Category Archives: News

Next Meeting, 24th March 2026

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 24^th March 2026 at the Horse and Jockey Pub. As usual, we will start playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer. The pub is doing food, so those that are eating will be arriving from around 6.30pm.

This week, the “Feature Game” will be SCENERY, which is a tableau building, tile laying game where players are creating hiking routes through a hexagonal landscape with tiles of varying altitudes (rules). The game is by the same designer as Nova Luna, Habitats, Powerships and Waddle, Corné van Moorsel.

– Image from kickstarter.com

And speaking of hiking…

Jeff was planning a trip in the northern Cascades and he was really hoping his friend Joe would go along.

“Sounds great, but I’m not sure I can afford it, or even get the time off work,” said Joe sadly.

“That’s a shame, I had some hikes planned and really wanted you to come along,” answered Jeff.

“It sounds a lovely idea—I’m sure you could find someone else to go with you though.” replied Joe.

“Oh, but I really wanted YOU to go,” Jeff went on.

“Well, I’d love to, I mean, we always have so much fun when we are out and about, don’t we!” added Joe.

“Well, yes we do, but it’s not that,” Jeff explained, “I read that you should always go hiking with someone in worse shape than yourself—there are bears out there…”

Next Meeting, 17th March 2026

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 17^th March 2026 at the Horse and Jockey Pub. As usual, we will start playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer. The pub is doing food again, so those that are eating will be arriving from around 6.30pm.

This week, the “Feature Game” will be Planet Unknown, a sort of poly-ominos tile-laying game where players are trying to develop the most successful planet (rules, review and instructional video).

– Image by BGG contributor PZS69

And speaking of unknowns…

Jeff was chatting to his mate Joe over a pint at their local.

“I keep getting these calls from unknown numbers,” said Jeff. “It’s really weird,” he continued, “They just sneeze and then cough a bit, and then they hang up.”

“Have you registered with the Telephone Preference Service?” asked Joe.

“No, not yet,” replied Jeff, “But I hear they are very good at stopping cold calls…”

Next Meeting, 3rd March 2026

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 3^rd March 2026 at the Horse and Jockey Pub. As usual, we will start playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer. The pub is doing food again, so those that are eating will be arriving from around 6.30pm.

This week, the “Feature Game” will be the new Bordeaux Expansion for one of the group’s favourite games, Viticulture (base game rules, review and how to play video; expansion rules and review). With just a new board, this new expansion incudes an engine building element by changing the actions and adding upgrade options. It also makes a number of other small tweaks that effectively provide a faster start to the game (for example, players begin with income and only one field making the fairly standard strategy of selling land early in the game obsolete).

– Image from stonemaiergames.com

And speaking of wine…

Jeff was relaxing with his girlfriend, sharing a bottle of wine, when she said, “I love you so much. I don’t know how I could ever live without you.”

Jeff was surprised, but very pleased—she’d never said anything like that to him before. In disbelief, he replied, “Is that you or the wine talking?

She answered, “It’s me talking to the wine…”

Next Meeting, 17th February 2026

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 17^th February 2026 at the Horse and Jockey Pub. As usual, we will start playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer. The pub is doing food again, so those that are eating will be arriving from around 6.30pm.

This week, the “Feature Game” will be the Americas Expansion for one of the group’s favourite games, the 2019 Golden GOAT winner, Wingspan (base game rules, review and how to play video; expansion rules and overview). This may or may not additionally include cards from the European, Oceania and Asia expansions, but whatever happens, lots of eggs and birds are guaranteed.

– Image from stonemaiergames.com

And speaking of birds…

Jeff’s latest job was working on the check-in desk at Fuerteventura Airport. He’d been up early and his final customer of the day was an Egyptian Vulture who had decided to take a commercial flight rather than flying South for the winter.

The Vulture had heard about airline food, however, so he had brought along a dead rat for an in-flight snack.

As Jeff gave the Vulture his boarding pass, he noticed the rat tucked under the Vulture’s wing and politely asked, “Would you like me to check that in, sir?”

“No, thank you,” the Vulture replied. “It’s carrion.”

Goats in the News: Festive Frolicking

Goats love Christmas just as much as everyone else, and can get up to just as much mischief during the festive season as at any other time. For example, shortly before Christmas this year, Billy the billy goat chased a lady around Upper Seagry near Chippenham before moving on to pinching oranges from Christmas wreathes. Eventually, the PCs Ferris and Miller deployed riot shields and a lasso to capture the miscreant, who then proceeded to try to eat the patrol car. After briefly breaking loose again, Billy was eventually recaptured and returned to its owner.

