Next Meeting, 4th August 2020 – Online!

It is at times of stress that people need social contact more than ever, and board games are a great medium for that. Despite the limitations of “remote gaming”, the overwhelming impression is that it is important to stay in touch, so we are persisting with online meetings. Therefore, our next meeting will be on Tuesday 4^th August 2020; we will gather from around 7.30pm, and start playing at 8pm.

This week, in a change from the recent “Roll and Write” games (namely Noch Mal!, Second Chance and Cartographers), the “Feature Game” will be Finstere Flure (aka Fearsome Floors). This is an older game where players are trying to get their pieces across the dungeon of prince Fieso’s fortress, without being eaten by the monster, Furukulus.

– Image by boardGOATS

And talking of monsters…

Jeff had a fear that there was a monster living under his bed. Because he wasn’t sleeping, it was affecting all aspects of his life, so he decided to seek professional help. During the consultation, the specialist told him his situation was unusual but not unheard of. He explained that he could be cured, but it would take a minimum of six sessions at £250 each.

Jeff declined citing the large cost and decided to struggle on.

A few months later, Jeff was at a pub when he bumped into the same specialist, who asked if he’d made any progress.

“It’s perfect doctor,” Jeff responded, “No more monsters.”

“That’s really excellent, but how did you manage it?” the specialist asked.

“Well,” said Jeff, “I told a friend of mine, and she solved my problem in exchange for a bottle of whiskey.”

The specialist was puzzled. “What did she do?” he asked.

Jeff, replied gleefully, “She told me to saw the legs off my bed!”

21st July 2020 (Online)

The evening started with everyone eating their supper and chatting about where they had been out. Pine admired Green and Lilac’s pizzas and Blue and Pink told everyone about their visits to The Jockey beer garden. Pine shared his experience visiting the café at the Court Hill Centre on The Ridgeway, and there was a lot of discussion about how The Maybush had re-opened (again) and how it might compare to the Rose Revived over the road. Purple commented that BBC4 was re-showing their series about the history of board games, Games Britania, which sounded quite interesting.

– Image by Lime

Once everyone had joined the Microsoft Teams party (minus Lime who was enjoying the view in Llandudno), we settled down to play the “Feature Game“, which was Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale. This is a slightly more complicated “Roll and Write” game, that builds on our experience with Noch Mal! and Second Chance both of which have worked well. Although Cartographers is a little bit more involved than some of the other games of this kind, it works well with many players. It was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres Award this year and we thought we would play it to celebrate the winners of the Spiel/Kennerspiel des Jahres winners which were announced on Monday.

– Image adapted by boardGOATS from the
live stream video on spiel-des-jahres.de

We’ve had little chance to play any of the Spiel/Kennerspiel des Jahres nominees so were not in a position to comment on them. That said, the winners (Pictures and The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine respectively), were not games that are a good match for the group anyhow, though some of the runners up might have been of interest under more normal circumstances. As it is now, Cartographers is the only game we can really play at the moment as it can be played remotely with a couple of minor tweaks.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is another “Tetrissy” game where players can, once again, release their inner toddler and enjoy an evening of colouring in. The idea is that players have been sent out by Queen Gimnax to map the northern territory, claiming it for the Kingdom of Nalos. Through edicts, the Queen announces which lands she prizes the most, and meeting these demands increases players reputation – the player with the highest reputation at the end of the game is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game takes place over four seasons, a year. During each season, Exploration cards are revealed, each depicting the terrain type (Lakes, Woodland, Farmland and Village) and shape that has been discovered which players draw on their map. These can be rotated, or mirrored, but must be drawn so they don’t overlap with a filled space and are wholly within the borders of the map. Some Exploration cards give players a choice of terrain, others a choice of shape, but all come with a “time”, zero, one, or two—when the total reaches the number for that season, the round is over, the cards are returned to the deck which is reshuffled, and the map is scored.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the start of the game, there are four scoring cards revealed and these are scored in pairs at the end of each round, similar to Isle of Skye. Thus at the end of the first round, Spring, cards A and B are scored, at the end of the Summer, cards B and C are scored and so on. This time the four scoring cards were Sentinel Wood, Canal Lake, Shieldgate and The Cauldrons. These delivered points for Woodland adjacent to the edge of the map; Farmland and Lakes next to each other; the size of players’ second largest village and any single spaces surrounded by mapped territory.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are two maps available; for our first game, we chose to use “Side A”, which comes with five spaces already filled with Mountain terrain and six spaces marked with Ionic columns as Ruin spaces. These act as normal spaces, though when a Ruin card is revealed, the next Exploration card revealed must cover one of those Ruin spaces. If a shape does not fit or cannot be placed according to the rules (or over a Ruins space if required), the player fills a single, one-by-one space with the terrain of their choice.

– Image by boardGOATS

In addition to Exploration and Ruins cards there are also Ambush cards. There are four of these special cards, and one is added to the deck in each round. They can have a massive impact on the game, so when they are revealed, they are removed from the game. The Ambush cards depict a shape and a direction, clockwise or anti-clockwise. The idea is that players pass their map to the next player in the direction depicted and they add the shape to the map filling it with purple monsters. Each space orthogonal to a Monster space, then scores minus one at the end of the round, and every round that follows.

