “Monopoly“, in 1933, using materials from his own home for the pieces: cards were handwritten, a piece of oilcloth covered the board and the original houses and hotels were made from wooden molding scraps.

– Image by BGG contributor zitt

Die-cast tokens were suggested by Darrow’s niece who recommended that charms from a metal charm bracelet were used instead. The original set included ten tokens: the iron, the purse, the lantern, the racing car, the thimble, the shoe, the top-hat, the battleship, the cannon, and the rocking horse. Since then, there have been more than twenty different tokens with the cat the most recent addition.

– Image of unknown origin

In the early 1930s, in need of money with a young son left brain-damaged by scarlet fever, Charles Darrow presented the game to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers promptly rejected it because of its length, theme, and complexity, but reconsidered their decision to purchase rights to market the game after its success in local Philadelphia stores over Christmas period of 1934. Parker Brothers acquired the rights to the game on March 19^th, 1935 and their first editions were published later that year. Almost immediately, their investment was rewarded as, within a year, they were making 35,000 copies of the board game per week.

– Image by BGG contributor loopoocat

In 1935, Waddingtons, received the license to distribute Monopoly in Britain who released the well known London edition. Perhaps a more interesting edition was manufactured by Waddingtons during the second world war. Paper maps wear out quickly and someone in MI5 suggested printing maps on silk as it’s durable, can be screwed-up folded and unfolded as often as necessary making no noise at all. At the time, Waddingtons was the only company that had the ability to print on silk. Since “games and pastimes” was a category of item qualified for insertion into Red Cross parcels, a plan was then hatched to mass-produce escape maps that could be folded so small that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece. While they were at it, they also added a two piece metal file hidden in the board, a playing piece containing a tiny magnetic compass and significant amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money. These special sets could be identified by a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.

– Image of unknown origin

Parker Brothers secured the Monopoly trademark and Darrow became rich and famous as Monopoly’s creator; Elizabeth Magie and the others who contributed were all but forgotten. Then, in the 1970s, Ralph Anspach, an economics professor, brought out Anti-Monopoly. When Parker Brothers sued, the resulting lawsuit required Anspach to track down the game’s past. After almost ten years of legal warfare, an appeals court eventually ruled in Anspach’s favour, rejecting the Monopoly trademark. As a result, Parker Brothers lobbied the United States Congress leading to a revision of trademark legislation.

– Image of unknown origin

So the Monopoly Brand is 80 this year the though the game itself is older and in turn is based on games that are much older still. In any case, to celebrate the 80^th Anniversary of the Monopoly Brand, Hasbro (who now own it) have released a list of “80 things you didn’t know about Monopoly“, as well as the inevitable special edition.

boardGOATS: Round & About in Oxfordshire

First published in April 1994, Round & About is a free monthly magazine that covers within seven counties: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex. Their editorial objective is to bring as much local information as possible to the reader. In addition to their “Ramblings” column, each edition carries features on food, fashion, health, eating out and walks and more. It also supports a range of charities, providing an outlet for information on their events, activities and fund-raisers.

– Image from roundandabout.co.uk

The January edition main feature is a two-page article on hobbies. They comment on five things to try in 2015, including musical theatre, painting, volunteering, exercise and joining clubs. So, we were absolutely thrilled to find that at the bottom of the second page of the Oxfordshire edition, our little game group gets a mention – fame at last!

– Image by boardGOATS

Next Meeting – 27th January 2015

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 27^th January, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

This week the “Feature Game” will be the card game Saboteur. This is a quick game that we’ve played before, where players are dwarves working together digging tunnels to find gold. But there is a catch – there is a saboteur in their midst…! The game is quite quick and great fun with a crowd, so chosen this game so that we can play something a little longer afterwards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mothertruckin

And talking of tunnels…

Tenders were invited from various construction companies for the building of a replacement for the Channel Tunnel. Jeff had been working in construction and, as his workload was light, when he came across an advert, he decided apply.

On the day of opening the tenders everybody was surprised to find Jeff’s tender was the lowest. Other tenders were quoting billions of pounds, but Jeff had offered to do the job for just £10,000. Under EU ruling, the tender had to go to the lowest bidder, which put Jeff in the hot seat. However, before giving the works order to Jeff, the civil servant in charge asked Jeff as to how he could afford to work at such a low budget.