@ghrnews

Wiltshire Police have had an unusual festive call out – to an escaped goat terrorising a woman in her own garden. ‘Billy’ was charging around a street in Upper Seagry – before stopping to much on a Christmas wreath. He’s now safely back at home after an officer managed to lasso him.

♬ original sound – Greatest Hits Radio News

– From tiktok.com

In contrast, Boomer, Dingle, Tootle and Tumble, the pygmy goats from Abingdon Lock, were rewarded for their good behaviour with a special post-Christmas meal of festive foliage. While some plants are like laurel and onions are can make goats very ill, it turns out that fresh pine-needles are full of anti-oxidants and vitamins and Christmas tree bark is a really special Tree-t!

@drwoomanchu

Serving up Christmas trees as a snack! Meet the Abingdon Lock pygmy goats, Boomer, Dingle, Tootle and Tumble! 🎄🐐🥰

♬ original sound – drwoomanchu

– From tiktok.com

Golden GOAT Award Winners – 2025

As usual, just before Christmas, the boardGOATS Un-Christamas Dinner was accompanied by the annual voting for the GOAT Awards. After food and festivities (including the now infamous Gamers’ crackers) the group voted for the two two awards: the Golden GOAT for our favourite game played during the year and the “GOAT Poo” award for our least favourite. Everyone had the usual three points to hand out for the Golden GOAT Award (plus a bonus if wearing Festive Attire), though a maximum of two points could be given to any individual game. Everyone could also nominate up to two individual games for the GOAT Poo Prize and share any special memories as their “Moment of the Year”.

Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 7 – Japan & Italy

– Image by boardGOATS

First up was the Moment of the Year. This almost always generates a lot of discussion, and this year was no exception, until Blue reminded the people near her of the game of Ticket to Ride with the Japan Map, back in March. She commented that her Moment of the Year was when Pine galloped across the room to say that Pink had lost fifty-two points thanks to Purple brilliantly claiming a single route from Hiroshima to Okayama and entirely unintentionally preventing Pink from completing his four long Tickets. Word quickly spread round the room and it was almost a unanimous decision that this was the winner (though opinions differed on whether Purple’s train placement or Pink’s disgust that followed or Pine’s glee was the actual “Moment”).

– Image by boardGOATS

This year, it was agreed that there were no outstandingly awful games this year so it wasn’t awarded, even though Roll for the Galaxy, River Valley Glassworks and Crappy Birthday got a couple of nominations each (clearly the last of these must have been people joking however). The unofficial “Marmite Award” which goes to games with nominations for both the Golden GOAT and the GOAT Poo prizes, went jointly to two older games, Bohnanza and Saboteur, which clearly divide opinion. And finally, there was the Golden GOAT Award for the best game played in the year. Previous winners including Stamp Swap, Wingspan and 6 Nimmt! were ruled out, but there were plenty of options remaining.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pink’s gerrymandering in favour of Zoo Break (with various offers of bribes) were largely unsuccessful. The initial vote gave a three-way tie between Finspan, Intarsia, and Fromage. Finspan was ruled out as it had received one nomination for GOAT Poo (the first tie-breaker), which meant that for the first time in three years, the winner was not going to be a Stonemaier product. That left a two game run-off between the beautiful Intarsia and the smooth cheese-themed Fromage. Victory went to Fromage, which had been so well received that several people had backed the crowdfunding campaign for the follow-up, Formaggio.

– Image by boardGOATS

Essen 2025

Today is the conclusion of the largest annual gathering of gamers in Europe. The Internationale Spieltage is known to gamers worldwide simply as “SPIEL” or “Essen” and is a four day fair with lots of new releases scheduled to coincide with the event, just in time for Christmas sales. This year, there have been lots of exciting new games available to be seen including Galactic Cruise, Brick Like This!, Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor, Waddle, Orloj: The Prague Astronomical Clock (which was sold out before the end of the first day) and Origin Story (which was sold out by Friday).

– Image by boardGOATS

In addition to new games, the rise of crowd funding has had a large impact, and increasingly there are stands presenting current live projects in the hope of seccuring additional backers. Examples of this included, Eldertide: A Thousand Lights, the Lodges expansion to Kavango, Cascadia: Alpine Lakes, AstroNavigators, and the re-release of Nippon to name just a few. There have been a lot of really good deals to be had too, and there will be even more on the final day today. It was with sadness though that the Snowdonia spin-off, Alubari was found at a discounter for €15, as this was a great game released with much fanfare a few years ago.

