Tag Archives: Imhotep

14th June 2022

Pink and Blue were the first to arrive, bringing guests from eastern Europe, Orange and Lemon. Orange and Lemon were new to our sort of board gaming. After an explanation of what mushy peas are, food and some chit chat, others started arriving. The “Feature Game” was the Moor Visitors expansion to Viticulture. Teal had been keen to play the Tuscany board and the plan was to play both together. So when he and Ivory had arrived, they took themselves off to the other side of the room with Pink and started setting up.

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Viticulture is a worker placement game about planting vines, harvesting grapes and making wine. The idea is that the game is broken into seasons and years, and players take it in turns to place their workers in the various locations on the board to carry out the associated actions Although it is not in and of itself an especially innovative game, it is very polished and smooth, and a joy to play. There are a couple of little elements within the game of note. Firstly, each location can take a limited number of workers dependent on the number of players. To grease the wheels a little though, each player also has a “Grande” worker that they can place anywhere, even in a “full” space.

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Players start the game with four cards from which they choose two, a mama and a papa and these dictate players’ starting conditions: money, number of workers, buildings and cards. There are four different types of card, Vines, Contracts, and summer and winter Visitors. Players can only plant vines in the summer, and then only if they have sufficient land and any necessary buildings. From there, grapes can be harvested in the autumn and placed in players’ crush pads and thence combined to form wine and stored and aged in their cellar. Wine can then be used to fulfill contracts in exchange for points. Although this is the main source of points, it is not the only one.

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Some of the Visitor cards give special actions that can be used to generate points, as can buildings like the Windmill and the Tasting Room and some of the Visitor cards. At the end of each year, players get their workers back and age their grapes and wines as well as collecting residual payments (income). The Moor Visitors expansion adds extra visitor cards which are just mixed into the deck providing more variety. The Tuscany expansion mixes things up more, by changing the seasons in which the actions occur, particularly adding actions to spring and autumn. It also provides a couple of extra mechanisms, including the “Influence” action, special buildings and specialist workers.

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This time, there was the initial random draw of the start tokens to “see who’s cock comes out first”, and then the game got under way. Ivory and Teal both trained one of their workers to be “Special Workers”. These act as normal workers, but have a special ability when used in a particular way. Each game, two of these are drawn at random from a deck, and when players train workers, they can make that worker a specialist for an additional fee. The specialisms are open to all players, though each player can only have a maximum of one worker with each skill set.

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The Special Workers this time were the Soldato who bullies other players into paying to use the same action space, and the Sommelier which gives an additional opportunity to age grapes. Ivory went for the military option while Teal selected one of his workers to learn about serving wine. Elsewhere, Pink’s strategy was centered around the use of his Fruit Dealer card from the Moor Visitors expansion. This gave him a point (or money) every time he harvested a specific field. Teal built a Café which allowed him to turn grapes into money or points. Everyone also began with what seems like the accepted strategy of selling off land to gain funds in the early part of the game, buying it back later as required.

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Ivory made an early move to stake his claim on the influence map, using the Influence action to place his Stars. When placing Star tokens, players get a bonus reward for doing so. In this way, it effectively provides an alternative way to access some “actions” when they are not available on the main board. At the end of the game, the player with the most Stars in each region gets one or two bonus points. After placing all six of their Star tokens, players can still use the Influence action by moving them to swing control of regions (but without gaining the instant reward). As the game progressed, everyone else muscled in on the Influence action too, and by the end of the game, Pink had the edge.

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It was an extremely tight game. With the Tuscany expansion, the end is triggered when someone passes twenty-five points. This time, everyone was very watchful, determined not to get caught out like last time when an early break by Teal unexpectedly ended the game leaving Ivory and Pink unable to play their big final plays. As a result, everyone finished the game with exactly the same number of points—twenty-six. That meant the advantage Pink had on the Influence map made the difference, leaving him three points ahead of Ivory and Teal who shared second place both finishing with twenty-eight points, in what had been an epic game between three experienced players.

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While Pink, Ivory and Teal took themselves off to set up Viticulture, everyone else introduced themselves to Orange and Lemon, and gaming was forgotten for the moment. Eventually, this non-Viticulture group separated into two halves, one playing Imhotep while the other (including Orange and Lemon), beginning more slowly, with lighter introductory games. Imhotep is a fun family game that won a nomination for the Spiel des Jahres award in 2016. We’ve played it a few times since then, but like so many games, it had a two year hiatus thanks to the global pandemic.