Jeff said,”Look, there’s me and there’s my brother Joe. We will take two shovels and I will start digging from English bank and Joe will start digging from French bank. The moment we meet, you get a tunnel.”

The dumbstruck officer asked with courage,”And if you don’t meet?”

Jeff replied,”Then you will get two tunnels for the same price.”

Boardgames in the News: The Hobby Grows and Grows

In the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, boardgames were only available from toy shops, and the range was limited to a relatively small number of “traditional” games, like Chess, Monopoly, Game of Life or Cluedo. With the appearance of bigger, supermarket-like stores like Toys “R” Us in the 1980s and 1990s, a wider range became available and, occasionally, games like the early Spiel des Jahres winner, Rummikub, made their way onto our shelves. As children grew up, they might graduate into playing Risk and eventually move onto longer, more complex games like those produced by Avalon Hill. However, if you liked playing games, but war themes were not for you, it was quite difficult to find good alternative games to play. They were there though: games like Acquire and the 18xx railway games had been about for a long time, but these were the exception rather than the rule and were still an acquired taste.

– Image by BGG contributor OldestManOnMySpace

In contrast, in Germany, games like Scotland Yard were starting to become readily available and genuinely very popular. The success of the Spiel des Jahres, which rewarded good games like Ra, El Grande, Tikal, and the 1995 winner, The Settlers of Catan, meant that boardgames were receiving a lot of publicity in Continental Europe. The characteristics of these “German Games” (or “Euro Games”) typically include balance, with only a small amount of luck, and lack of player elimination. As the market developed, beautiful boards and lots of wooden pieces also became an essential component. Unlike war games, “Euro Games” tend to be less confrontational and much more suitable for family gaming.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

In the 1990s, UK designers like Alan R. Moon and Richard Breese started publishing small numbers of “designer games”. These were often largely assembled by hand and generally had a limited print run. For example, only 1,200 copies of Elfenroads (precursor to the later, Spiel des Jahres winner Elfenland) were ever made and Keywood, the first of the highly acclaimed “Key Series“, was hand-made and had a print-run of just 200. Given the exclusive nature of these games, it was not surprising then, that many teenagers either gave up on boardgames or moved on to collectable card games, like Magic: The Gathering or Role-Playing Games.

– Image by BGG contributor dougadamsau

So it was with the growth of the internet that “Euro Games”, or designer boardgames became available to people in the UK. Firstly, this was because it enabled people to find out about the games that were available, with sites like UseNet and eventually BoardGameGeek in 2000, providing a valuable source of information. Secondly, internet shopping made “German Games” much more accessible. The growth of the hobby meant an increase in boardgame publishers, and the appearance of designers like Reiner Knizia who were sufficiently prolific and successful to make a living from designing games. Over the last fifteen years or so, the hobby has grown and grown and games like Carcassonne and The Settlers of Catan are now available in Waterstones and WHSmith, there are regular comments in The Guardian, there are repeatedly TV appearances, and boardgame cafés are sprouting up all over the place. The question is, will it continue to grow, or have we reached a high water line?

– Image from boardgamegeek.com

13th January 2015

With several new people, we started with two sets of parallel games. The first group began with Zombie Dice, a very quick dice game where players are zombies and the dice are their victims. On each turn, players first roll three dice: a brain symbol is worth one point at the end of the round, while footsteps allow that die to be re-rolled. On the other hand, shotgun blasts are bad, and collecting three ends the players turn and they forfeit any points they’ve collected. After rolling their first three dice, players can then decide if they want to score their current set of brains or whether they fancy pushing their luck by grabbing a new set of three dice and rolling again.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor zombiegod

With Grey taking his first win, Red convinced the group to play one of her favourite games, Walk the Plank!. This is a very silly game that we’ve played a lot over the last year and everyone seems to enjoy. There were the usual hoots of delight as kamikaze pirates committed mass suicide and everyone enjoyed it so much, that after Grey had taken his second win, they played it again.