– Image by boardGOATS

We had planned to reduce the number of Monsters (introducing the first one in the second round and seeing how it went), but holding up maps and trying to explain where the Monster terrain should go was always going to be a problem. Burgundy, who had watched the Rahdo’s Run Through online suggested playing them with the Solo rules. These place the Monster terrain in one corner and if it doesn’t fit, it is then moved around the map first hugging the edge and then slowly moving inwards in a spiral until there is a space it fits in. Since we played the first round without them, and one didn’t appear, we only revealed two in the whole game, but playing this way worked well.

– Image by boardGOATS

The first round started with an Orchard and a decision: with Sentinel Wood giving points for woodland round the edge of the map and Canal Lake giving points for Farmland next to Lakes and Lakes next to Farmland, was it best to start with Woodland or Farmland? Hindsight is a wonderful thing and, when the Fishing Village and Hinterland Stream were also revealed (both providing either Lake or Farmland) it was clear that Woodland was the wrong choice. With just four cards in the first round, it quickly became clear that placing Farmland and Lakes well could score highly, which is exactly what Green and Burgundy did.

– Image by boardGOATS

Everyone else went into the second round feeling they had lost already, and when most of the cards that came out had a timing of two and didn’t include Lake and Farmland, it looked like Green and Burgundy were just going to stretch their lead further. There was much hilarity when Black asked what people would score if they only had one big red thing—he worked it out amid the giggles, eventually. With time almost out, the first Ambush card, Gnoll Raid, put in an appearance. This scuppered lots of people’s plans and gave almost everyone plenty of negative points to work on, especially since there weren’t many more cards to go in the round.

– Image by boardGOATS

The third round was relatively uneventful with players working hard to mitigate the effects of the Gnoll Raid while ensuring there were plenty of single space gaps to score in the last two rounds. At the start of the final round, the Kobold Onslaught was revealed and with a slightly awkward profile, most people were going to have problems reducing their negative tally. That said, with gaps giving positive points, some people found that the negative effects could be neutralised to some extent.

– Image by boardGOATS

Some of the scores in the final round were very large compared to those earlier in the game, some were in the thirties compared with single digits in the first round. This was largely because players had been able to plan for the final round of course, in particular by lining the edge of their map with Woodland. As players tallied up their scores it looked like Burgundy had it, especially with his thirty-nine in the final round, however, Blue had done well in the second and third rounds which was just enough to beat him by a single point.

– Image by boardGOATS

While Blue and Burgundy double-checked their maths, Pink commented that he was going up to Durham to check the house was OK. Pine replied that he was just like Boris Johnson’s father Stanley who had been to Greece to check his holiday home, then asked whether he’d prefer to be compared with Stanley Johnson or Dominic Cummings. Pink thought about it, then said that although Stanley Johnson was irritating, he was only marginally more irritating than Stanley Unwin and Dominic Cummings was actually evil, so it would have to be Stanley.

– Image from televisionheaven.co.uk

There was a lot of conversation about this largely theoretical point when Pine suddenly said, “Who? Who’s Stanley Unwin? I think I may have got him confused with Stanley Holloway and was thinking about Albert and the Lion…” This prompted memories of the stick with a horse’s head handle and lots of tales from The North and reminiscences of holidays in Wales. Despite this sojourn and the fact that Cartographers is more complex than the “Roll and Write” games that we’d played previously, it hadn’t taken very long to play. So after a bit of a discussion of the options, we decided to give our old favourite 6 Nimmt! yet another outing, on Board Game Arena.

– Image by boardGOATS

This is a simple game that we’ve played a lot, where players simultaneously choose cards and then, starting with the lowest card revealed, add them to rows of cards on the table. The player to place the sixth card in any given row instead takes the five cards on the table, which then go in their scoring pile. The rows always increase in in number from left to right. In the version of the game we play, cards are added to the high end of the row where the end card is has the highest value that is lower than the card placed.

– Image by boardGOATS

There is a variant, where players can add cards to both ends of the rows, but last time we played, Pine, the only one who had played it said it was very random so we gave it a miss. The subject came up again, but with everyone involved, we decided to stick to the “normal version”. This time, Purple was the first to pick up cards, taking ten “nimmts”, quickly followed by Blue, and the game was starting to look like a re-run of the last time we played. Team Greeny-Lilac really struggled using a mobile phone, so Blue shared her screen between turns so he could better see the layout. Despite their inability to see the cards on display properly, they were doing really well, until their vision improved when Blue started to share her screen.

– Image by boardGOATS
from boardgamearena.com

At that point, they suddenly started to pick up cards and it all went down hill. In fact the were going down hill so fast that they hit the fence first smashing through it with a very fine minus eight, while Black was the winner with fifty-six. Ivory decided to call it a night there, but everyone else was happy to give it another go. This time, Purple saved Team Greeny-Lilacs blushes by ensuring they didn’t finish two games at the bottom, and Burgundy took the honours finishing with forty-eight. With that, Team Greeny-Lilac decided they’d had enough of fighting with the website on a mobile. With numbers dropping to six, Pink was keen to give the “Professional” game a go.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Six is a funny number for 6 Nimmt!, so despite Pine’s reluctance, we decided to try it. In this variant, cards can go on either end of the row, whichever is closest. So a twelve would normally go after a ten, say, but in this version if one of the rows starts with a thirteen, it would go before that instead, shifting all the cards along. If this means there are now six cards in the row, then the cards move into that player’s scoring pile and the card they played forms the starting card for the row. This game always causes a lot of moaning and groaning and cursing, though as a nice group of people, we also always say thank-you when someone else picks up a fist-full of cards on our behalf, saving blushes. The “Professional” variant, however, was absolute mayhem!

