Category Archives: Games Night

14th July 2015

It was a relatively quiet evening, which started off with food (yet again): Blue and Burgundy finished their dinners while everyone else began a game of Om Nom Nom. This fun little double-think game looks like it is going to be a popular filler following its two outings on one night last month. The game is quite simple with players simultaneously choosing animal cards to try to eat as much possible: for example, a cat will eat mice. Similarly a mouse can eat cheese, but only if it is not eaten by a cat first.

– Image by BGG contributor jancis

There are three food chains, each with three tiers. Dice are used to start off the bottom two tiers and cards are played to represent the top two tiers. The simultaneous card play coupled with the random nature of the initial dice roll is what introduces the double think: players have to decide whether to play a mouse card and go for the enticing large pile of cheese, or hope everyone else will play mouse cards and that their cat will get a good feed… Purple, Black and Grey introduced it to Magenta and Flint and clearly did the job well as they took first and second respectively.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor msaari

Meanwhile, since Blue and Burgundy had finished their supper before the rules explanation was over, they decided to see if they could finish a quick game of The Game before the others. We played this last time and since it was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres award, it seemed appropriate to try again. The Game is a simple game: on their turn, players have to play two cards from their hand onto one of four piles (the numbers increase for two piles and decrease for the other two). Since the idea is to play all the cards and (although we’ve only played it a couple of times) we’ve never got more than about half-way through the deck, finishing first was thought to be quite likely. However, ten minutes later, despite having been absolutely certain of catastrophic failure for most of the game, Burgundy played his last card leaving Blue with the just one, the unplayable sixty-four. And just as Om Nom Nom was finishing too.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

The “Feature Game” was to be Colt Express, which won the Spiel des Jahres award last week. Although there were seven of us and the game plays a maximum of six, everyone was keen to give it a go, so Black and Purple teamed up. When it came out of the box it was clear why Colt Express had won the award: the game is played on an amazing 3D train with bandits moving from one car to another, running along the roof and dodging bullets in an effort to steal the most loot. The game is played over five rounds, each of which is played in two parts. First there is the planning stage where everyone takes it in turns to play a card, usually face up onto a deck of cards. In the second phase, the deck is turned over and the cards are played one at a time by the person who played the card.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Although that sounds quite simple, there are quite a few fiddly bits which take a little bit of getting used to. The five rounds are played according to cards: these are drawn from a small deck at the start of the game and modify the number of action cards everyone plays and how they play them during the round. Starting with the start player, each person places their first action card on the communal deck, then they all take it in turns to place the next and so on. However, although the general case is that everyone plays one card face up in clockwise order, sometimes two cards are played instead of one, or it might be played face down and some are even played in reverse order. At the end of the round, sometimes there is also an event – all this adds to the interest increasing replayability, however, it also adds to the complexity on the first play through.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Players have ten action cards each, but they start each round with only six in hand, though they can draw an extra three instead of playing a card on the communal deck. The action cards allow players to move along the train, between the levels (roof and carriage), shoot, steal, punch another player or move the marshal. These actions are also a little tricky to get to grips with, especially since each player has a special ability and the card actions depend on where they are played. For example, if a player can only move one carriage when inside the train, but up to three if on the roof.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

This is fairly straight-forward, when compared with shooting though. Inside the train, one player can shoot a player of their choice in an adjacent carriage, however, on the roof any player within “line of sight” could be the targeted. In this context, “line of sight” means there is no other player standing in the way. Players cannot shoot through the roof unless they are playing the character Tuco and nobody can shoot Belle unless she is the only available target. When a player has been shot, they receive a bullet card from the shooter and this is added to their deck potentially reducing the number of useful cards they have in their hand. In addition, if the shooter is Django, the victim is also pushed back by the force of the shot.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Trying to plan during the first stage of the round, keep all these possibilities in mind and remembering all the cards played is impossible, especially when there are a lot of players. Since action cards are mostly played face up, however, it feels like you have some control over what is going on, until the second part of the round, that is, when even the best laid plans need rearranging! Once everyone has got their head round the rules, the unpredictability all adds up to a lot of fun though and our first game was no exception. Team Purple-Black (Belle) were robbed of their last gem by Grey (Cheyenne) leaving them with nothing, although they picked up the $1,000 for sharpshooter. Magenta (Tuco) finished with $500 in purses, but failed to add to it. Blue (Ghost) did better having looted $1,850 in purses, and finished just behind Burgundy who took $1,000 for the joint sharpshooter and the same in purses. Although Flint (Django) took the strong-box and managed to hang on to it until the end of the game, he was pipped to the post by Grey (Cheyenne) who made good use of his pick-pocket ability and ended the game with $3,100.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

We all enjoyed the game though with hindsight, we’d have set the table out slightly differently, putting the train at one end and the communal card pile in the middle of the table so that everyone could see what action cards were played (although it would have helped if we hadn’t had seven people round a six-player game of course). It is a very well presented game, however, it would have been nice if the icons on the cards had been a little more helpful, or alternatively, the bonus player mats could have acted as a player aid. With the number of small rules, inevitably, it turned out that we’d made a mistake. It was not a large one, but it might have impacted the lead as Grey had been using his power to pick-pocket gems as well as purses. We tried to work out what would have happened if he’d taken purses instead and Grey claimed he would still have won, but that just means we’ll have to play it again and make sure he doesn’t “cheat” next time!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

With Grey and Magenta leaving, we decided to introduce Flint to Coloretto, an old game, but one that has stood the test of time and that we’ve played a lot recently. A simple set collecting game, on their turn, players can either pick up a chameleon card from the face down deck and add it to a truck, or take a truck (passing for the rest of the round). The innovative part of the game is the scoring which uses the triangular number sequence (one point for the first card, three points for two cards, six points for three cards etc.), with positive points for three sets and negative for the rest. It was a tight game which finished in a draw between Flint and Blue, however, on the recount, Flint finished with twenty three, one point clear of Purple and two ahead of Blue.

– Image by BGG contributor SergioMR

We finished with yet another go at The Game, which is proving strangely compelling. As a group, it is clear that we are beginning to work out some of the tricks we can use to extend the game and get closer to winning. For example, players are now watching out for cards that are ten apart so that they can use the backwards rule. In this way, we have been able to play three or even four card combinations that do minimal damage to a pile or even leave it better than where it started. Of course, this only works when you have the cards and, since you have to play two cards each turn, it’s not always possible to wait to play things optimally. This time we didn’t match our current best of one card, however, that was achieved with two players and we felt it is probably more difficult with four. We did better than our previous attempts with more players though, and finished with eleven unplayable cards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Learning Outcome: Chaos can be a lot of fun.

30th June 2015

Continuing the theme from last time, food was a priority, so we didn’t get started until well after eight o’clock. We split into two groups, the first playing Steam Donkey again as it turned out that we had played it wrong two weeks ago. This card game involves building a seaside resort consisting of a four by three grid of attraction cards. The idea is that players build the attractions from their cards in their hand, then take passengers from the station who visit their attractions, which they then take from their tableaux to become cards in their hand. The more popular attractions get more passengers, thus yielding more cards. Unfortunately, it turns out that on their turn, each player can do only one of these three actions instead of all of them! It was still a tight game though, with Burgundy and Magenta drawing for first place on fifty-two points. As, Magenta commented though, “Playing it right is better…”

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Grey, Green, Cerise and Blue tried an older game, Gheos, which is new to the group. When Cerise and Grey introduced it, Blue (who had played it a very long time ago) commented that all she could remember was that it was a bit like Carcassonne, but the tiles were triangular and it was a lot nastier. In this game, players have three tiles in their hand and on their turn place one extending the play area, or replacing one of the existing tiles. The tiles form land rivers which make islands (land comprising two small sections of land surrounded by water) and continents (larger areas of contiguous land). Unlike Carcassonne, all the edges are the same so every tile can go anywhere, but some places are better than others of course.

– Image by BGG contributor Gonzaga

When a player places a tile, if the continent has not already been settled, they can choose to place a settlement receiving followers equal to the total number of wheat sheaves shown on that continent. If a player doesn’t start a new settlement, placing a tile allows the active player to recruit a single follower of their own choice. Followers are important because they dictate how many points players get during scoring. Everyone scores points when epoch tiles are drawn and each player has three cups tokens which they can play at the end of their turn triggering allowing them to score alone. Epoch scoring gives players points equal to the number of pyramids on a continent multiplied by the number of followers they have for the tribe settled on that continent. Cups tokens work in a similar way with points awarded for every follower multiplied by the number of cups on the continent, but only the active player gets to score these.