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In Imhotep, players move large wooden “stone” blocks by boat to build five monuments. The game is quite simple to play: on their turn, the active player can acquire blocks from the quarry, load blocks onto a boat, sail a boat to a monument and add blocks to it, or play an action card. Each monument scores points in different ways, and the player with the most points after six rounds is the winner. The game was new to Lilac and Lime, but they quickly got the hang of it—it is quite easy to learn the functions, but deciding the best way to play is where the challenge comes in.

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Lilac started out making a play for the Obelisks and quickly took a commanding lead there with four stones by the end of the second round, with one each to Black and Lime. Lime decided to go for Statues in the market place, which everyone else ignored and so he too managed to get an early lead in them with three by the end of the second round. Black wanted to get his group of five stones into the Burial Chamber, which Green (who had previously announced that he was thirty-fifth world-wide in the Board Game Arena rankings) had spotted and tried hard, but ultimately unsuccessfully to block. Green managed to get a few larger regions himself in the process though.

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The Pyramids got steadily built, but unusually for Imhotep the Temple was ignored for most of the game. It wasn’t until the sixth round that any stones were placed there. The scores for the Pyramid (and towards the end, the Temple as well), kept everyone close together—there was usually only three or four points from first to last place, with the order changing frequently as the game progressed. Coming to the last couple of rounds, Lilac was challenged by Lime and Black in the Obelisk, but Lime and Lilac (both new to the game), missed the stones in one of the last boats, which Black watched closely.

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On Black’s turn he moved a two stone boat with only his and Green’s stone to take the lead and give Green a bump from last place to equal third with Lime. Lilac may have lost out in the Obelisk, but she managed to gain a full five stone region in the Burial chamber, plus a couple of other odd stones. Black got his five but no more. Everyone got a final points bonus from a green card, although Black and Lime’s were for the Temple and only scored a single point. Lilac took a big score of seven for the Burial chamber card.

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Green also scored well for the Obelisk (five point) and for the Pyramids (six points), as earlier in the game Lime had shifted a three stone boat to the already filled Pyramid preventing the other players scoring more than a single point each. In the final tally it was very close between Lime and Green, but Green pipped him by a single point, finishing with fifty points to Lime’s forty-nine. The game finished at exactly the same time as the other group finished their second game.

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Purple and Blue had been introducing Orange and Lemon to some of the group’s favourite filler games. They started out gently with Tsuro, aka “The game of the Path”. This is super quick and simple, with players choosing to play one of the three cards in their hand on their turn, and placing it to extend the path their stone is on. The winner is the last player still on the board, with players eliminated when their stone is unavoidably moved off the board or collides with someone else’s.

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There was a certain amount of people “feeling their way” at the start, but with only four players there’s a lot of space on the board at the start. Players can exploit this and set themselves up with a nice little corner to work in, curating their tiles and avoiding getting themselves into difficulty. That didn’t last long though, and came to an end when everyone wound up sat on the same tile. Purple was the first to go, soon followed by Blue. From there, there was a bit of a head to head, before Lemon “offed” Orange and claimed victory in her first game.

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Imhotep was still going and Viticulture had only just started, so Blue and Purple decided to introduce Orange and Lemon to the tile laying game, NMBR 9. The idea is that players take a random tile and place it in their area—tiles must be joined to the others, and if placed on top of other tiles they must additionally be entirely supported and by two or more tiles. At the end of the game, when two of each tile, numbered zero to nine have been played, the game ends. Players score points for each tile multiplied by the “floor” it is on. Thus ground floor tiles score nothing, but any tiles on the second level (the first floor) will score their face value, and so on for higher levels.

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Although the rules are quite simple, in practice the game is one that can really make your brain hurt. In this sense, it was a significant step up from Tsuro, though still quite a short light game. This time, the tile order did not help players at all with high numbers coming early and at inconvenient times. Players concentrated on building a sound foundation in the hope of better tiles to follow. In the event, this worked better for some than others, and, as a result, it was very close between first and second. Lemon, with seventy-two points ran out the winner once again, just two points ahead of Blue in second place.

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With both groups finished at the same time, there was a lot of chatter, before eventually the groups joined to play something together. Orange had played Saboteur before, and with such a large group, it seemed an obvious game to play. There was a quick reminder of the rules for those who had not played it before or who were new to it. A hidden traitor card game, it is one where there is a lot of banter with players accusing each other left, right and centre. The group is split into two teams—Lovely Dwarves and Evil Saboteurs. The aim of the game for the Dwarves is to find the gold, while the clue is in the name for the Nasty, Evil Saboteurs, who are trying to stop them.