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

It certainly wasn’t random, but the predicting what might happen was considerably more complex than for the standard game. For some this made it more interesting, for others it just seemed total chaos. Everyone was very glad the computer was working out where to place the cards though. There were a couple of very interesting consequences of the new rules, though. For example, low numbers, in particular single digits, are no-longer near-automatic pick-ups. So, instead of waiting to play number one when there is a row with a singleton, it can now be used to mess everyone else about. As it is always going to be resolved first, it will always go at the front of another row. Additionally, cards that were previously very safe plays, are now not.

– Image by boardGOATS

So, playing a forty-four after a forty three as the fifth card in a row was almost always safe under the normal rules, but with this variant, if someone else has played a card at the front of that row, that forty-four is now the sixth card guaranteeing a pile of nimmts. Similarly, rows with the highest cards are usually dead and just increase the competition for the other rows making it more difficult. With the new rules though, these rows can still be played and can become a trap for the unwary too. As a result, the new rules made it really interesting, but could have completely unpredictable effects, and everybody felt it would be too random with more than six players.

– Image by boardGOATS
from boardgamearena.com

Some things don’t change no matter what you do and Purple seemed to have an uncanny knack of picking a card that went in just the wrong place. Nobody really understood how, but Pink won the first round—not to say that Pink shouldn’t have won, just that everyone was so busy trying to work out what was going on and why, that nobody was watching what Pink was doing! It was an absolute hoot though, and when Pink said he thought it was time he went to bed Blue commented that it wasn’t fair for him to leave without giving everyone else a chance to challenge him to another game. So, only slightly reluctantly, he stayed for one more game. This was just as crazy as the first and just as much fun too. This time it was very close between Black and Blue, with Blue just edging it. But the winner wasn’t important, it was all about the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Under the right circumstances, even a favourite can be improved.

Boardgames in the News: Games Britannia

With people’s horizons limited by the pandemic, the national broadcasters have been digging about in their cupboards and have made available some of their old classics. BBC4 have also got in on the act, replaying their 2009 series about the history of popular games in Britain. The three-part series, “Games Britannia“, is presented by historian and English lecturer, Benjamin Woolley, and covers “games in Britain from the Iron Age to the Information Age”.

– Image from bbc.co.uk

The first part was repeated last Monday (20th July), and explains how ancient and medieval games were more than just fun, but by the late Middle Ages gaming had become increasingly associated with gambling. The episode concludes in the Victorian era with establishment of the world’s first commercial games industry. The second episode will be shown tonight (at 10.40pm) and traces the surprising political and social impact that board games have had in Britain over the last two hundred years, while the concluding part is next week (at 11pm) and moves onto computer gaming.

– Image from video on bbc.co.uk

The first episode is currently on BBC iPlayer and will be available for about three weeks; the second and third episodes will be available shortly after broadcast.

Goats in the News: Really Useful Goats

Obviously, goats are very lovely, but they can be useful as well as ornamental. The flock that visit annually visit the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California are essential and have averted a number of crises. In what has become a nice seasonal tradition, every year, the LBNL rent the herd from “Goats R Us”, to eat the grass and reduce the wildfire risk around the laboratory; watching their arrival is quite spectacular…

– Video by Berkeley Lab on youtube.com

Next Meeting, 21st July 2020 – Online!

It is at times of stress that people need social contact more than ever, and board games are a great medium for that. Despite the limitations of “remote gaming”, the overwhelming impression is that it is important to stay in touch, so we are persisting with online meetings. Therefore, our next meeting will be on Tuesday 21^st July 2020; we will gather from around 7.30pm, and start playing at 8pm.

This week, the “Feature Game” will be Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale. This is a slightly more complicated “Roll and Write” game, that builds on our experience with Noch Mal! and Second Chance which both worked so well. Cartographers is a little bit more involved than the other two, but also works with many players. It was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres Award this year and we thought we would play it to celebrate the winners of the Spiel/Kennerspiel des Jahres winners which have just been announced.

– Adapted from image by BGG Contributor Johnny Dangerously

And talking of cartographers…

Jeff’s cartographer wife, Jill, was worried she’d lost some very important topographical maps. They spent all morning trying to find them, looking high and low. Eventually, when all hope was lost and Jill thought she was going to have to start again from scratch, Jeff opened a desk draw they had already searched twice, and there they were.

When Jeff showed his wife what he’d found, she said, “Oh, that’s a relief…!”

7th July 2020 (Online)

The evening started with a round of “Swap Shop” as Lime tried to get rid of a couple of aquarium snails that were surplus to requirements (the other occupants of the tank having recently expired), and Purple offering a size ten frock. Once the snails had been re-homed with Magenta in Wantage, we’d discussed the reopening of the Horse and Jockey, and everyone had compared their colouring tools, Blue explained the rules for the “Feature Game“, the cross between communal colouring and Tetris that is Second Chance.

– Image by boardGOATS

This is a really, really, simple “Roll and Write” type game, similar in style and feel to Noch Mal! which we played a few weeks back over Microsoft Teams and really enjoyed. In that game, players were rolling dice, whereas Second Chance is card driven. Each player starts with piece of paper with a nine-by-nine array of squares which they colour in depending on what is revealed on the cards. Two cards are turned over at a time, each displaying a shape; players choose one to add to their player area.