– Image by boardGOATS

While Cerise was chalking up her first victory, the second group were finishing their game of King of Tokyo, the “Feature Game”. This was a “Black Friday Special” and is another fun dice rolling game. The idea is that players are mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens – all of whom are destroying Tokyo and attacking each other in order to become the one and only King of Tokyo. Each player has a stand-up monster, a counter and everyone sits round a board depicting Tokyo. On their turn, players roll the six oversized dice with four possible outcomes: numbers (potentially leading to points), attack (a paw print), healing (a heart) and energy (lightening bolts). In order to score victory points, the active player must roll at least three of the same number. Thus, three “twos” will score two points, but each additional “two” will deliver an extra point (so four “twos” would score three points etc.).

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Any attacks rolled are delivered to the monster who is currently in Tokyo unless that is the active player, in which case, everyone else receives the damage. Each player starts with ten lives and each attack die costs one. Whenever the player in the middle is attacked, they have to take the damage, but can then chose to leave the middle, to be replaced by the player who attacked them. Moving into Tokyo has its advantages and disadvantages: players score a point on going in (with two more if they are still there at the start of their next turn) and they can cause everyone else a lot of damage, however, they cannot using healing dice while in Tokyo which makes it risky to stay.

– Image by BGG contributor rothkorperation

Finally players can also collect energy tokens which are a sort of currency and allow players to buy cards which give their monster special powers. The winner must either destroy Tokyo (by collecting twenty victory points), or be the only surviving monster once all the fighting has ended and all the others have died. Green started off well, with Burgundy and Indigo in hot pursuit. Blue seemed unable to get anything she wanted, so took great delight in seeing everyone else reduced to a very small number of lives. Burgundy was two points ahead of Green, but it was Green’s turn and he ended the game with a gambol rolling five “threes” and finish as the King of Tokyo.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor dekedagger

With the end of both games and the arrival of Purple and Black, we had a quick shuffle of seats and Cerise replaced Green to play another game that has been popular recently, Splendor. This is a simple set collecting game where players collect gems that they can then use to buy cards which in turn allow them to buy more cards which are worth points and help them to collect “nobles” which give even more points. The game started slowly with all the basic cards gone and nobody looked close to winning. However, Blue knew she’d done something right when there was a chorus of disappointment from Cerise and Burgundy when she reserved a high scoring opal card, a trick she repeated the following round. Buying one of the opal cards enabled her to win two nobles giving her nine points in one turn and putting her over the finishing line, with Indigo finishing just one point behind after a last minute surge.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Meanwhile, the other group were playing Stimmt So!. Although we’ve not played this for a while, we have played the closely related game, Alhambra which uses the same mechanic. The idea is that players have a choice of actions: they can buy commodities, or they can go to the bank for money. There are four different legal tenders and the cost of each commodity must be paid in the specified currency. When making purchases (of shares in Stimmt So! or of buildings in Alhambra), players can always over-spend, but if they pay the exact amount they can have an extra turn. Thie extra turn can be used to either buy another item or to take money from the bank. If they chose to make a second purchase, they can again pay the exact amount and get another turn. Play continues in this way until the player no-longer qualifies for another turn or all the available stock has been purchased after which, the stock is refilled for the next player. Thus, the game is a balance between collecting small denominations of the different currencies (which are more versatile) and collecting larger denominations (that are worth more). The points are awarded at stages during the game to players with the most of each commodity.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was a slow start as people built a stock and cash and very few shares were bought. Then, as each person built up a usable amount of money the game took off. Black quickly took control of the Petrol market with three shares and everyone else built a small portfolio. Grey followed Black’s lead and went for an early lead in Banking. The first scoring round came along quite quickly and with almost nothing in it and then the game was really afoot. Purple decided to challenge Black’s dominance in Petrol and Grey added to his Banking stocks. Airlines, Computing and Entertainment were all hotly contested, but Automobiles remained obstinately absent despite an interim shuffle! The second scoring came with a range of winners and losers and Black, Grey and Red stretched a small, but significant lead over Yellow and Purple with Green at the back who had been refusing to overpay for anything, plenty of cash, but few shares! Going into the last round, there were several cards that nobody wanted as they could no longer even share the lead, but eventually people started buying and Automobiles finally made an appearance. This got the game moving and the final shares came and went in short order. Black managed to shrug off falling oil prices and finish just ahead of Red, a canny second, demonstrating that not putting all your eggs in one basket can be a good idea. Grey was not far behind demonstrating that putting all your eggs in one basket is still a not a bad strategy though!