– Image by BGG contributor Outside Lime

Since tiles can be replaced, rivers can be moved creating islands, and merging continents, creating war, causing migration and even leading to extinction (since islands are to small to sustain a tribe and continents can only support one tribe). This is what makes the game nasty since a players’ followers are immediately lost. The complexity of the rules associated with migration and war coupled with the different triggers for scoring meant that it took Blue and Green a while to get their heads round it. Despite Cerise’s protestations, she showed them the way to score taking an early lead. Grey’s experience showed in the latter stages, however, giving him the first place, eight points ahead of Blue in second.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor KSensei

Green had been desperate to play his new game, Fresco, so had agreed to play Gheos with Grey on the condition that he would play Fresco next. This is a game where players are master painters working to restore a fresco in a Renaissance church. Each round begins with players deciding what time they would like to wake up for the day. The earlier they wake up, the earlier they are in turn order, and the better options they get. However, if they waking up early too often, the apprentices become unhappy and stop working as efficiently. Players then decide their actions for the turn, deploying their apprentice work force to the various tasks: buying paint, mixing paint, working on the fresco, raising money to buy paint by painting portraits, and even going to to the opera to increase the apprentices’ happiness and inspire them. Points are scored mostly by painting the fresco, which requires specific combinations of paints. For this reason, players must purchase and mix their paints carefully and beat the other players to the store to buy the pigments and fresco segments they would like to paint.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Toynan

As a new game, that claimed to take an hour, it was clear it was not going to be quick, so Blue decided to help things along by reducing the number of players and joined the other group to play something shorter before Magenta had to leave. Although Fresco was not difficult to explain the other group had nearly finished their first game before play actually started. With only three market stalls in the three player game and a possible three actions in each section for each player, the game very quickly fell into a routine where the earliest player went to the market to buy paint, with each assistant closing the stall afterwards. This left the other two players painting portraits for money and visiting the theatre to enhance their mood. This rotated around as the paint buying player completed retouching the fresco for tile points and thus pushing into the lead on the score track and moving down the order to choose when to get up. This did not feel right and the consensus was that maybe the three player game was broken and it needed a fourth player to work. Nevertheless, in a game that nobody had played before, Cerise made it her own, winning by nearly twenty points.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Toynan

Meanwhile, the other group were playing another new title, confusingly called The Game, which is a cooperative card game nominated for Spiel des Jahres this year. In this game, players have a hand of five cards from a deck containing cards numbered two to ninety-nine and there are four piles: two starting at 100 and decreasing, two starting at one and increasing. On their turn, players must play at least two cards and can play more as long as they obey the basic rules. The cards can be played on any pile so long as it is lower in number than the top card of a decreasing pile or higher than the top card on the increasing pile. Alternatively, if the card is exactly ten more or less than the the top card on the pile, the “backwards rule” can be invoked and the pile can be pushed back. The aim of the game is to place all cards on the four piles and it is much more difficult than it seems. The Game is often compared with Hanabi because it is a cooperative card game, however, the game play and the atmosphere it is played in are very different. In Hanabi, the best games are played in near silence where everyone is trying desperately not to give away any unintended information. In The Game, players can say anything they like, so long as they don’t give away any specific number information. This makes it much more chatty, though it took us a while to work out what was useful information and we only got about halfway through the deck before Magenta was unable to play a card. Clearly one to try again to see if we can do better.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Fresco had only just started, so down to four players, Black Fleet came out for another outing. This is a beautiful over-produced game that we played a few weeks ago, where each player has a merchant ship which they use to collect goods from one port and take to another port earning money. However, each player also has a pirate ship which they can use to take goods from the merchants. This also earns players money, but they must beware of the navy vessels which every player can manipulate to sink pirates and use to try to protect their merchants. On their turn, the active player plays one card which moves both of their ships and one of the navy ships, during which, each ship may perform one action. The idea of the game is that players can also play fortune cards which modify their actions and also use their money to buy advancement cards which change the rules of the game, sometimes dramatically.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor The_Blue_Meeple

This time, Black got his nose in front buying the first advancement card, but it wasn’t long before Blue and Burgundy caught up. While Purple was struggling to get anything and kept falling victim to everyone else, Blue moved into the lead with her very effective use of her False Colours and Secret Plans advancement combo (which together allowed her to swap her pirate with one of the navy ships and then earn four doubloons for attacking a merchant). Burgundy pushed hard with his Delivery Bonus and judicious use of the Pirate Hideout (which allowed him to move his pirate more unpredictably), but could not get enough money to buy his last card leaving Blue to win. Despite being the first to buy advancement cards, Black finished last as his cards felt relatively under-powered. So maybe next time, now we all know how to play, we’ll try drafting the cards at the start. That way there is less chance of one player getting more than their share of the best cards,

– Image by BGG contributor lacxox

Fresco had finished first, and Green moved over to watch the last moves of Black Fleet, commenting sadly on how the game was broken with three players, which elicited the automatic response of, “Have you checked the rules?” Whenever anyone online says a game is “broken” that is always the response and it often turns out that they weren’t playing right. So despite his protestations that they had played correctly, while the last ships were being sunk, Green double checked and found what was wrong. Each player may have three assistants visit the market stalls, but they all visit the same stall and buy one tile, rather than buy one tile from each stall. Thus there will always be a stall open for each player. This made a lot more sense and will really open the game up for those difficult decisions of timing and tasks. The rules check also brought to light an error in the way the bishop moves: he was supposed to jump to the retouched or claimed tile each time rather than just staying put. Although that was a much more minor mistake it was enough to make the choosing of tiles less interesting. Another game to play again, and correctly this time!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Toynan

Learning Outcome: Games are better when played according to the rules…

16th June 2015

Burgundy and Blue were just finishing their supper when they were joined by Cerise, Grey and Red and decided to play a short game until everyone else had arrived. They chose Sushi Go! which is a card drafting game similar to 7 Wonders, though without the complexity, so, all the players start with a hand of cards, simultaneously play one and pass the rest of the cards to the player on their left.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Since every player is doing the same thing, each player also receives a hand of cards from the player on their right, but each time the cards are passed the hand gets smaller. In this game players are collecting sets of cards with rewards varying depending on the card and the target. This time, we played with the Soy Sauce mini expansion which consists of four cards that reward players for getting more different colours encouraging more speculative play. The game is played over three rounds, with the middle one going in the opposite direction and the winner is the player with the most points.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kladan

Grey went for the unusual combination of dessert with soy sauce, but Blue topped the round by the judicious application of wasabi to a valuable squid nigiri. Burgundy won the second hand and Red close behind with a large pile of maki rolls, so, it was all to play for in the final round. It was a low scoring finale, with Grey the only really successful player, pulling off his best round when it counted. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough: although Blue’s scores had been steadily diminishing round on round, she just managed to hang on to win, just one point ahead of Grey. With Black and Purple having arrived, the group split into two, one playing the Feature Game and the other playing another new game, Om Nom Nom.

– Image by BGG contributor jancis

Om Nom Nom was a UK Games Expo special that Purple had been looking for since Essen last year. The game is quite quick and fairly simple with a lot of “double think”. The game simulates the hunter and prey relationship. There are three game boards each depicting a food chain: cat, mouse & cheese; wolf, rabbit & carrot; hedgehog, frog & fly. Each player has six cards representing the top two rungs of each ladder; at the start of a round a handful of dice are rolled that represent the lowest two rungs and are then placed on the appropriate section of the board.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor msaari

Game play is very simple: simultaneously, all players choose a card to play a predator. If their is enough prey to feed each hunter, then the player gets their card back with the prey and they score one point for each. If there is insufficient food available, the animal starves and they lose their card. Once the first card has been resolved they must play one of the remaining five cards. So, the clever bit is the middle rung of the food chain where there are both cards and dice, so a card played in the middle will get eaten by any played above. There are three rounds with everyone playing all six cards in each round, so trying to out-think everyone else is the name of the game. Purple had played Om Nom Nom before and used her extra experience to win the first round by a sizable margin. Grey made up for it in the second round as everyone began to get the hang of it, and Red took the final round, making it a close game. Her consistency made the difference though and Purple finished just two points ahead of Grey.

– Image by BGG contributor Jean_Leviathan

Next the group had a rummage through the bag and opted for another Essen/UK Games Expo acquisition, Steam Donkey; with such a cool name, we wanted to see if the game play matched. The game is set in 1897, a time when rival seaside resorts are competing to attract a visit from the Queen. So, players are trying to build a four by three grid of cards representing their seaside resort. The three rows represent the different parts of the resort: beach (yellow), town (pink) and park (green). Similarly, the four columns correspond to the different types of building: amusements, lodgings, monuments and transport. In order to place a feature, it must go in the correct location and must be paid for using cards of the same type, as such it has similarities with games like Race for the Galaxy and San Juan.