– Image by boardGOATS

The shape can go anywhere in the array as long as it doesn’t overlap anything else or extend out of the area. More than one player can choose each shape and once drawn, its position is final. If a player is unable to use either shape they get another card specially for them—their second chance. If they are still unable to go, they are out, otherwise, they live to fight another day. The game ends when one player fills their grid, everyone is out or the deck of cards is depleted. The player with the fewest uncovered spaces at the end is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Players start with their own individual first tile which they must place over the central square. Although the game only officially plays six, fortunately there are enough of these in the box for everyone to have a different start, even though there were ten of us playing. It wasn’t long before there was a contented silence as everyone got on with their colouring projects.

– Image by boardGOATS

As Pink turned over the cards, there were grunts of disgust and sighs of delight in almost equal measure. Little Lime seemed greatly entertained by the whole thing and Pine commented that he could just imagine her telling all her chums that “My Daddy does colouring in with his friends online…” The general consensus was that the game felt a lot like being back at primary school, though Pine commented that it was also like watching landscape architects. He explained that he worked with some and they spent a lot of time colouring in and have amazing boxes of pencils but only ever use green and brown.

– Image by boardGOATS

As the game continued, people enjoyed their colouring, but variously struggled with artistic impression. Pine commented that his looked like a work of Jackson Pollock’s, and Green felt would make rhyming slang for his… Despite Little Lime’s assistance Lime was the first to need a second chance and when he was unlucky in his draw, he was the first out. Little Lime explained that he could do better next time if he bought an effective rubber. Purple also needed a second chance, but grabbed hers with both hands and managed to stay in for the rest of the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

More people gradually dropped out, a couple every round, and it wasn’t long before we got to the last two cards. At the end, Lilac, Green and Purple were all still in, and remarkably, so was Burgundy despite having struggled for the last six or seven rounds. It’s not lasting the longest that is key in this game though, it is most efficiently packed grid. Of course, staying in longer usually means more and possibly better opportunities, however. This time, two of the podium places went to the group of survivors, and Purple finished with nine empty spaces, just pipped by Burgundy with eight.

– Image by Burgundy

Second Chance had been a lot of fun, but with remote gaming likely to continue for a while and a lot of “Roll and Write” games on the horizon, after some discussion, we decided to give Saboteur a go. This is a fun hidden traitor game that we’ve played quite a bit and works really well on Board Game Arena. The idea is really simple: players are divided into two teams (Dwarves and Saboteurs), and take it in turns to place tunnel cards with the aim of either tunneling to the gold (Dwarves) or preventing the tunnel reaching the treasure (Saboteurs). The catch is that nobody knows who else is on their team.

– Image by boardGOATS

In addition to tunnel cards, players can also play action cards, breaking other players’ tools (and thus preventing them from extending the tunnel network), fixing other players’ broken tools, causing a tunnel collapse and using a map to look at one of the three target cards to see whether it is gold or coal. Players start with four cards in hand, and draw a replacement each time they play, or discard a card. Since the game ends when the deck is depleted and everyone has played their last card, it is critical that every player gets as much as possible from their cards.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Blue went first, but claimed she had a hand with three broken tool cards and one tunnel dead-end card , so said she had no option but to discarded a card—A Very Saboteury Move. Burgundy and Pink played map cards and checked the middle and top target cards respectively, and both said they saw coal. Pine was suspicious and double checked Pink and concurred. When Black checked the bottom card and confirmed it was gold, things were looking promising, but very little progress had been made on the tunnel and strangely a lot of cards had been discarded with everyone claiming that they didn’t have useful tunnel cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue said she had a Saboteur’s Hand, which was a shame since she wasn’t one. Pink asked whether that was a medical condition and wondered whether there was treatment available for it on the NHS. The bickering stopped abruptly when Purple suddenly “lamped” Team Greeny-Lilac smashing their lantern and leaving them unable to dig. Blue then got in on the act and pulled the wheels of Ivory’s trolley. Purple really had it in for Green and smashed his trolly before Pine joined in and broke shaft of Team Greeny-Lilac’s axe—it seemed they really had it in for them.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

With everyone apparently having no tunnel cards, people were asking for help in how to spend their actions cards: whose tools should they break or repair? When Ivory repeatedly pleaded with Lime to repair his ruin of a trolley, Pink said he’d seen more convincing arguments written on the side of a bus! At this point, the Dwarves were in complete disarray and in serious trouble. It is quite unusual for the Saboteurs to win, but half way through the deck, the Dwarves had made very little progress on the tunnel and were still confused about who the Saboteurs were.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

In the end, it turned out to be a win for the Evil Saboteurs, Black, Burgundy and Purple; despite appearances, Pine, Pink and Green were all actually innocent—this time. It had been a very bruising round though, and everyone took a minute to calm down while the Saboteurs savoured their victory. Board Game Arena had other ideas, however, and the second round was underway before we could blink.

– Image by boardGOATS
from boardgamearena.com

This was much quicker—the tunnel quickly stretched forward towards the middle target even though Greeny-Lilac said it was coal. Purple double-checked and agreed that it was coal and when Blue peeked at the bottom card and said that was coal, everyone knew where they were going. That was until Lime said the top card was also coal…

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

This gave the Dwarves a dilemma: logic dictated that either both Greeny-Lilac and Purple were Saboteurs (the second time in a row for Purple), or one of Blue or Lime were telling porkies. The Valiant Dwarves hedged their bets with two tunnels one headed north and one headed south. All doubts were abruptly put to bed when Lime revealed his true colours by playing a rock-fall card, earning a broken pick-axe from Pine in return.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