– Image by boardGOATS

Splendor finished first, and Indigo was persuaded to play one more game before she had to leave. As we wanted something fairly quick, we opted for a card game and chose Coloretto. This is a cute little set-collecting game that inspired, the perhaps better known, Zooloretto. The aim of the game is to collect sets of cards with the largest three sets scoring positively, and the reset all giving negative scores. Thus, on their turn, the active player can either draw a coloured chameleon card, or take a “truck” and all the chameleons on it. If they draw a card, they have to choose which truck to put the chameleon on, trying to make the trucks contain a combination of colours that suit them, but not everyone else. Alternatively, they can choose take a truck, trying to match the colours on the truck with the sets they already have and minimise their losses. This was quite a close game until suddenly, in the final round Indigo drew an orange chameleon which we hadn’t realised had been hitherto missing from the game. We inevitably blamed the shuffler as all the orange cards turned up together. Blue managed to avoid picking any up however, and finished just two points ahead of Burgundy.

– Image by BGG contributor SergioMR

In the meantime, Green, Grey, Black and Purple started a game of Click & Crack. This is one of last year’s “Essen Specials” and has proven to be a fantastic little filler game. Each player has two penguin counters. They take in turns to place them on an ice floe made from twenty-five tiles arranged to form a five by five array. Each player also has two tiles depicting an arrow. Once the penguins have been placed, players choose a direction for their arrow tiles and reveal them simultaneously. Then, starting with the first player, each player picks a penguin and applies one of their direction tiles. They can either move the chosen penguin in the specified direction, or the penguin stamps on the ice and causes the floe to crack in the specified direction. When a crack has been completed so that it divides the floe into two, the player who played the final crack wins the smaller piece of ice and takes the tiles and any penguins caught on it. Each floe tile is worth one point at the end of the game and each trapped penguin is worth minus one point.

– Image by BGG contributor thir_teen_

The game ends when one player has at least seven points, or when the main floe is less than seven tiles in size or if there are three penguins left on the floe. The game went all Purple’s way. First she broke off a massive piece of ice and trapped a few penguins in the process. Then before anyone else could do very much, she broke off another large piece capturing a few more penguins and finished the game with eight points and only Black scoring: a paltry two.

– Image by BGG contributor smn1337

While the penguins were busy finishing up, Cerise (aided by Burgundy), gave Blue a sound thrashing at Dobble (an old favourite that we’ve not played for ages) before the late night brigade started the last game of the evening, Lancaster. As it was his new game, Green had been absolutely desperate to play it, so despite the lateness of the hour, we gave it a go. The game is a worker placement game themed around the House of Lancaster, played over five rounds, each consisting of several phases. First, players take it in turns to place their knights. Knights can be placed in the counties, or in the a player’s private castle or they can be sent off to fight against the French. Knights have a rank (one to four).

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

When knights are placed in the counties, this rank can be augmented by the addition of squires, but once a knight has been placed, it can be usurped by a higher ranking knights (or a knight with sufficient squires to give it a higher rank). In this case, the knight is returned to the player, but any squires are returned to the supply. This means that players might be quite cavalier about knights, but tend to be much more parsimonious when assigning squires. Winning a county enables players to choose either to recruit a noble, or to perform a one off action associated the county, or, alternatively, on payment of three coins, they can do both.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Toynan

If they win a war, the knights sent off to fight the French win points, with the largest contributors (highest combined rank) scoring most heavily. However, they also receive an immediate benefit which can be monetary or in the form squires or nobles etc.. Knights placed within the castle also give a one off benefit, although it is received later. The knight’s rank is immaterial for castle placements (as they cannot be usurped) and there is no possibility of victory points.

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor kopernikus

Once all the knights have been placed, it is time for Parliament to vote on changes to the laws. The laws basically provide scoring bonuses and other benefits. At the start of the game there are three laws in place and three new laws that players will vote on. These three new laws are considered one at a time and the group votes on whether they should be kept (pushing out one of the old ones) or rejected. Players get one vote each for each law, but can reinforce their vote with votes provided by nobles (and via other means). After the voting, the other rewards are handed out: for occupying the counties, for knights placed in castles and for winning wars.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Although everyone broadly understood what they could do, nobody really fathomed how everything fitted together. So, different players tried different strategies. Blue decided that the she couldn’t turn down the thirty-six points awarded at the end of the game for a complete set of nobles, so went for that. Burgundy was more canny, however, he also went for the nobles, but picked up a lot of them through the one off reward provided by going to war with the French. This way he also got victory points as he went along. Green also tried to pick up points in the battles, but focused on trying to build up the strength of his knights and manipulate parliament. Black tried to reinforce his castle to deliver regular rewards with little input, while Purple tried a little bit of everything, just doing as much as she could on each turn.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