– Image by boardGOATS

Old favourites typically often get a new lease of life with the release of expansions. This year, relatively recent releases like SETI (which was confirmed as the winner of the Deutscher Spiele Preis), Faraway, Castle Combo and Windmill Valley recieved new additions, but older games like Underwater Cities and Wingspan also got some love (with the new Data Era expansion and the fan-designed promo packs). As well as new games and expansions, there were also a number of re-releases of old favourites including Ra, Bohnanza (with Dahlia artwork) and Botswana, and even Ticket to Ride which has had a bit of a face-lift with new artwork.

– Image by boardGOATS

For those that were prepared to stay late on Friday, there was a world record attempt for the most people playing The Settlers of Catan together. This was achieved with CATAN-Connect, which is a new version of the game designed for large parties that has large groups playing around single islands with elements of simultaneous play and everyone working to one electronic dice roll and a timer. The record had been set at Essen in 2015 with one thousand and forty, only for Rotterdam to set a new record two years later with one thousand and ninety-six. At SPIEL, one thousand, one hundred and seventy players joined in the game (watched by a few more who were just curous), successfully bringing the world record back to Germany where it arguably belongs.

– Image by boardGOATS

boardGOATS is Now a Troublesome Teen!

Thirteen Today

BoardGOATS is has reached its Troublesome Teens!

It is over thirteen years since our first boardGOATS meeting at the Horse and Jockey in Stanford-in-the-Vale. We now typically have over ten, lovely people every time many of whom make a special effort to travel some distance to join us—without you, boardGOATS wouldn’t exist, so we really appreciate it all the effort you folks make. Here’s to another year of great games!

Goats in the News: The Velkopopovický Kozel Brewery

A few weeks ago, while many of us were playing games, two members of the group were visiting the village of Velké Popovice in Czechia. Part of the reason for their visit was to go on the Kozel Brewery tour. The first references to the Popovice Brewery come from the mid-sixteenth century, but the first batch of the dark Velkopopovický Kozel beer was brewed on 15^th December 1847. Internationally, Kozel is probably the best known Czech beer, although the brand has been owned by Asahi since 2016.

– Image by boardGOATS

The interest here, is in the name—Kozel means “goat” in Czech and this is reflected in the brand logo. The origin apparently comes from the fact that a dark beer used to be called “bock”, which also means “goat” in German. Hence, the brewery’s strong, dark beer became known locally as kozel. So, when in 1919, a lost French painter passed through the fillage, he gave the village a painted billy goat as a thank you for giving him food and shelter. Since then, the brewery have had a sucession of goat mascots, most of which have been called Olda, and the current incumbent can be visited by people touring the facility.

– Image by boardGOATS

Deutscher Spiele Preis – 2025

The Deutscher Spiele Preis is awarded anually based on an open vote from German games clubs, gamers in German-speaking countries and people in the gaming industry. It recognises the “Best Children’s Game” and a top ten list of the “Best Family and Adult Games”. Although the order of the top three in each category won’t be announced until the Internationale Spieltage in Essen at the end of October, the list of winning games has been released.

– Image by BGG contributor tobsn,
adapted by boardGOATS

The top three in the general category in alphabetical order are:

Bomb Busters
Endeavor: Tiefsee (aka Endeavour: Deep Sea)
SETI: Auf der Suche nach außerirdischen Leben (aka SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)

The remaining list of games in the top ten are:

Castle Combo
Faraway
Civolution
Blood on the Clocktower
Slay the Spire: Das Brettspiel (aka Slay the Spire: The Board Game)
Astrobienen (aka Apiary)
Dune: Imperium — Uprising

The games named in the Deutscher Spiele Preis lists often intersect with the winners and nominees of the annual Spiel des Jahres Award. This time is no exception, indeed the only game in the top five Deutscher Spiele Preis list not to have recieved a Spiel des Jahres award or a nomination likely missed out because it was considered too complex. And therein lies much of the difference between the two: the Spiel des Jahres nominees/winners are chosen by a committee with a list of strict criteria, whereas the Deutscher Spiele Preis is more like a list of the most popular games of the preceding year, with the gaming public having a strong say. As a result, the Deutscher Spiele Preis often includes heavier games.

– Image by BGG contributor spiritraw,
adapted by boardGOATS

The top three children’s games (again in alphabetical order) are, Cascadia Junior, Die kleinen Alchemisten (aka Little Alchemists), and Die Sandburgen von Burgund (aka The Sandcastles of Burgundy). The order of the top three in both categories will be announced at the press conference on Wednesday 22^nd October; congratulations to everyone on the list.

– Image from
spiel-essen.com