It was too little too late though, and with just two Saboteurs they were always going to struggle. It wasn’t long before the Dwarves, in this case Team Greeny-Lilac, found the gold and put the round to bed. The final round was possibly even shorter, certainly the path was more direct. Blue once again played a map card and called the bottom card coal while Black played a map on the middle and called that gold.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

In the absence of any other information, Ivory, Burgundy and Greeny-Lilac headed towards the middle and it was all looking very easy when Purple dropped her bomb-shell, playing a dead-end card leaving the Dwarves with a diversion. Pink then lent his support to Purple (a Saboteur for the third time!), blocking the alternative route. Much to her disgust, Pine accused Blue of “Boris Johnson Logic” and then exacerbated his bad behaviour by breaking Blue’s pick-axe. Blue retaliated by breaking Pink’s pick and Ivory joined in by breaking Purple’s.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

With a maximum of three Saboteurs possible all three were revealed and when Burgundy smashed Pine’s lantern they were all disabled too. At least they were unable to dig, but they could still cause mischief. Fortunately for the Dwarves, they didn’t have the cards to cause too much trouble. Every time someone repaired a tool, a Dwarf stepped in and broke another one, keeping the evil Saboteurs pinned down.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Greeny-Lilac played a rockfall on the dead-end and Lime, Black and Ivory finished the job off. That only left the scores. These are bit strange and depend on treasure cards that are shared out amongst the winners, so luck is a big factor. This time is was a tie for first place though, with honours shared between Black and Ivory.

– Image by boardGOATS

With that, Ivory and Team Greeny-Lilac called it an night and everyone else decided to close the evening with a game of our old favourite, 6 Nimmt!. There was some discussion about playing with one of the variants. Normally, players choose a card and then starting with the lowest, they are added one at a time to one of the four rows with the player who places the sixth card picking up. One of the options is that cards can go at either end, being added to whichever row is closest.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue was keen to give the variant a go, but Pine had played it before and said he didn’t really understand what it did, but it felt very random. With such a large number of people it seemed wise to leave it for another day, so we stuck to the usual game. This time, Blue picked up six Nimmts on her first turn and had a terrible first round. Purple didn’t do much better either picking up fifteen in one turn, and it all looked like it was going to be over quite quickly.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

With Blue and Purple leading the way to the bottom, the only real question was which of the others would be left behind at the end. It was very tight, and since Blue and Purple fought a valiant rear-guard action the game went on longer than initially expected; Purple in particular hung on for ages with just one point. In fact, she managed to hold on to that single point until the end of the game as it was Blue who went into the red and brought it to a stop.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

The game finished with tie for first place between Lime and Pink on forty-four with Burgundy a little way behind in third with thirty-six. With that, Lime and Pink bade everyone else good night leaving five to carry on. There were several options, but the group went for one of the easiest and picked Coloretto. This is a game that everyone is familiar with and has very simple “point decisions” to make: turn over a coloured card and add it to a truck, or take the cards on one truck and bow out for the rest of the round.

– Image by boardGOATS

Although the decision is very simple, there is a surprising amount of depth, because even though trucks only hold three cards, the colours are critical. Players are collecting different coloured cards and the more cards the more points they deliver, with points awarded according to the Triangular Number Series. This means that up to the maximum of six, adding just one more card, increases the number of points by around fifty percent. The key part is that the largest three sets score positively, while the rest are negative, so players want three large sets and everything else to be as small as possible.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game started with Blue getting lucky with a couple of early yellow chameleons while Purple and picked up a couple of wild cards. These are really useful because they are added to a set at the end of the game to give the maximum number of points possible. Black, Burgundy and Pine all started collecting the 1970s sets (orange and brown cards), with the competition making it more difficult for all of them.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Meanwhile, Blue, finding competition for the yellow cards moved to collecting grey and soon had a full set of six. With this, a large set of yellows and almost no negative points, it looked like she had an unassailable lead. And so it proved: when the end of the game was triggered there was nothing anyone could do. While it was quite tight for second place with Burgundy’s twenty-four points sneaking ahead of Black, Blue was some way clear with thirty-five points.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Clearly that was unsatisfactory, and Black and Burgundy were keen to rectify matters, so they twisted Pine’s arm and persuaded him to join in a re-match. Things didn’t go quite according to plan, however. Purple’s starting colour of green proved challenging when five of the first ten cards drawn were green and everyone else contrived to ensure they all went into different carts making sure everyone ended with at least one.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

The next round didn’t look as if it was going to be much better for poor Purple when the first card drawn was also green, but she grabbed it early. Blue made an early error enabling Burgundy to pick up a nice pair of blue cards. It was really tight though, with most players matching each other blow for blow and everyone finishing rounds dead level, first with five points then nine points, then fourteen.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

It was only at the end of the fourth round that the gaps started to show with Burgundy and Purple edging ahead by a couple of points. Going into the final round it was close, but although it was tight, Burgundy had control of the situation and finished three points clear of the field with twenty seven points. It was a tie for second between Blue and Purple, who had somehow managed to collect five green cards and a wild with no negative points.

– Image by boardGOATS

The numbers were dwindling, but there was still a hard-core of hardened gamers who were reluctant to retire to bed, though nobody wanted to start something difficult or long. The options were limited so it wasn’t long before someone suggested the simle tile-laying game Kingdomino and everyone else quickly agreed.

– Image by boardGOATS

Although the pieces are all the same size and shape (two by one rectangles), Kingdomino has a lot of the Tetris-like aspects of Second Chance, in that the aim is to fit everything together as efficiently as possible. The really clever aspect of the game is the market. This consists of two columns of four tiles drawn at random, but placed in ranking order from low to high. Each player begins with a marker on one tile in the left column and starting with the lowest value tile, the player takes the tile adds it to their Kingdom and then places their marker on the tile of their choice in the second column. In this way, the player with the least valuable tiles gets to choose first in the next round.