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On their turn, players either play a card, or discard a card. There are two types: tunnels and actions. Tunnels are played in the central area and must extend the existing tunnel network. Action cards are special cards including map cards (which allow players to take a peak at a target card and report back on whether it is gold or not), rockfall cards (which allow players to remove a troublesome tunnel card), and tool cards. This last category is where the fun comes. Players can prevent others from digging tunnels by “breaking” their tools. Mostly this is because they think someone is on the opposite team, but occasionally it is just “because”.

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This time, Lime started by picking on Pine for what turned out to be no very good reason. Pine claimed the gold was in the middle (very early) and five others checked it and concurred. Pine had a lovely “Saboteury” hand, but emphatically claimed he wasn’t. And indeed, he wasn’t which meant Lime had to apologise to him at the end as he’d picked on him throughout. Blue picked on Green—because “He’s always a Saboteur, Right?”—except he wasn’t either. The guilty parties were Lemon, Lilac and Purple, but it was a fairly easy win for the Dwarves for whom Lime brought victory home.

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It had been a lot of fun, so everyone was keen to have another go. After she had been on Team Evil the first time round, Pine perhaps unfairly targetted Lilac who was wholly innocent the second time. The same could not be said of Purple who was a Saboteur twice in a row. After picking on him the first time, Blue had to make peace with Green as they were on the same side in the second game (and not the “right” one either). It is essential for Saboteurs to work well together, and although they did and it was close, it was not quite close enough and Lemon found the gold for the Dwarves. There was time for one last round, and if the second round was close, the final round was even closer.

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While the Dwarves were worrying about who might be the three Saboteurs, Lime and Black managed to sow the seed of confusion when with Lime claimed that the gold was in the middle and Black agreeing. Later it turned out that this was actually coal and although Lime showed his true colours early, it wasn’t until he was joined by Black that the Dwarves realised they’d been duped. Concerned about the third Saboteur, Blue just managed to find the Gold before they ran out of cards. Lime and Black had done really well as Saboteurs though, especially as it turned out there were only two of them. It had been a lot of fun, but with Viticulture at an end, several people wanting an early night and it now having got quite late, everyone decided to leave it at that.

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Learning Outcome: It’s never too early to start making enemies.

24th March 2022

The evening began with Pine arriving first and wondering if he’d got the wrong night as it was gone 7pm before anyone else arrived. While Blue ate her supper, Pine shared some “worm porn” (a video of a penis fencing flatworm) and Green shared his exploits on Board Game Arena. Apparently he’d been playing Imhotep and had been doing rather well, rising to thirty-fifth. After a lot of discussion about which game he was talking about, it turned out that by pure chance, a copy of Imhotep had made it to The Jockey. In spite of Green’s enthusiastic request for someone to beat him, nobody looked keen to take him up on the offer.

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While the others discussed the options, Purple and Black joined Blue and Pine setting up the “Feature Game“. This was the Druids expansion for an old favourite, the 2016 Kennerspiel des Jahres winner, Isle of Skye. The base game is a tile laying game similar in nature to the popular gateway game, Carcassonne, but with an auction of tiles and objectives that give points. The auctions are extremely clever: each player draws three tiles from a bag and privately decide how much two are worth, selecting one to be discarded. Players use their own money to indicate the value and therefore the cost of the tiles.

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After the values are revealed, each player then takes it in turns to buy one tile. The clever part is that the money used to indicate the cost of each tile is reserved to pay for it until someone else buys it. Any tiles that have not been bought after everyone has chosen and paid for one, must be paid for by their owner. The reason this is clever is because of the effect it has on the amount of money that players have to spend. For example, the first player in the round must make sure they have sufficient uncommitted funds if they want to be able to buy a tile.

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On the other hand, the player at the end of the round has a different calculation to make: if their tiles are priced to give good value they should sell at least one which will provide them with liquidity to buy other tiles. However, being last in the round, their choice will be reduced, and if their tiles don’t sell, the fact the other tiles might be on the expensive side, could leave them unable to make a purchase. It is not compulsory to buy a tile, but players that don’t have enough tiles are unlikely to score as well. Thus valuing tiles is key—overvaluing their tiles is costly as nobody will buy them leaving their owner with a big bill and less money in the next round, while undervaluing them gives good tiles to an opponent and will leave their owner with less money and fewer tiles.

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Once the tile auction is complete, players add the tiles to their own personal fiefdom. At the end of the round, one or more of the objectives are scored. Similar to Cartographers, there are four scoring objectives. In the early rounds only one scores, with three scored in later rounds, but each one is scored the same number of times during the game. Although this is an important source of points, it is not the only one as some tiles feature scrolls that score at the end of the game. Players receive income at the start of each round, with players getting additional funds for each player that is in front of them, with the amount increasing as the game progresses. As well as being a catch-up mechanism, this also importantly provides an additional channel for money to enter the game.