– Image by boardGOATS

As players build their resort, visitors arrive at the station and come to see the attractions. Each attraction can take a certain number of visitors, which are actually a row of face down cards that are used to replenish the cards in players’ hands. Thus, on their turn players first choose a colour and build as many attractions in that colour as they can/want paying with other cards from their hand. Next they choose a colour and start taking cards in that colour from the “station”, a row of face down cards. The colour of the visitor side of cards does not reflect the colour of the attraction on the other side, however, the type of attraction is indicated. Once there are no more visitors of the chosen colour, or there are no more spaces for the visitors to go, the active player adds the visitor cards to their hand and the station platform is refilled with four new visitors. There is a hand limit of twelve and this can actually be quite a serious impediment for players collecting cards to build the more valuable attractions.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the end of the game, points are scored for each unique attraction built as well as for fulfilling individual goals and bonuses depicted on players’ resort posters. Since this was the first time anyone in the group had played it and there are a couple of unclear points in the rule-book it might not have been played quite correctly, however, everyone seemed to enjoy it what was a very tight game and finished with Purple one point ahead of Red who was just one point ahead of Grey. Since Purple declared, “It’s a good ‘un!” it almost certainly won’t be long before it gets another outing.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, the other group were playing the Feature Game, Evolution, yet another game about food and eating! This is another Essen Special, and is a reimplementation of an earlier game, Evolution: The Origin of Species: the idea is that the game(s) simulate evolution and the “survival of the fittest” concept. Players start with a herbivore with no special characteristics, and a hand of cards. Like many games, the cards serve multiple purposes, in this case, they carry a “food supply” number, details of a trait and can also act as a sort of currency, At the start of the round, players simultaneously choose a card to place face down in the watering-hole, which will dictate how much food will be available later in the round.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Once this is done, players can begin to modify their species. This can be done in turn, but as it is slow and quite boring if you are relatively unfamiliar with the game, we played this part of the game simultaneously. There are three things players can do: they can add a trait to their species; spend a card to increase the body size or population of a species, or spend a card to start a new species. Cards are a valuable resource and players only get three cards at the start of each round, plus an extra one for each species they have. This means that traits must be played with care, but also that there is a strong argument for adding new species as early as possible. However, if there is insufficient food available, animals will starve and if they starve their population will fall, potentially to extinction.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

There are a wide range of traits that can be added to a species. For example if a species is “Fertile”, its population will automatically increase every round saving cards. Alternatively, if an animal has a “Long Neck” it will feed twice before everything else, allowing it to jump the queue. It is also possible, however, to make a species a carnivore, which means that instead of feeding from the communal watering-hole, they will only eat meat, feeding off other, smaller species round the table. Since there are carnivores, there are also traits that can be used to help protect species from being eaten, like the ability to climb, burrow or camouflage.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Traits are most powerful in combination, however. For example, a species which has the ability to cooperate will feed every time the animal to its right feeds. This means it will jump the queue if that species has a long neck. Similarly, an animal that can climb and camouflage can only be attacked by a climbing carnivore with good eye-sight. Since each species has a maximum of three traits, this carnivore would go hungry if the only animals smaller than itself give warning calls as it has no ability to ambush them. Trait cards are all played face down and revealed in turn order once everyone has finished playing cards and modifying their animals, so players have to try to work out what others might be doing and plan accordingly.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Once everyone has finished playing cards and the traits have been revealed, the amount of food available is revealed and the food numbers on the cards played at the start of the round added up. Players then each feed one of their hungry species in strict rotation (varied only where traits allow), starting with the start player. Each player can choose whether to feed one of their herbivores from the watering-hole or use a carnivore to attack another species. Tactics are important here because each species will need sufficient food for its population. Once nothing else can feed, any hungry animals will suffer population loss and anything that was completely unfed loses all it population and will become extinct. On the rare occasion that there is any food left in the watering-hole, it remains there until the next round. The round ends with each player putting all the food into their food bag which makes the bulk of the points at the end of the game, with extras for each surviving member of the population and any trait they may have.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Unusually there was plenty of food in the first few rounds and everyone quickly built up a pack of animals to try to ensure they got plenty of cards at the start of later rounds. Unfortunately, food shortages soon set in and one of Black’s animals went carnivorous. Burgundy suffered badly from the early loss of his alpha species and never really recovered. Cerise started off well, but was the first to lose a species to Black’s hungry hunter. Blue was the only player who had tried the game before and was able to use a combination of climbing, cooperation and a long neck to keep her animals fed, but still fell prey to Black and his savage carnivore. One by one, the animals developed traits to try to out-smart Black, as he added features in a race to avoid starvation. It was quite tight in the final count, but Blue finished five points clear of Black in second place.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Since the other group were still building their seaside resorts, so the group decided to try Om Nom Nom, and see what all the noise on the other table had been about. By the end of the first round, it was obvious and there were howls of laughter as everyone tried to second-guess everyone else and everyone’s best laid plans crumbled into dust. Blue and Burgundy managed to systematically stamp on each-others toes leaving Black and Cerise to fight it out for first place. Her superb first round turned out to be the deciding factor though and Cerise finished four points ahead of Black.

– Image by BGG contributor jancis

With time creeping on and Cerise and Grey leaving, we looked for a quick game to finish and decided to try another new game, called Skull which is based on an older bluffing game called Skull & Roses. The idea is that each player has four cards: three featuring flowers and one with a skull. Players take it in turns to play a card and declare what the card is. Alternatively, instead of playing a card, they can start bidding by declaring how many roses they can find around the table. Once every player has passed the winning challenger must attempt to locate the required number of roses, starting by turning over all the tiles in their own pile. If they find a skull before they complete their challenge, the lose a card; the winner is the first player to successfully complete two challenges.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor nad24

Blue started off showing everyone else how to lose a challenge, by unsuccessfully bluffing to lure others into over bidding. Black lost two challenges in quick succession, but Burgundy made an end of it by winning two out of two. Since Skull had finished so quickly, we all felt there was still time for that last game and with barely a mention of 6 Nimmt!, Purple was getting the cards out to play what is rapidly becoming one of our most popular games. It’s not obvious why we like it, but part of it is probably the fact that nobody really understands it. This time it was a three way competition for the most points as everyone dived to the bottom, leaving Blue to finish with just eleven, some thirty points better than the person in second place.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Food is important, both in life and in games, but especially on Alternate Tuesdays

2nd June 2015

After the bustle of last time with three parallel games, it felt really quiet to be back to a single table. Unfortunately, the missing people were those that the “Feature Game”, Bania had been aimed at, but we decided to give it a go anyhow as it was supposed to be short. It had also received an uncharacteristically poor review in the latest edition of the SpielBox magazine, and we were curious as to why.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is simple enough, comprising the elements of hand-management and tile laying. The idea of the game is that players are building tents in the desert. When they build a tent, there is no cost if they can place it next to other tents of the right colour, otherwise they must any additional cost in cards from their hand. Thus if a tile needs red, purple and yellow but can only be placed next to a red and yellow, a purple card is also required. On their turn, the active player can place as many tiles as they want to from their hand four and if they place all four, then they can draw another four tiles and keep going as long as they want or are able. Once they can no longer place tent tiles or otherwise choose to stop, they draw tiles to replenish their hand back to four and play passes to the next player.

– Image by boardGOATS

Points are scored during the game for building tents which can be placed more or less anywhere. However, once a settlement consists of seven tiles it is “complete” and it cannot be added to. Adding to a growing settlement scores one point whereas starting a new one scores three points. Thus extending a settlement costs less, but also earns fewer points and the key part of the game is the source of cards. These come from the elephant: if it is on the board at the start of the active player’s turn then they can take a card corresponding to each colour present in that settlement. When a settlement is completed, the elephant is returned to its owner and will yield nothing at the start of their next turn (although they can place it on any tile they as they lay it). So players want their elephant to stay in a settlement consisting of four different colours, but want to complete it themselves so they can place it again straight away.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the event that a player needs more cards then they have, instead of laying tiles (and placing their elephant), they can roll the four dice a total of three times, saving as many as they choose from each roll. There are six options corresponding to the four colours, and additionally an elephant’s head and an “elephant aaarrrse” (as it quickly became known thanks to Grey and his cool accent). A complete elephant gives the player their “elephant cards” again (which is only useful if the elephant is on the board), otherwise they get the resources shown on the dice. The game ends when no more tiles can be placed and the winner is the player with the most points once the all important bonus points (for the player with the most of each resource) have been added to the tally.

– Image by boardGOATS

Grey got the game under way but it was Burgundy who showed us how to deal with the elephant. By completing the settlement his elephant was occupying and then placing a new tile, he was able to pick up cards at the start of consecutive rounds. Meanwhile, Green picked up on another trick for scoring extra points. Starting a new settlement and then placing a second tent tile to link it to another settlement could give four points for the cost of three cards if the placement was chosen carefully; placing the tiles in the same place but reversing the order could still cost three cards, but would only yield two points. Eventually, we came into the home straight, but as it was all quite tight, bonus points suddenly seemed really, really important so nobody wanted to end it and we spent nearly two full rounds just collecting cards before the last tile was laid. In the end it was a tight game with just five points between first and last, but Blue finished in front, two points ahead of Burgundy.