– Image by boardGOATS

Points are scored for the number of crowns in an area multiplied by the number of tiles in that area. Thus an area of five squares with three crowns in it would score fifteen points. In this case though, we also included two scoring bonus: five points if there were no discarded tiles and ten points for finishing with their castle in the centre of their kingdom. At the start of the game, four tiles are revealed and players choose which they take in turn without knowing what will turn up in the next round.

– Image by boardGOATS
from boardgamearena.com

Purple went first and took went for two crowns on pasture. Black went next and made the same choice, but ended up with the fourth tile, meaning he would get Hobson’s choice in the next round. Burgundy went third and took the second tile leaving Blue began with a tile that gave her sea and cornfield with a crown. As this was the lowest value, Blue went first, so had first choice from the next selection and was able to choose another tile giving her more sea and cornfield. This was also a low value tiles so also gave her first choice and in turn, this meant she was able to choose more corn and go first then and then more sea.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Meanwhile, Black was building his pasture, Burgundy was starting trying to focus on the valuable tiles (with more crowns) and Purple was hedging her bets with a bit of everything. Blue continued with her ever-growing cornfield adding crowns whenever she had the chance, while Black and Burgundy got into a bit of a tussle for marshland and mountain terrain.

– Image by boardGOATS
from boardgamearena.com

The marshland and mountain tiles being high rated were often last to be played, which meant that these players were often last to play giving them the left-overs from the next selection. Blue, on the other hand, continued to play a “low rent” game, always taking the cheap tiles, as a result, she ended up with a very large cornfield of eleven spaces and four out of the five available crown giving her forty-four points for that alone. Purple scored well for her forests and lakes, while Black focussed on grasslands and swamps, but even their two terrains didn’t match the total for Blue’s massive cornfield.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Everyone got their both bonuses and with that and a substantial lake, Blue finished with a winning score over seventy. It was second place that was more interesting, however, which was a tie between Purple and Black with sixty-one points each. What nobody hitherto knew, was that there was a tie-breaker: the size of the biggest territory multiplied by a hundred added to the total number of crowns in the kingdom. With that, Purple took great delight in second place. And then it was time for bed for even the most dedicated of board gamers.

– Image by boardGOATS
from boardgamearena.com

Learning Outcome: Once in a while, everyone really enjoys releasing their inner toddler.

Spiel des Jahres Winners – 2020

The 2020 winner of the coveted German Game of the Year or Spiel des Jahres award has been announced as Pictures. This is a family game where players have to model the picture on their card using the available components, e.g. shoelaces, coloured cubes, etc.; players get points for correctly guessing other players images and for other players guessing their image.

– Image adapted by boardGOATS from the
live stream video on spiel-des-jahres.de

The Kennerspiel des Jahres was awarded at the same time. This honours more challenging games and this year was awarded to The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine. This is a co-operative trick-taking game, where the players are astronauts on an uncertain space adventure. The Kinderspiel des Jahres award was announced last month and went to Speedy Roll (aka Hedgehog Roll) a game where players which players roll a Velcro ball to pick up goodies that help the move their hedgehogs through the forest, cooperatively or in competition. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.

– Image by BGG contributor kalchio

Boardgames in the News: Carcassonne Catches Catan

Board Game Geek (BGG) is arguably the foremost website for information on board games. It includes a forum for discussion, but also an extensive database currently comprising nearly a hundred and twenty thousand games with associated reviews, photos, publication details and rules clarifications. There are over two million registered users of the site, many of whom use the BGG to record the games they own, log each time they play, and register their ratings of games in the database.

– Image by boardGOATS

For many years, the most rated game according to the BGG website was The Settlers of Catan but it has now been overtaken by Carcassonne (95,496 and 95,499 ratings respectively as of 1am BST on Sunday 19^th July). Over the coming weeks the numbers will fluctuate and the tide will ebb and flow, but it looks like Catan, which was released in 1995 (five years before Carcassonne), has been caught. The race is not over, however, Pandemic is not far behind…

– Image by boardGOATS

Next Meeting, 7th July 2020 – Online!

It is at times of stress that people need social contact more than ever, and board games are a great medium for that. Despite the limitations of “remote gaming”, the overwhelming impression is that it is important to stay in touch, so we are persisting with online meetings. Therefore, our next meeting will be on Tuesday 7^th July 2020; we will gather from around 7.30pm, and start playing at 8pm.

This week, the “Feature Game” will be Second Chance. This is a very simple “Roll and Write” game, similar to Noch Mal! which worked so well a few weeks back, that we played it twice. Although Roll and Write games have a tendency to feel like multiplayer solitaire, they are very successful when played remotely and can usually play a lot of people (often more than originally designed for).

– Image by boardGOATS

And talking of second chances…

Jeff and Joe we were sitting exams. On the eve of their final paper, they drove for an hour to a bar, to celebrate. Unfortunately, they had a couple too many and ended up spending the night in the car.

By the time they reached the examination room the next morning, the exam was over and invigilator had collected all the papers. Jeff and Joe explained to their supervisor how they’d had a puncture in the middle of the night and had to wait for daylight to get someone to change the tyre for them. They begged and pleaded with the lecturer for a second chance to take the exam. Much to the lads’ surprise and delight, their examiner was sympathetic towards them and told them to come back to take the paper the next day at 9am.