Burgundy led the charge with Green, Black and Purple close behind. Since Blue was focusing on collecting her set of nobles, she hardly shifted from zero for the first four rounds. Going into the final round however, it was suddenly everything to play for. Everyone had got the hang of how to use their knights and how the laws worked and knew what they wanted in the final round, but that did not mean they were going to get it! Knights were placed and then unceremoniously stomped on by more powerful knights with several high ranking knights being placed with four or five squires in reinforcement. Blue and Burgundy both picked up their full compliment of nobles (just) and Green was outvoted when he tried to get his preferred law through. Black scored for his castle and Purple managed to change the law to convert her mass of coins into points so that she scored heavily. With her full set of nobles, Blue surged forward into second place, just ahead of Purple, but it was all way too little too late; nothing could match Burgundy’s commanding lead and he finished nearly sixteen points clear of the field. Although there were a number of rules that we played incorrectly and a number of points that need clarifying, it was Burgundy’s superior strategy, played out to perfection that won the game.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

Learning Outcome: We really need to learn how to shuffle.

Boardgames in the News: Are Games About to get More Expensive?

There were a number of very good deals available before Christmas as a result of Black Friday and an Amazon Marketplace malfunction, however, the tide now appears to be turning. At the start of January, the newsletter from one of the UK’s leading specialist online retailers, BoardGameGuru commented:

“The UK’s largest games distributor has changed its discount structure for hobby games that are not best sellers. This is, in effect, a price increase and will result in a lot of older titles increasing in price when I restock them. For new releases there is an initital discount at launch, however prices may increase after launch stock has sold out. I will be doing my absolute best to keep prices down.”

– Image of unknown origin

The distributor in question is Esdevium. Esdevium essentially have a monopoly within the UK and have recently been bought out by Asmodee who have, in turn, have merged with Fantasy Flight Games and Days of Wonder. Paul Bryant from GamesLore, another leading online seller confirmed that they are “being forced to do exactly the same” and commented that “the rise is considerably higher than our nett margin or we’d be tempted to try and ride it out”. Paul Lister from BoardGameGuru has indicated that most top titles will be unaffected as the discount structure for them remains broadly the same, however, the more niche items (e.g expansions and less popular games) won’t have the same discount structure as in 2014, so their price will increase. It seems that although there will be an initial discount during the launch period, costs will go up on restocking and this will inevitably be passed on to customers.

– Image from mumwhoruns.com

So, what effect will this have on the UK boardgame market? It appears that the discounts available from online games stores will decrease, which means the price difference will narrow between them and “bricks and mortar stores” (which generally sell at the Recommended Retail Price or RRP). Does this mean that it is good news for games shops? Well, probably not. It is very difficult for sellers to charge over the RRP, so all that will happen is that the margins on a business with already tight margins, will be further squeezed.

What effect will this have on the boardgame market in the UK then? The good news is that the price of new releases from the main producers (e.g Fantasy Flight, Days of Wonder, Z-Man etc.) probably won’t change much; it will be the older games that will be most affected. Since older games will become relatively more expensive, it will probably bolster the second-hand market for “good games”. There will also probably be an increase in the number of language independent games that are imported from Germany by gamers “in the know”. Sadly, increasingly small margins and more buyers importing games privately may mean the end of the some smaller games stores. This is a great shame as the hobby is just on the verge of becoming more mainstream.

– Image of unknown origin

Next Meeting – 13th January 2014

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 13^th January, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

This week the “Feature Game” will be King of Tokyo, which is a fun game where players are mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens – all of whom are destroying Tokyo and attacking each other in order to become the one and only King of Tokyo. The winner must either destroy Tokyo, or be the only surviving monster once all the fighting has ended.

– Image by BGG contributor christianrehm

And talking about monsters…

Jeff was quite convinced that he’d swallowed a monster, and nothing his doctor said would make him change his mind.