– Image by boardGOATS

We had had very little difficulty with the rules of Bania, but quickly realised that the chief downside of the game was “analysis paralysis”. Because each player can place as many tiles as they want, there is very little planning a player can do in advance as everything will have changed by the time it is their turn. The fact players couldn’t plan much in advance slowed everything down a lot (we even managed trips to the bar between turns!), although we felt this might be a bit alleviated a little with fewer players as the rounds wouldn’t seem quite so long. The analysis was sometimes a bit negative too as it was often a case of, “Can’t do this, or this or this, so, um, well, I’ll have to do something with these then…” On reflection, we decided that part of the problem was that we all got a bit hung-up on picking up “cheap single points” for adding to settlements rather than trying to get the three points for starting a new one. The biggest problem we found, however, was simply that the game outstayed its welcome – the box claimed it would take half an hour and it took us well over twice that. We still weren’t sure it deserved the stand-out negative review that it got from SpielBox though.

– Image by boardGOATS

Next we had a big discussion as to what to play next. Green had some new toys he was desperate to play with, but Blue felt that since Grey could stay as long as he wanted this time, it was a good opportunity to play something a bit longer. Burgundy had played recently been introduced to Castles of Mad King Ludwig and had loved it and was keen to give it another go, so that clinched it. Grey and Green were new to it, so Blue explained while Burgundy got on with arranging tiles chipping in when Blue missed stuff out.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Castles of Mad King Ludwig is a tile laying game where players are building an amazing, extravagant castle for King Ludwig II of Bavaria, one room at a time. Rooms selected randomly are sold off in batches with one player, the Master Builder, setting the prices for each room in the batch. Payment is made to the Master Builder (similar to the auctions in Goa), but as they are the last player to buy, there is a large element of “I divide, you choose” (similar to games like …Aber Bitte Mit Sahne). Thus, the idea is that the Master Builder wants to arrange the tiles such that rooms desired by the other players are expensive, but generally not too expensive, and similar to Goa, having a lot of money is powerful, but when you spend it, you give that advantage to the active player.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor aleacarv

The other interesting mechanism is controlling the room layout so that rooms that work well together are daisy-chained yielding the most points. When a room is placed, points are scored for that room, but also the room it is attached to. Most of the points are dependent on the type of room they are connected to, so, a large purple living room with (say) six doors, will score every time a room is added to it. If it scores two points for every “blue sleeping room” that is connected to it, it will score two points when it is first placed (next to a sleeping room, but four when the next is added to it, then six and so on. However, the difficult part is trying to find six blue rooms that also score when they are placed next to a purple living room. Balancing the synergistic effects are really what make the game interesting.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

When a room is completed, there is a bonus, this can be extra points or some other advantage like an extra turn or money etc.. At the end of the game there are also bonus points for the player who best fulfills the requirements for the “King’s Favours” as well as points for personal bonuses. The game uses a card-deck to determine which rooms are drawn and when it is exhausted it triggers the end-game. One last round is played before all the bonuses are calculated and the winner is the player who finishes with the most points.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Burgundy started off launching himself into the lead with the aid of several yellow food rooms which gave him an extra turn. Green and Blue started out fighting over the downstairs rooms before Blue took herself off and started building purple living spaces to try to compete for one of the King’s Favours. Meanwhile, Grey was struggling a little with the peculiarities of scoring but as he got the hang of it, he started to amass points with several large red activity rooms. It was when Blue jumped from a distant fourth place to the front of the pack by completing a purple living room surrounded by corridors, which when completed was re-scored giving her some twenty-plus points in one round, that the game was blown apart. Blue had built up a significant lead, but Burgundy and Grey were catching her, when the game moved into the final round leaving it all down to the bonuses. Grey took the highly contested points for “square rooms”, and Green took the points for the most downstairs rooms. Blue took the points for small rooms and purple rooms. It was really the personal bonus cards that made the difference though, and they left Blue the winner, some ten points clear of Burgundy.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Learning Outcome: Experience often helps.

19th May 2015

With more new people, most of the regulars and a few less regulars, it was always going to be a busy evening. So, as it was, we started out with three games. The first group began with Eight-Minute Empire, a game that we’ve played before on a Tuesday, however, not with this group – only one person playing this time was familiar with it. It is a quick little area control and set collecting game, though in truth, it only plays in eight minutes if everyone really knows what they are doing and nobody suffers from “Analysis Paralysis”. On their turn, the active player starts by picking up a card: they can choose whether to take the first available card which has no cost, or take another and pay the appropriate number of coins from their limited supply. Each card is a resource which provides points at the end of the game, the number depending on how many of that resource the player has; each card also has an action associated with it, which can be place armies on the map, move them about, ship them across the sea, build a city etc. Players score points for having the majority in a countries and controlling the most countries in each continent, as well as for sets of resources.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Cyan started heading over the seas, Yellow went in the other direction and Green ominously began amassing armies in the start region. Orange and White started with a mixture of expansion and growth. As the game progressed, Cyan was spreading himself thinly over two continents while Orange headed north leaving the main continent behind and Yellow, White and Green fought over the regions in the middle. White was also doing a fine trade in rubies while Cyan was collecting anvils. This gave Cyan a dilemma when a double anvil turned up: although he had the money to pay the two it would cost, he was playing a miserly game and decided to let it pass. As it happened, it stayed on the table for nearly the full round until White swiped it from under Cyan’s nose. Everyone saw the mass of Green in the middle, and, thinking he was an experienced player, decided to gang up on him. With three players going after Green in the last round they did a good job of removing his dominance in the centre, leaving White the winner with eleven points, though the rubies really helped Yellow in second place just two points behind.

– Image by BGG contributor lhapka

After a brief drinks break, the group then went on to play Salmon Run. This was another game that we had played before, but was new to the majority of the players this time so it took a while to remember how it worked. In essence, it is a race game that uses a hand-drafting mechanism, so players have their own personal draw piles a bit like Dominion. The game is modular with a range of possible river sections. This time the group opted for a short game with only four boards, which was enough to give everyone a flavour of the game, ready to give it a proper run through next time. After a couple of rounds, everyone started to get the hang of it and salmon were zig-zagging their way up stream dodging bears, eagles and rapids, jumping waterfalls and trying to be the first to get to the spawning pool without being too tired. Throughout the game the group remained uncertain of the the rules though, and at one point Green got himself blocked with no cards in his hand to help him. After checking, he realised he could in fact play a card and do nothing (the fish banging its head against the wall). Unfortunately this meant he ended up way behind the others. Before long, Cyan leapt the last waterfall and landed in the spawning pool with a splash. It was a tight game with three other players teetering on the brink and ready to make the final jump, but in the end no-one else managed to get across leaving Cyan the clear winner.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

The second group started out with a repeat of a quick game we played last time, called Yardmaster. This little train themed card game is turning out to be surprisingly popular with our group, partly at least because it packs a surprising amount of punch for such a simple filler game that plays so quickly. This time, it was just Burgundy turned the tables on Blue who failed to get the luck of the cards. Then Purple and and Black turned up to join them for the the “Feature Game”, Machi Koro, which has just been nominated for the Spiel des Jahres. This card game is a sort of cross between The Settlers of Catan and Dominion, where players take the role of mayor and roll dice and choose cards in order to make it the most successful town. On their turn, the active player rolls the die (or dice if appropriate) and anyone who owns a card gets money in a similar way to the resource allocation in The Settlers of Catan. Then, the active player can use their money to buy cards, building up their portfolio in a similar way to Dominion. The winner is the first player to build all four of their land-mark buildings.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

There are two ways of setting up: all the cards can be available in separate stacks at the start of the game, alternatively, the cards can be shuffled together and dealt out until there are ten different buildings available (others become available when a pile is exhausted). The latter makes for a more strategic and interesting game, but when learning it is easier to see how the card combinations work by dealing out all the cards. With so many people new to the game, all the cards were laid out at the start so everyone could see what their options were. Blue was the only one who had played it before, so to off-set some of that advantage, she decided to try buying a building she had not bought before. In her previous games, the Café (which rewards the owner with $2 from the active player when they roll a three) had been fairly ineffective, so she bought one. Purple promptly rolled a three, and had to hand over some cash. When this happened a second time, suddenly everyone started building Cafés and the gloves were off.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