So, the next day, Jeff and Joe turned up promptly and were ushered into separate rooms. In each room there was one desk with a pen and the exam paper, face down.

At exactly 9am, Jeff and Joe were both told to turn over the paper which revealed just one question.

“Which tyre?”

23rd June 2020 (Online)

Maybe it was the really hot weather, or perhaps it was the prospect of playing something we all know and love, but people seemed in a slightly brighter mood this week. Pine commented that every time Purple moved her head he could see the swastika on the box for Escape from Colditz behind her and he was finding it disconcerting. After she had shuffled her seat, Purple commented that it was hers and Black’s fifteenth wedding anniversary, leading to a chorus of “Happy Anniversary” from everyone.

– Image by boardGOATS

From there the conversation inevitably moved on to the news that pubs will reopen on 4^th July, and specifically the fantastic news that the Horse and Jockey will be one of them. Clearly there is a long way to go before we can return to playing games there, but it has to be good news for our friends whose livelihoods depend on the place. There was a lot of concern at the suggestion that people will have to leave their personal details in pubs and what other purposes these may be put to; this was followed by the suggestion that there might be an awful lot of visits to the pub by “Dominic Cummings”… With that, it was 8pm and everyone had arrived, so we started with an explanation of the differences between Las Vegas Royale and our old favourite, Las Vegas.

– Image by boardGOATS

The underlying game is much the same, in that people roll dice and choose which of six, numbered casinos to place them on. As usual, the active player must place all the dice of one number on the casino of that number and when all dice have been placed, any ties are removed and the winnings are awarded to the owners of the remaining dice, with the largest money card going to the player with the most dice. In the new Royale version, the casinos are arranged in a circle which is quite nice, but more importantly for us, there is no Slot Machine. This is a shame, but in the event, we didn’t really miss it. The new game is played with the “Biggun” from the Boulevard expansion, as standard, which suits us as we always include it when we play.

– Image by boardGOATS

Aside from the new artwork and layout, there is a subtle change to the setup for Las Vegas Royal. In the original, the money cards, each with a value of $10,000 to $100,000 are distributed so that each casino has a minimum fund (dependant on the number of players). This means some will have many winners and others only a single jackpot. In the new version, each casino has just two cards, each with a value between $30,000 and $100,000. We thought this might have a large impact on game play, and although it changed things, it wasn’t worse, just different.

– Image by BGG contributor kalchio

The biggest differences though, were the inclusion of “jetons” and the additional effects associated with some of the casinos. The jetons are tokens that players can use to pass during the game, when their dice roll is unhelpful. The additional actions are added to three of the casinos and usually take effect when a player places dice in that casino. We chose to start with “Lucky Punch” on Miracle Casino (Casino 1), “Prime Time” on Kings Casino (Casino 2) and “High Five” on Marina Casino (Casino 3).

– Image by BGG contributor kalchio

It is possible to add extra actions to all six casinos, but for our first play, we decided to stick to the rules and add them to three only. One area which were we weren’t able to follow the rules in, however, was the player count: the new version, specifies two to five players and there were ten of us. This change is likely because the new features lengthen the game, so additionally, the number of rounds is reduced from four to three. We usually play just three rounds, so we played with two teams of two and decided to make a decision as to how many rounds we would play at the end of the first round. Blue and Pink had set the game up in advance and, like our first remote game back in March, Las Vegas, everyone else followed using Microsoft Teams.

– Image by boardGOATS

Lime started, followed by Burgundy, who rolled five threes and placed them on the Marina Casino activating the “High Five”. This has a token worth “$100,000” on it to be claimed when someone places their fifth die on that casino, and Burgundy duly claimed it. Purple went for the Miracle Casino (1) and the “Lucky Punch” action at the first opportunity. With this action, the active player takes one, two or three tokens into their hand and the next player (in this case Team Greeny-Lilac) have to guess how many tokens they have in their hand. An incorrect guess would give Purple two jetons, $30,000 or $40,000 depending on how many tokens she was holding.

– Image by boardGOATS

So, Purple turned on her camera and held out her paw in such a way that nobody could see it until Black pointed out that the camera was over the other screen. Maybe that was just enough information for Team Greeny-Lilac or maybe they were just lucky, but they successfully guessed Purple had two dice in her hand and, as a result, she won nothing. Burgundy was the next to have a go at the “Lucky Punch”, and it was Purple’s turn to guess.

– Image by boardGOATS

Purple guessed three and Burgundy’s simple reply of “Bugger” told the whole story—this was especially funny since he didn’t have a camera and we were all trusting him to be honest! The “Lucky Punch” proved really popular: Pine was next to have a go and Pink (playing as a team with Blue) had to guess. Although Pine was holding out his hand, Pink couldn’t see the screen from where he was sitting so just guessed three and Pine’s response was just as clear as Burgundy’s. With three out of three failures, people began to wonder whether if we were all psychic.

– Image by boardGOATS

Burgundy was the first to be successful at the “Lucky Punch”, adding $30,000 to his $100,000 from the “High Five”. That wasn’t the opening of the flood-gates though and Ivory’s attempt was blocked by Black and then Black’s was blocked by Lime. Purple was eventually successful, taking $30,000 and Ivory also managed to sneak a couple of jetons, though Pine’s attempt at palming a tree-eeple and a duck-eeple (from Christmas crackers at previous unChristmas Dinners) were spotted by Team Bluey-Pink.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Team Bluey-Pink were the first to use a jeton, followed soon after by Lime. Egged on by everyone else and much to Ivory’s disgust, Black engaged in a battle for Cleopatra Casino (5), eventually leaving Pine to take the $80,000 with just one die. Lime won the Kings Casino, but his “Prime Time” bonus meant he could roll two dice and place them if he wished, though unfortunately they had no impact. The clear winner of the round was Burgundy, however, largely thanks to his $130,000 of bonuses. Time was marching on, so the group decided that there would only be one more round.