Eventually, after trying several non-invasive therapies, the doctor decided he had to do something about it as his patient was getting quite distressed. So, made Jeff a special appointment and, when he arrived asked him to change into a hospital gown and lie on the bed. He then gave Jeff an injection that put him into a deep sleep.

When Jeff woke up, the doctor was standing beside his bed, holding a great big green monster on a lead.

“There’s nothing more to worry about,” the doctor said. “We operated on you and removed the monster.”

“Who are you trying to kid?” said Jeff. “The one I swallowed was blue!”

Boardgames in the News: Last Tango in Halifax

There have been a lot of comments here and elsewhere about how modern, “designer” games are becoming more widely known: our little hobby is no-longer a secret. We’ve had the rise of the boardgame café, various reports on the news and in the press, there’s even been an episode of The Apprentice! One of the signs that games are becoming less niche is their increasing appearance on “normal” television programs, the latest being Last Tango in Halifax, starring Derek Jacobi, Anne Reid, Sarah Lancashire and Nicola Walker. In this case, the boardgame was entirely incidental to the scene and almost any game would have done. The programme makers could easily have used something more widely known like Monopoly or Risk, but instead they used Mage Knight.

– Image from bbc.co.uk

31st December 2014

The first challenge of the evening was to set up a track for our “Feature Game”, the gorgeous, dexterity car-racing game, PitchCar. We started with getting pieces out of the box, then we decided the table needed to be expanded, then we struggled to make the ends of the track meet! After a bit of pantomime, we eventually resorted to one of the suggested tracks, including chicanes and the bridge/tunnel from the first expansion.

Once the track is set up, the game itself is very straight-forward, with players taking it in turns to flick their little wooden “cars”, and the winner the first to complete (in our case) two laps of the track. The rules are simple: a flick must be a flick (not a push), and cars must end their turn the right way up on the track. Leaving the track is allowed, but cars must not fly more than two track sections or touch the table. The leading player always plays first in each round. Anyone who violates the rules forfeits stroke and distance, but any consequential moves to cars that stay on the track are valid.

Blue missed out on the practice lap as she was preparing food, so started from the back of the grid. Black got off to a flying start and led round the first couple of corners before the rest of the pack caught up. Blue and Pink had caught up by the bridge, but Black held them off through the chicanes before they finally passed going into the bridge. It was short-lived however, with Black retaking the lead before Pink passed and took a commanding lead going into the second lap with a disputed two wheels off the track. Even with an eventually agreed penalty of a missed turn, his position turned out to be unbeatable. Meanwhile, Blue and Black tussled before Blue got stuck on the bridge on her second pass and Black romped away, finishing second. That left Blue and Purple to fight it out for the honour of the wooden spoon. This was a competition they both seemed determined to win, with a series of miss-flicks, and over-flicks, but Blue eventually made it across the line first, with a cloud of smoke.

While tea was cooking, we played a couple of quick games of Belisha. This is a Rummy-based game with cards that depict a trip from London to Oban. The game was a Christmas present and appears to be an original 1937 edition which probably makes it the oldest game we’ve played. The cards run one to thirteen in four colour suits, but each card also has a road sign. Like Rummy, players first draw a card from the face down draw deck or the face up discard pile. They then play any runs or melds they want, with the difference being that the melds can be in numbers or road signs. Turns end when the active player discards a card. The game itself is fairly straight forward, though we still managed to play it wrong! When laying runs of cards, we were playing any cards in sequence, whereas they are (of course) supposed to be the same colour/suit. With this game it is usual to play several rounds and the game ends when a player to reaches a pre-agreed total, however, as we were only filling time, we just played a couple of hands with honours going to Black and Pink.

After we’d eaten, we decided to play CO₂. This was the Feature Game two weeks ago, but we didn’t get round to playing it. As only two people had played it before (and that was a long time ago), we spent quite a long time reminding ourselves of the rules, to say nothing of punching out all the pieces! The game itself is quite an unusual one as it is cooperative, but also competitive. The idea is that players have to cooperate to save the planet, but the player who is the most successful wins. Alternatively, if players don’t cooperate, then the greenhouse effect will overpower the planet and everybody loses.