Blue built her Station first which allowed her to roll both dice and go for the higher number and value buildings and Purple and Burgundy were quick to follow. Black was obviously not enjoying himself as much as the rest, and didn’t seem to be building much. Eventually, he build a handful of Restaurants and Cafés, but otherwise just sat and accrued cash. Blue and Purple had built their third landmark before Black had built one and it was looking like he wasn’t really focussing on the game at all. Eventually, Blue built her Radio Tower winning the game. Since there is nothing in the rules about what happens next, the rest of the group played on. Burgundy managed to build his third and fourth landmarks in quick succession to take second place leaving Black and Purple to fight it out. When Black suddenly completed his set (much to Purple’s disgust) his strategy became clear: by building his most expensive landmarks first, he got a larger benefit from them, which enabled him to quickly complete the smaller ones. Without two dice, his income was reduced, but since he had the majority of the red cards, he picked up money on when others rolled nines. Although it hadn’t paid off this time, it looked like an interesting approach, though it was clear that Black was not terribly keen to play it again since, as he commented later, he is not keen on dice as a randomising factor, though he is quite happy to use cards. Perhaps we’ll try a “dice deck” of cards next time and see if he likes it more…

– Image by BGG contributor SergioMR

Meanwhile, the third group had played an assortment of quicker games beginning with Coloretto. This cute little set collecting game has been getting played a lot recently on Tuesdays, and, as Teal and Violet were new to the group, Red thought it would be a nice gentle game to start with. Teal began by collecting a few choice colours, but quickly amassed a positive rainbow of chameleons. Violet was much more selective and her favouritism for yellow chameleons proved to be particularly sensible in such a close fought game, and gave her clear victory over Red and Teal. After briefly licking his wounds, Teal then regrouped and proceeded to thrash Red and Violet in a quick game of Dobble.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor msaari

Red had been enviously watching Blue and Burgundy playing Yardmaster across the room (which might explain her poor showing in Dobble). So, as soon as they had finished, she decided to introduce Teal and Violet to it. As the most experienced player, Red was in a good position to get revenge for getting beaten in Coloretto and her complete drubbing in Dobble. The game was quite close, but a crucial coup of a green number one at the very last minute swept her sorting yard into play, making Red the clear winner.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor moonblogger

With one victory each, Red got out another of her favourite games, Walk the Plank!. This is a very simple if silly game, with a lot of opportunity to attack the others playing. One of the big successes in the group, it has really earned it’s keep as one of the few genuinely popular KickStarter games. This time was no different to previous games and everyone engaged whole-heartedly in trying to force their opponents off the plank and into the murky depths of the ocean. Since it had been one game all, this could be seen as the groups tie-breaker and it was Teal who’s pirates managed to resist the temptation to jump into the shark-infested water the longest giving him two wins to Red and Violet’s one.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the second group still playing Machi Koro, Red Teal and Violet joined Cyan, Green and White for a quick game of Pick Picknic. Like Walk the Plank!, Pick Picknic uses simultaneous card selection, but adds negotiation and a dash of chance and “double think”. The idea is that there are six yards of different colours, if someone plays the only chicken card of a given colour, they get all the grain at that coloured farm. If multiple players go for the same coloured yard, then players can either agree to share the corn in any way that is mutually acceptable or roll the die for all of it. Foxes don’t eat corn, however, they only eat chickens, so if someone plays a fox card, they will eat any chicken cards of that colour. The game was really close and much hilarity ensued when when Cyan and Green, fighting over a yard managed to roll a tie five times in a row. In the final count, White finished the winner, just four corn ahead of Green and six clear of Violet.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

With people beginning to head off and everyone else reluctant to make it a late night, the remaining players began to look for something short-ish and fun. Purple suggested Plague & Pestilence again, but when that wasn’t greeted enthusiastically, she proposed 6 Nimmt! instead. Having had an outing last time, as well as at the Didcot group a few days ago, it is starting to become a bit of a regular. In this case however, it was clear that everyone had fond memories of Burgundy collecting handfuls of cards and wanted to see if he was going to do it again. Sadly, that was clearly not his intent and he finished the first round with just eight, only one behind the leader, Green. Green didn’t keep the lead for long though as he was repeatedly forced to pick up high scoring cards finishing with a nice round forty. Purple improved on her relatively poor first round, but still had quite a few more than Burgundy, Black and Blue. It was fitting perhaps then, that it was Burgundy who, despite having a terrible hand played a blinder to finish just one point ahead of Black and two ahead of Blue.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: A long game can be very satisfying, but lots of little games can be lots of fun.

5th May 2015

We weren’t sure whether Yellow and Orange (who recently moved to Swindon) were coming, so we started out with a quick game of 6 Nimmt!. This is an older game, and though very simple it is one that everyone in our group somehow struggles to remember the rules for. The game is played with a deck of cards numbered from two to one hundred and four and features a number of “Bulls Heads” (mostly just one, but some have as many as seven). Four cards, chosen at random are turned face up on the table to make the start of four rows. The idea is that everyone then simultaneously chooses and reveals a card from their hand. Then, starting with the player who played the lowest card, players add their cards to the rows on the table.

– Image used with permission of BGG
contributor punkin312

Cards are added to the row that ends with the highest number that is below their card. Thus, if the cards on the table are four, ten, fifty, and seventy-two, a player with fifteen would add it to the row containing ten. If the card played is the sixth card in the row, then the player must take the cards and place their card in the empty space. If the card played is lower than the last card in all the rows, the player must take all the cards in a row of their choosing. The aim of the game is to be the player with the lowest number of Bulls’ Heads or “Nimmts”. As play continues, the number of cards in the rows increase (making it harder to play safely) and the number of cards in hand decrease on each turn (players don’t pick up after each turn), so the decisions get increasingly agonising, especially when the rows contain cards with a lot of Bulls’ Heads.

– Image by BGG contributor Niko the Shadow

Burgundy started the first round badly and finished worse, ending with thirty-five Nimmts, compared with Black and Purple who both finished the first round with none. The idea is that a game consists of two rounds, each played with a random half of the deck. Unfortunately, we miss-counted and used to many in the first round, so the second round included some repeated cards. Not that it helped Burgundy much as he finished the second round with twenty-one giving him a combined total of over fifty. Black and Purple did better, but it was Green who had the best over-all, with just two Nimmts in the first round and none in the second, he was the clear winner.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

We then moved on to our Feature Game which was another older game, The Settlers of Catan, which is celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year. As it is an old classic, we had three different editions available and countless expansions. Since everyone was keen to play it, we set up two parallel games. Although we’ve only played it once before in the group, everyone knew the game, so we just had a quick reminder of the rules as we were setting up. At its basic level, the game is one of resource management and civilisation building. Players start with two roads and two settlements. These are placed along the edges and on the corners of the hexagons of the modular board. Each hexagon has a number on it, and on each player’s turn, first they roll both dice and resources are awarded to players with settlements on the corners of the hexagon that corresponds to the total rolled. Once the resources have been handed out, the active player can trade resources with other players and use them to build more roads and settlements, develop their settlements into cities or buy development cards. Victory points are awarded for settlements, cities and the longest continuous road as well as via development cards (both as straight victory points and for the player with the most soldier cards, i.e. the largest army).

– Image by BGG server robot BoardGameGeek

Burgundy, Blue and Red played with a ten year old, third Mayfair edition, while Green, Black and Purple eschewed an older Mayfair edition and opted for the slightly easier setup provided by the fourth Mayfair edition. Green, Black and Purple were nearly ready to go, while Burgundy, Blue and Red were still separating the base game from expansion tiles. No sooner had this been noted by the first group when, calamity, quarter a pint of beer was spilled over their cards, narrowly missing their board! A hasty drying session ensued and the third copy of Catan came in handy after all, as it was temporarily cannibalised for cards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ronster0

Meanwhile, Blue, Burgundy and Red had finished setting out their randomised board and had started to critique it. There was only one good source of brick and nothing for ore, in fact, the only abundant supply of anything seemed to be wood and sheep of which there were plenty. This was exacerbated by the fact that nine was by far the most frequently rolled number in the first half of the game, which delivered both wood and sheep. Blue had gone first and had grabbed the best brick space, however, although Red and Burgundy apparently had two better starting positions, it was a bit claustrophobic as they were both camped in close proximity on one side of the board. Red really suffered as she ended up with two awkwardly placed positions and that made her game really tough. Everywhere she went she was blocked by Burgundy and Blue and although she challenged for the longest road, she just couldn’t get out of the trap. Although Blue had much more space to work with, good settlement positions were further apart which meant she had to build a lot of road before she could build. Consequently, she quickly picked up the Longest Road card. While Blue was road building, Burgundy got his nose in front and was first to build his third settlement. With the extra resources this provided, Burgundy was able to keep his nose in front, settling more and building cities first. He also had enough resources to buy a handful of Development Cards, which first of all netted him the Largest Army, and then enabled him to masterfully take the Longest Road card by building three sections in one turn. This, together with a single victory point card brought him to ten points bringing the game to a close.