– Image by BGG contributor kalchio

Normally, all the additional actions are swapped, however, there were a lot to choose from and swapping them all would have been a significant task. The group decided to swap out “High Five” though, and after rejecting “Bad Luck” as “very evil”, the group opted for “Block It!”. This action enables players to mess with others by placing cubes on casinos where they would be scored in the usual way, but act as an inanimate player. Pine went first in the second round but was immediately obstructed by Team Bluey-Pink who were the first to try the “Block It!” action. First, they moved three neutral dice into the Kings Casino (2) pushing Pine into second place. On their next turn they start moved more neutral dice onto the Sunset Casino, and with Team Greeny-Lilac’s help, made Ivory’s life more difficult and effectively scuppered Burgundy’s plans.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine eventually won $40,000 on the “Lucky Punch”, but Black was not so lucky when Lime correctly called him holding two tokens. Team Greeny-Lilac took $30,000, Black took $40,000, and then Purple did too. It looked like people had worked out how to escape the jinx until Team Greeny-Lilac tried again and Pine guessed correctly. The odds were certainly moving towards the expected two out of three though, especially as Purple and Pine picked up $30,000 each towards the end of the game and Team Bluey-Pink picked up a couple of extra jetons.

– Image by BGG contributor kalchio

Those extra jetons that Blue and Pink had acquired nearly proved very useful when Green and Lilac placed their fifth dice on the Marina Casino (3) leading to a tie for first place. Unfortunately for both, despite several re-rolls, the tie remained and both pairs missed out on both first and second place ($80,000 and $90,000). Green got his just desserts when he ended up in another tie for Miracle Casino (1), this time with the unfortunate Pine who got caught in the cross-fire.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the final tally, the winner was Burgundy, largely thanks to that $100,000 bonus for the “High Five” at the start. Team Greeny-Lilac weren’t far behind though and neither were Pine and Purple who tied for third place. Though it could all have been so different, had Burgundy not picked up that obvious windfall so early, everyone else might not have worked so hard to spoil things in the second round and he may well have picked up more money by other means.

– Image by BGG contributor kalchio

As usual, we had a great time with this fantastic game. The changes to the payout distribution were neither good nor bad, just different. The group had mixed feelings about the new additional actions, though on balance, they were positive. We had a load of fun with the “Lucky Punch” and online it was even more fun somehow. In our game “Prime Time” had little effect and didn’t really influence players, but was very quick to implement and may have more impact at lower player counts. “Block It!” affected the game more, and certainly influenced the game in the second round. “High Five” was the huge game-changer though, certainly in this game.

– Image by boardGOATS

The rules are not completely clear on how this should be used, saying, “When you place your fifth die … in this casino, take the token”. It is not entirely clear whether the $100,000 is available to everyone who places five dice in the casino, or if the first person is the only one who can claim it. Before the game, we had decided to go with the latter and Burgundy’s freaky first roll of five threes effectively ended the competition for the Marina Casino (3) in the first turn. Had the values for the payouts been different and if Burgundy hadn’t rolled all five in one go, this might have played very differently.

– Image by boardGOATS

On reflection, however, there is another way to play this which might have worked better increasing competition, and may have be the designer’s intention too. If each subsequent player to reach five dice were to take the token from the current holder it would increase competition and add a nasty edge to the game. This could also make it a target for using the jetons which otherwise got a bit of mixed reception.

– Image by BGG contributor kalchio

At the end of the game everyone seemed to have too many jetons left and decided to spend them adding a lot of time to the game, mostly for little reward. Several suggestions about how to improve it were made, including forcing players to exchange them for cash at the end of the round, and/or topping people up to a maximum of two at the start of a new rounds, or maybe giving players one or even none at the start of each round thus making any gained from the “Lucky Fist” that bit more precious.

– Image by boardGOATS

The combination of the extra actions, the large number of players and the effect of playing online meant the game had taken a long time, so Lime, Ivory, Green and Lilac took their leave. Although it was late in the UK, it wasn’t in California where Mulberry joined us from her balcony at 38 °C in the mid-afternoon for a game of our old favourite, 6 Nimmt!.

– Image by boardGOATS

6 Nimmt! is such a simple game which keeps everyone involved throughout and the Board Game Arena implementation is so good, that it is often a fall-back for when nobody can be bothered to think. Players simply choose one card simultaneously, then, starting with the lowest value card, they add them to one of the four rows. If the card is the sixth card to be added, the player takes the five cards and the new card becomes the new first card in the row.

– Image by boardGOATS

As always, people complained about the cards they had, though Blue felt she was particularly hard done by this time with one, two and three in consecutive hands and almost nothing above fifty for most of the game. Given that, she didn’t do too badly in the end. There was no beating Pine though. After the game, Pine left and everyone else made it their business to investigate how many games Pine had played on Board Game Arena. There were over a thousand, of which nearly a hundred had been 6 Nimmt!, winning around 30% of games against all comers! And with that, it was time for bed.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Learning Outcome: If voting Donald for US President, many people would prefer the Duck!