Each player is the CEO of an energy company responding to government requests for new, environmentally friendly power plants. There are three stages to building a power plant: proposing a project; installing the infrastructure for a project, and building the power plant. Proposing a plant is rewarded by the local government grants (money, technical resource cubes or scientific sponsorship). On the other hand, installing infrastructure has an environmental cost: at the start of the game, each region starts with a certain number of Carbon Emissions Permits (CEPs, granted by the United Nations). These CEPs are spent whenever the region needs to install the energy infrastructure for a project. Building a power plant earns victory points, but also has a cost associated with it which is paid in money and technical resource cubes. This cost varies depending on the nature of the plant and also changes throughout the game.

The game is played over five decades and each decade comprises three rounds. In these three rounds, the players need to try to satisfy the energy demand of the different continents. At the beginning of each new decade, the energy demand of each region is evaluated and if they don’t have enough power plants, they have to build a fossil fuel plant to supply the deficit. These are drawn at random from a pile and correspond to gas, coal and oil. Each of these cost the region one CEP, but more importantly, they contribute to the burden of CO₂ in the environment. When the level of CO₂ reaches 350 ppm, the world starts to suffer environmental disasters and at 500 ppm, the game is over and everyone loses.

At the beginning of each decade, money is awarded to each company based on their scientific expertise. Each company starts with a scientist, though they can get more if they choose when proposing a new project. The CEO of the company can assign their scientists to project, which earns them expertise in one of the associated scientific technologies each turn. When a power plant is built, if there is a scientist working on the project they get the opportunity to do what scientists like to do best: travel to a conference to present their work. When the conference has its full compliment of scientists, more expertise is awarded and they all return to the company. Thus, through the scientists, the companies gain wealth which can be used for building power plants, however, they also need a given level of scientific expertise in each technology before they can build power plants of that type.

The game is quite fiddly and there are a lot of things to consider. For example, a player may propose a solar power station or install its infrastructure, but they cannot build one unless they have sufficient scientific expertise. Similarly, the location of solar power plants is also restricted to certain continents, so a solar project can only be proposed in certain regions. The player who builds the most different power plants in a region gains control of that region and (more importantly) its CEPs. CEPs are used when building the infrastructure to build a power plant, but are also worth points at the end of the game. CEPs can be bought and sold on a market, and their price fluctuates throughout the game, with the final value affecting the number of victory points they are worth. Points are also awarded to players who successfully complete their company’s personal goal (which is depicted on cards handed out at the start), or for achieving goals set out by the UN (which are cards laid out near the board and are available to players throughout the game).

We were very, very lucky with the set up. Each region gets one fossil fuel power plant drawn at random and the total CO₂ sets the initial CO₂ level in the environment. In our case, we had a lot of gas-fired power stations which are relatively environmentally friendly, so we started off well. Purple started building in Oceania and Black in North America. Meanwhile Blue started building up her expertise in solar and Pink just looked puzzled. Although were were unable to satisfy the worlds power demands, for the first couple of decades, we continued to be lucky and avoid the most highly polluting fossil fuel plants, which gave us a chance to start to get a feel for the game.

After a brief break to admire everyone else’s fireworks and sharing a bottle of dodgy rosé champagne, we continued playing. Pink was now somehow in the lead, despite having to be woken up for his turn each round. Blue suddenly realised that she’d proposed a couple of nuclear fusion projects that weren’t allowed in those regions, but everyone just shrugged and carried on with Black commenting that it “was that sort of game”. Eventually, the CO₂ level reached critical and disaster struck North America. As Blue was the only player without a power plant in the region, she had to pay the price (a valuable technical resource cube).

It was then that Black claimed a UN goal card, to choruses of, “Oooo! What did you do there? What does that do!?!?” as Black surged along the score track taking the lead. Inevitably, everyone suddenly looked to see what power plants they had built and tried to match them to the cards that had been sat quietly beside the board for the whole game, totally ignored. Then there was a flurry of people claiming them as the game came to an end. It was only then that Pink noticed how many CEPs Blue had amassed – with her company goal card giving her extra points for each CEP she had in hand. Black’s company goal on the other hand, gave him points for achieving UN goal cards, which explained how he knew what they did and had paid so more attention to them than anyone else. As the people reading the rules, Black and Blue had a better grasp of the game and it was not surprising that they finished fighting it out for the lead, but in the end it was Blue who took the first win of 2015, albeit having mess-up in the middle.

Learning Outcome: Late at night is not the best time to learn to play long and complicated games…