– Image by boardGOATS

Eventually after a lot of mopping, the second game of The Settlers of Catan had got underway. As is often the case in this game, it was the statistically unlikely numbers which came up all the time and the more probable ones hardly ever! This time, five appeared time and again, until Purple was awash with sheep Wood, ore and wheat appeared often enough, but brick was not available at all, probably because they were both elevens and the twelve! So, the sheep were exchanged for brick and everyone quickly built their third settlement. Black obstinately refused to join up his two bits of road to claim the Longest Road card which left Green free to take it having extended his road slightly to try to get some ore into his production.

– Image by BGG contributor shannona

Everyone built a another settlement or two and Black started turning his into cities, but still didn’t join his roads. Green struggled to get sufficient wheat and ore, so started buying development cards instead of building cities (as they only need one of each rather than a total of five). In the process, Green also ended up with a number of soldiers which resulted in the Largest Army card. It was then that we discovered that Black had been inadvertently cheating. He had been using his port to swap two wood for his missing resources (he had two settlements on the wood hexagon that happened to be a six). Of course there would have been nothing wrong with that, except that in this case his port was for the ore port not the wood port! Green and Purple ribbed him mercilessly for the rest of the game (and indeed the rest of the evening, as he deserved.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor thephantomhennes

Fairly quickly Green had taken a commanding lead with five points to the others two and three, which then became six and eventually eight when he took the Largest Army card. Green kept plugging away at the development cards, trying to get victory points, but a clear lead meant he was also attracting the attention of the robber and his brick port was great considering he had three settlements giving brick, but the dice just weren’t playing the high numbers game. Eventually Green found a victory point card and he needed just one more to win. A settlement at the end of the road or a victory point development card (or perhaps a city) would do it, but by now Black had three cities and a settlement, plus that little gap in his roads. With people finally rolling sixes and Black gaining four wood every time, the inevitable happened. He built another settlement and the missing piece of road meant his was now one longer than Green. So Black went to ten points, and Green tied with Purple two points behind. Still, Black had cheated…!

– Image by BGG contributor olaha

The second game was still in full flow when Blue, Burgundy and Red finished, and decided to give a quick game, Yardmaster an outing. This is a cute little set collecting game with a train theme and some parallels with the Ticket to Ride games. In Yardmaster, however, players are building a locomotive rather than routes. On their turn players can do two actions. The actions are: draw a cargo card (either blind or from the face up discard pile); buy a railcar card from the four face up cards in the middle, or swap their “Exchange Token” with any other one around the table. To buy a railcar, players pay using sets of cargo cards, so a yellow number three railcar will cost three yellow “oil” cards. However, the exchange tokens allow players to use other cargo cards at a rate of two-to-one, so in the above example, if the player only had two yellow oil cards but also had two blue “coal” cards and the blue exchange token, they would still be able to buy the yellow number three railcar.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor joeincolorado

When buying a railcar, if the number or colour match the previous car, then it must be added to the end of their locomotive. If not, then players can park it in their personal sorting yard and add it later, when another railcar is being bought and added to the locomotive. This is the clever part of the game as it allows players to “stack” points in their personal train yard enabling them both to take some risks and strategically remove railcars from the grasping hands of their opponents. Players score is the total of the numbers of the on the railcars making up their locomotive (waggons in the sorting yard do not score). Burgundy started with a succession of ones and gradually built a very long, if not very high scoring loco. Meanwhile, Blue and Red grabbed a couple of higher scoring waggons each.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor moonblogger

Although quick, Yardmaster was still going when the second game of Settlers finally finished and Green, Black and Purple were looking around something to play and opted for Plague & Pestilence. This is another old game, dating back to the early 1990s and has been out of print for a long time, however, Green had brought along a self-printed version. The game is played in two “phases”. The first is the Prosperity Phase. During their turn, the active player rolls a pair of purple six-sided dice which indicates how much their population increases by. Then the active player draws Prosperity cards to refill their hand and plays one. A special Death Ship card is shuffled into the Prosperity deck and drawing it indicates the start of the second phase, the Plague Phase. This is played exactly the same as the first phase, but the dice rolls now indicate how much the active player’s population decreases by. As the game progresses, the plague ravages the populations and players are eliminated; the last player is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Green, Purple and Black had played Plague & Pestilence recently (though not on a Tuesday) and Purple had won decisively with a whole handful of population cards, so was looking forward to a repeat performance. With it being a game where being nasty was not just possible, but obligatory, Purple and Green quickly ganged up on Black to punish him for cheating in The Settlers of Catan. Water off a ducks back, he responded with “Pied Piper” cards and “Mass Migrations”! However his attempts at getting Green and Purple to fight came to naught thanks to Purple’s apparently endless supply of “Negotiated Settlement” cards. Populations rose and fell, city improvements were built and destroyed. Some surreptitious changing of population cards from small denominations into large ones to reduce the size of the their pile and hide the true value of the hand went on. Then the death ship arrived and the game was really afoot.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Red, Burgundy and Blue were bringing Yardmaster to a close, having ridden out a spell of poor railcar cards. Burgundy was just a handful of points away from winning, and with a cards in his sorting yard needed to buy the red one in the middle, but it was Blue’s turn. Red urged Blue to take the card or Burgundy would end the game on his next go, but Blue had other plans and using her Exchange Token bought a yellow three and took the opportunity to move all the cards from her sorting yard onto the end of her locomotive, giving her a score of twenty, seven more than Burgundy.

– Image by boardGOATS

Plague & Pestilence was still ongoing, so, after a quick chat about Yardmaster, Blue, Red and Burgundy decided to give its little brother, Yardmaster Express a go. This shares the locomotive building feature, but is even quicker and simpler than Yardmaster, though much more luck-driven. The game is based on card drafting, so the start player begins with a hand of railcar cards, draws one from the draw deck and then chooses one to add to their loco. As before, the waggons must match in colour or number, but this time, the cards are “split” so they contain two waggons and the front waggon may not be the same as the rear one. Scores are the sum of the numbers on the waggons, as before, but bonus points are awarded to the player (or players) with the longest continuous set of waggons of the same colour. This can be significant as the bonus is equal to the number of waggons. If a player cannot match the colour or number they can play the card face down as wild, but these score less and break any otherwise continuous string of waggons. Once a card has been chosen, the had is passed to the next player who draws a card and chooses one. There is a little bit of opportunity to screw over the next player by taking the cards they want, but otherwise, the game is highly luck dependent, and this time, Blue was the lucky one.

– Image by boardGOATS

Over in Plague & Pestilence, survival was the order of the day. Purple unfortunately had several very high roles and no improvement cards to reduce them, so quickly found her deck dwindling. Green and Black, however, were getting better luck on the roles, and combining them with City Improvements, managed to hold on to more of their population. Purple, with a population reduced to just ten, had one last go at Green with a “Pied Piper” card, but ultimately it wasn’t enough as she rolled 9s and 10s and within a couple more turns was dead. The gloves were now off between Green and Black. Well not so much gloves off as desperately trying to shore-up our own populations against the relentless tide of plague and death. Green eventually managed to win the war of attrition, thanks in no small part to four consecutive trade centre cards (which increased his population by ten each time)!

– Image by boardGOATS

With both games finally finishing more or less together, we had a quick chat and then decided to finish as we had started, with another game of 6 Nimmt!. This time we started with the correct number of cards and, as before, Burgundy managed to start collecting Nimmts like they were going out of fashion. Once again, Black managed to avoid picking up any Nimmts in the first round, but this time it was Blue that joined tied with zero at the halfway point. Much to everyone’s surprise it was Burgundy however, who won the second round with just three Bulls’ Heads. Unfortunately, with eighteen in the first round he was always going to find it hard to compete for the lead, which left Blue and Black with fourteen overall, having finished both rounds with exactly the same number and the evening finished with a draw.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: New games can be good, but classics remain popular for a reason.

21st April 2015

While Blue attacked her pizza, Red, Green, Burgundy, Black and Purple attacked a quick game of Coloretto. This is a great little little set collecting game that forms the basis of the well-known boardgame, Zooloretto. The idea of Coloretto is that players take it in turns to either draw a chameleon card and place it on a truck, or take a truck (after which they are out for the rest of the round). Each truck can hold a maximum of three chameleons and the round continues until every player has taken a truck. The chameleon cards come in seven different colours and players are collecting sets which score according to the triangular number sequence (one point for the first card, three points for two cards, six points for three cards etc.).

– Image by BGG contributor SergioMR

The clever part is that each player can only score three sets as positive, all the others are negative, and the highest score wins. Thus, there is an element of push your luck and players can make life difficult for each other by putting cards a cards someone wants with cards they don’t want. As usual, the game came down to a choice between taking the one or two safe wanted cards and waiting to see if a useful third card might be added to the set. With a five player game, however, there was always a high risk that someone else would take it, so Burgundy started off very cautiously and managed to quickly collect a lot of red chameleons and a few two point bonus cards making him the obvious front-runner. Green had also started out going for reds, but quickly realised he would have to broaden his horizons. Meanwhile, Red, who was new to the game began to realise what cards people might want and how to cause them problems. It was purple however, who finished with her nose in front with final total of thirty-one, thanks to the large number of cards she had managed to accrue.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Although Zooloretto is a more popular game (possibly helped by its cute animal theme), it is arguable that Coloretto is actually a better one. In Zooloretto, players are building a zoo and instead of simply collecting sets of cards, they are collecting sets of animal tiles and have to place them in pens. If you can’t place an animal, then it goes into the barn, where others can buy it or, if there space becomes available, it can be recovered and placed in a pen. The light nature of the game and cute animals make Zooloretto very accessible for families, but there are more bits and it does take longer to play. There is no question that the tile/card drawing and truck choosing mechanism is very clever and integrates well with the zoo theme, however, Coloretto is a simpler, “purer” game, which is short enough that it doesn’t risk outstaying its welcome.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Toynan

With the arrival of Grey, and Blue finally finishing her pizza, we decided to split into two groups. The first played the “Feature Game”, Black Fleet. This was one of the games brought back from Essen last year and is a beautiful game involving skulduggery on the high seas. The game is very simple. Each player commands a merchant vessel and a pirate ship. Players also have a hand of two “movement” cards and on their turn choose one to play. Each of these cards has movement values the player’s merchant and pirate ships, but also allows them to move one of the Navy frigates. As the ships move they can carry out various actions. For example, before, during, or after its movement, a player can sell their cargo at the indicated price (two or three doubloons per goods cube) at the port if their merchant is in a space adjacent to it. Alternatively, pirates can steal treasure or bury it safely on an island. Once per turn, players can spend their gold to activate their bonus cards. These are cards that are dealt out at the start of the game and once activated, remain active for the rest of the game with the player that has activated all their bonus cards winning. In the event that more than one player succeeds in activating their bonus cards, then ties are broken by the amount of gold held at the end.

– Image used with permission of BGG
contributor The_Blue_Meeple

After a short rules explanation, we set our ships afloat, each hoping to get to another port to trade our valuable cubes. It wasn’t long before the first pirate came relieved a merchant ship of one their goods cubes. Then, the gloves were off and the game became one of attack and counter attack. With four pirate ships sailing the seas it was rare that anyone managed to dock into port with any more than two cubes, and sometimes they only had one to sell. However the two navy ships mostly kept the pirates from burying their loot. Very soon players were paying for their bonus cards and beefing up their attack or trading capabilities. Purple was heading down the trading route, but misreading her cheapest bonus card, she left that to one side and plugged away at getting her more expensive ones. On a sea so full of marauding pirates (and the occasional back-stabbing navy ship and ruthless merchant), this proved to be a difficult strategy to make work.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Grey was trying a more balanced strategy, while Green and Burgundy were making their fleets the menace of the seas. The game seemed well balanced between Green, Burgundy and Grey until Burgundy turned over his penultimate bonus card and it became clear that he would earn enough on his next turn pay for his last card and finish the game. Green and Grey did what they could to attack Burgundy to prevent this from happening while also trying to turn over their last cards. Burgundy duly paid for his final card ending the game and giving Green and Grey one last turn. Green was able to turn one card over, however, although that would not be enough to tie with Burgundy, it would be enough to tie with Grey if Grey could be prevented from turning over his last card. Thus, Green abandoned his plans and instead in a ruthless pirate like manner turned the tables on Grey. This left Grey unable to pay for his final card and with less money remaining than Green, he finished in third place behind Burgundy and Green. As it turned out Grey would not have been able to buy his final card anyhow, which made Green’s last move look particularly vicious, but then if you insist in playing with a poker face, that’s what you get!

– Image by BGG contributor spielemitkinder

Although none of the players had played it before, on discussion with Blue and Black after the game, it is clear that Black Fleet is a much better game with four than three and everyone was keen to play it again. However, there was much discussion about the balance of the cards: since the bonus cards are drawn at random, some combinations end up being well balanced while others are less synergistic. For example, in this game, the cards definitely made it much harder for Purple to win, but easier for Green. We’ll have to play it again to see if this is something which detracts from the game, or makes it more of challenge!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Meanwhile, Black, Red and Blue tried out a game that was new to the group, K2. This is a fairly straight forward hand management game, that can get quite brutal as players find the route up the mountain increasingly challenging. The idea is that each player has two climbers, two tents and a hand of cards. Simultaneously, everyone chooses which cards they are going to play and then players take it in turns to move their climbers up the mountain. There are two possible routes which are slightly different lengths and difficulties.

– Image by BGG contributor Oskarete

Some cards enable players to move along the paths and others help them to increase their levels of acclimatisation. The acclimatisation cards are essential, because going higher up the mountain, saps your energy. The weather also plays its part, both making it more difficult to climb and reducing players’ acclimatisation and if a climber’s acclimatisation drops to zero, they die. As inevitable when playing a new game, an important rule got missed out – in this case, we didn’t realise until we were more than half way through the game that the weather only affected certain parts of the mountain, thus we made it much more difficult for ourselves. The winner is the player who’s climbers get the furthest up the mountain without dying.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Blue took the slightly harder eastern ridge while Black and Red took the western pass. Fortunately, Black started off trying to get one climber to the top, leaving the other safe at the bottom, which meant the western pass didn’t get too congested. Red and Blue tried to get the two climbers to help each other, but quickly realised the wisdom of Black’s approach as their climbers suffered from exposure, especially Blue’s on the exposed ridge. Black’s first climber made it to the top, only to find his way down blocked by Red. This turned out to be fatal as the extreme effort proved too much. By this time, Blue’s first climber had realised she was in difficulty and headed back to the foothills, just making it in time thanks to a lull in the weather. Red had also made it as high as she dared having had her route blocked by Black which delayed her progress to the summit. In the meantime, Black’s well acclimatised second climber had made it to the top and was also heading back down to avoid the same fate as his companion. Blue’s second climber then made a dash for it and, with the path clear, made it to the peak just as the game drew to a close leaving Blue the winner. Definitely a game to try again, but perhaps with the correct rules next time…

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mothertruckin

Early starts in the morning left just Blue, Green and Burgundy, and they decided to give Blueprints another outing. We’ve played this a couple of times at the group and it always goes down well. Burgundy really struggled this time, but the game began as a closely fought battle between Green and Blue, enhanced by some really unlikely dice draws and rolls. In the first round, Green took first place in the general classification and an award, while Blue took second and the award for using dice with the same number. In the second round, positions were reversed with Blue taking first place and an award leaving it all to play for in the final round. However, Green finished the game three points ahead of Blue who lost out on tie-breakers to both Green and Burgundy in every category in the final round.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor bkunes

Learning Outcome: If you manage to get people to believe you are a threat, don’t be surprised when they attack you!

7th April 2015

Blue and Pink arrived very early and decided to play a quick game of Onirim before their food arrived. This is a cooperative, two player game with an unusual theme: players are Dreamwalkers, lost in a mysterious labyrinth – they must discover the eight oneiric doors before dreamtime runs out trapping them forever.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor zombiegod

The idea is that both players have a hand of five cards, three that are their own, and two which are shared and kept face up on the table. On their turn the players can do one of two things: play a card, discard a card. Cards are played one at a time face up in front of the player. The aim is to play a three cards of the same colour in succession, which allows the player access to the oneiric door of the corresponding colour. The important thing about the cards is that in addition to a colour suit, they also have a symbol – a sun, a moon or a key. When played, adjacent cards must not have the same symbols (regardless of colour). This is much more tricky than it sounds as sun cards are most abundant and key cards have special powers, which means you don’t want to waste them. For example, if a key card is discarded, the player triggers the prophecy which means they can look at the next five cards, discard one and return the rest in any order.

– Image by boardGOATS

Once a player has played or discarded their card, they replenish their hand with a card from the draw deck. There are seventy-six cards in the deck, including eight doors and ten nightmare cards. Nightmare cards are a problem, when they are drawn, players have to deal with them in some way. Players can mitigate the effects of a nightmare by discarding a key card, discarding a gained door or by discarding the whole of their hand (i.e. all five cards, including the two shared cards). If the player cannot do any of these (or chooses not to), then they must discard the next five cards. This is bad because the deck is like a ticking clock and the game ends when there are no cards left to play. Worse, nightmare (and door cards) are not truly discarded as they are returned to the deck once the five cards have been drawn, so their effect does not go away. On the plus side, if you are replacing a card and you draw a door card, if you have a key card of the same colour, you get to keep it.

– Image by boardGOATS

Like Hanabi, this is a cooperative game that can be played with a lot or a little “table talk”. Since it is quite a tough game, we decided to play with all the cards face up, but with no talking. We had just started and the game was going unusually well when food turned up. Sadly, we were very easily distracted and quickly lost focus which led to inevitable defeat as we finished just one door short. Once we’d finished eating, we gave it another go, but quickly regretted squandering our good beginning in the first game as the second game had a terrible start. Things picked up, but we still didn’t get close, finishing with six doors. We were just finishing when Grey and Cerise wandered in clutching a new game called Slavika.

– Image by BGG contributor cnidius

Slavika is a card game of heroes and monsters with really beautiful artwork. Each player is the head of a household and has two hands of cards, one of heroes and one of monsters. On their turn each player plays three cards, the first card must be a hero, the last card must be a monster and the second card can be either a hero or a monster. Each player starts with six heroes in their family and five monsters, each with a strength; although monsters are replenished once played, heroes only return when they have finished being heroic. The idea is that there are a number of regions that players are fighting to protect from the monsters.

– Image by BGG contriutor cnidius

Each region is different and has a maximum number of heroes and a maximum number of monsters: when world is over-run with monsters, the battle is concluded and the combined strength of the monsters is compared with the combined strength of the heroes. If the heroes win, then the player who contributes the most to the battle (the most heroic player) wins the points and also the treasure stored on the island and the heroes fighting for that world are returned. If there is also a thief, however, then the most heroic player wins the points but the thief runs off with the treasure. If the monsters win, then nobody wins anything, the monsters leave, the heroes return home and another treasure card is added to the region and the fighting begins again. Blue had no idea what was going on, and Pink was not much wiser, but after a couple of rounds they got the hang of it a little and everyone realised that if people insisted on thinking before playing cards, it was going to take way longer than the stated thirty minutes!

– Image by BGG contributor MacTele

By this time, Red, Yellow and Orange had also arrived and had riffled through the bags and chosen …Aber Bitter Mit Sahne (aka Piece o’ Cake). This is a cute little set collecting game that we first played a few weeks back. The idea is that one player divides the cake and then the others choose which slice to take and how much of it to eat. Points are scored at the end of the game for the player with the most of each type of cake and for the number of “blobs” of cream on cake that has been eaten. In case of a draw, all parties win the pints, but no points are scored for sets that aren’t the largest. Thus, the player dividing needs to try to make sure that they are left with something useful after everyone else has chosen, but at the same time, they don’t want to give away anything too enticing. Similarly, players choosing have to be careful to take something that is useful, and keep something they think they can build a large set of while maximising the number of blobs of cream they eat.

– Image by boardGOATS

Red ran away with the first game, but the second was much closer and came right down to the wire with Orange just beating Red by two points. Meanwhile, Blue, Pink, Grey and Cerise were still playing Slavika, so Red, Yellow and Orange decided to give Tsuro a try. This is a bit of an old favourite as it is fairly quick, plays up to eight, is very easy to teach, and has a nice healthy dose of tension. In summary, players start with a hand of three tiles each depicting track and a stone on the edge of the board. On their turn, the active player plays one tile in their chosen orientation and then moves their stone along the track. Players must try to stay on the board unless they have no choice and if two stones collide both players are out. Hands are replenished until there are no tiles left, and when people are knocked out, they redistribute their tiles amongst the remaining players. Last player on the board wins.

– Image by BGG contributor jeremiahlburns

With only three players, it was slow to get going, but before long Yellow and Orange had fallen off the board leaving Red to take her second win of the evening. Just as Red was finishing off her competitors, Pink was trying to use his thief to steal two treasure cards only to find that they were both “moon” cards. As two moon cards had already been found, that finally brought Slavika to a very abrupt end with Cerise the clear winner. This left time for another quick game of Tsuro, this time with all seven players joining in. With Pink’s help, Blue managed to run out of space after just a few turns and spent the rest of the game egging Orange into pushing Red off the board. Before long Cerise, Yellow and Red had all joined Blue spectating and the game was hanging in the balance with it unclear whether Grey, Pink and Orange would come out on top. Unfortunately for them, neither Grey nor Orange had useful tiles and Pink ran out the clear winner.

– Image by BGG contributor cnidius

The evening finished as it began with just Blue and Pink. Tempted though they were to have another go a finding the oneiric doors, they decided instead to play the “Feature Game”, Harbour. This is a recent successful KickStarter project and is a neat little worker placement game with a market manipulation twist. The idea is that each player has a single worker and can place them on one of the central buildings or a building owned by one of the players (at a cost if it is not their own). Each building enables players to buy goods or exchange goods they already have for other goods. Alternatively, some buildings allow players to sell goods and buy a building, and this is where the dynamic market comes in. There are four types of merchandise, and each has a value, but each can only be sold if a minimum quantity is reached. For example, players may get $5 for shipping fish, but they must have a minimum of five fish in order to be able to sell them. Meanwhile, wood may only yield $2, but players will only need two in order to be able to sell. When someone sells something in the market, demand changes the values at market, with the values of unsold goods increasing and the value of items just sold dropping.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

Each player can store a maximum of six of each item, and unless they have a building that allows them to store goods when selling, if they sell, they must sell everything. Thus, the game is all about timing and selling goods before other players and when the price is right. The game ends when one player has built four buildings, leaving the other players with one final turn. Blue and Pink had played the game once before and Pink was of the opinion that the person who managed to build four buildings first would win. Blue was less convinced as she felt that that player could get once less turn and that would allow other players to buy more valuable buildings. This wasn’t an opportunity to test these theories, however, as Blue quickly bought three high value buildings and Pink’s less profitable buildings were sufficiently undervalued to ensure that Blue’s commanding lead was insurmountable. It is definitely an interesting little game though and will get another outing soon.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kladan

Learning Outcome: Don’t get distracted by food.

10th March 2015

Since Blue was late ordering her pizza we were late starting our first game. It was a relatively quiet evening, but we began splitting into two groups, the first of which played the “Feature Game”, Dominion. This is a card drafting game where the players are monarchs, ruling a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens trying to build a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees – a Dominion in fact.

– Image by BGG contributor Filippos

Basically, each player starts with an identical, very small deck of cards from which they draw a hand of five. On their turn, players do three things: play an action card, buy cards, then discard any cards they have left and draw an new hand of five cards. The aim of the game is to have the most points at the end. Experience is clearly a big advantage, as the balance of the deck is critical to a player’s success. It was no surprise, therefore, that Burgundy and Green were fighting it out for first place. Green squeaked in ahead having picked up a lot of duchy cards in the last few rounds.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor garyjames

Meanwhile, Purple and Black played Patchwork. This is a cute little two-player game that was first played on a Tuesday in January. The idea is that players compete to build the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt, buying Tetris-like patches with buttons. The last time Black won, so Purple was hoping to redress the balance, but sadly, it was not to be.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor greetingsfrombergen

Both games finished pretty much simultaneously, leaving us with the decision: play one six player game, or two three player games. There was only one real six player option and that was Keyflower. Green offered the decision to Grey who, much to Blue’s obvious delight, opted for the large group game. We’ve played Keyflower an awful lot (especially considering it is one of the heavier games that we play), but only once with the full six players. On that occasion, Blue had managed to squander a winning position when she misjudged Green’s strength – something she was determined not to do again.

– Image by boardGOATS

Winter tiles were handed out and Green announced that he was just going to play what came up rather than play to a strategy. Everyone else said that that was what they always did because there was always someone else who broke any strategy they had. And that is pretty much exactly what happened to most players this time too. Grey went for the Green Keyples in a big way and Black went for tiles. Purple tried to control the game with the start meeple while Burgundy ended up with a glut of yellow Keyples so decided to try to do something useful with them by turning them into more Keyples. Green meanwhile was struggling to do anything and Blue, who was the only person with any supply of iron, managed to pick up the Blacksmith to go with it and quietly began producing iron and moving it onto the Blacksmith tile.

– Image by boardGOATS

As we moved into winter, everyone was so mesmerised by Grey who managed to completely exhaust the supply of green Keyples and Burgundy who was amassing a huge number of points, that nobody spotted Blue and her Blacksmith or Black and his tile collecting. Eventually, Burgundy stopped pulling Keyples out of the bag and we moved into scoring, and it turned out to be a surprisingly close game. Blue’s iron meant she finished six points clear of Burgundy who took second place with Black and Grey close behind.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ilogico

Learning Outcome: If you usually win, don’t be surprised if you lose when you change the way you play.

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!