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In addition to the auctions and the objectives, there are other ways Isle of Skye differs from Carcassonne. There are no meeples, and players have their own maps instead of sharing one central one. Even the tile placement rules are slightly different as terrain must match, but not roads (though it is generally useful if they do as it can increase players’ income). Thus, although there is a superficial similarity with Carcassonne, Isle of Skye is distinctly more complex. Unlike the first, Journeyman expansion (which we have not yet played), the second, Druids expansion doesn’t really increase the complexity. It adds more strategy options though, with more scoring opportunities and additional ways to spend money (should you have any spare).

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The Druids expansion adds a second part to the auction phase where players can choose to buy one from the five displayed on the dolmen board. These are more powerful as they generally include scoring opportunities or special powers, but are correspondingly more expensive. The end of round scoring tiles gave A) two points for each tile in players’ largest completed lake; B) a point for each cow or sheep on on or adjacent to a tile with a farm; C) two points for each set of four tiles arranged in a square, and D) one point for each row and column containing a Broch.

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Pine took the first player token and Purple’s first draw gave her one of the promo tiles from the Themenplättchen mini expansion which was immediately thrown back for causing too much brain pain to work out what it did. Pine and Blue took an early lead at the end of the first round scoring for their lakes, but it was only a handful of points and there was a long way to go. Purple started building her long thin, rectangular kingdom prioritising income. It wasn’t until the third round that the importance of this shape became apparent to everyone else however: since tiles could be used to score multiple times for (C), this meant Purple picked up lots of points.

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King – Tunnelplättchen

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There was a bit of a debate about the Tunnelplättchen tiles from the two mini expansions. Black checked on Board Game Geek and confirmed that tunnels going into the same mountain range connected together. This helped Pine considerably, as otherwise he was in a bit of a mess. Blue bought an exciting looking scroll tile that gave lots of points for enclosed pasture, but when Blue noticed that Black had it too, he commented that it was actually really difficult to enclose pasture, Blue took it as a challenge. It was shortly after this, about half way through the game that the group realised that they’d forgotten about the catch-up mechanism.

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From the third round, during the income phase at the start of the round, players get gold for every player that is ahead of them on the score track. The amount of gold they get increases as the game progresses, so in the final round players get four gold for every player ahead of them—for the player at the back in the four player game, this comes to twelve gold, and for a player at the back until the start of the last round this comes to a total of thirty gold more than a player at the front. Unfortunately, the group remembered this a couple of rounds too late, so everyone who wasn’t in the lead (i.e. everyone but Blue) received a nice little windfall that they could use to increase the price of their tiles or spend on the Dolman.

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Black was making good use of the Dolman board and had some really juicy scoring scrolls in his tidy little kingdom and looked the one to beat, especially as he had plenty of cash too (helped by his windfall). Pine, on the other hand was struggling to find anything useful and was resorting to using the alternative Dolman option: draw two tiles from the bag and keep one. Unfortunately despite trying attempts, he wasn’t getting anything he wanted. It was at the end of round five that things suddenly changed and Purple, hitherto drifting about in third and and fourth leapt forward, landing just one point behind Blue.

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Blue, having led throughout, knew she didn’t really have enough end-game points to challenge and was expecting Black to catch and overtake. In the event, it was extremely tight at the front with Purple finishing with one hundred and two points, six more than Blue who just managed to hold on to second, two points ahead of Black. All in all though, everyone liked what the Dolman board added to the game, as it gave people larger, more exciting kingdoms with something to spend money on (when they had it).

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Meanwhile, the other group started by discussing what to play. Imhotep was on the table, but Ivory spotted Dice Hospital in a bag and Green was happy to play that instead; as Lilac was familiar with it too she was happy with the switch, as was Teal, though he had not played it. The explanation of the rules and game play took a little longer than the game itself would indicate. The idea is that each play is the owner of a hospital and starts with an administrator which gives them a special power, three nurses, and three patients—dice drawn at random from a bag. The colour of the dice represents their illness and the number on the face shown its severity: six indicates they are healthy but if the number falls below one, the patient dies.

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At the start of each round, players take an ambulance with new patients – if there aren’t enough beds available, another patient must make space by moving to the morgue (where each body-bag is a negative point at the end of the game). Players can then augment their own hospital by adding specialist medics and wards and finally, their medics can visit each patient and improve their health. Different specialisms can only “heal” certain colours or numbers. Any patients not treated are “neglected” and their health deteriorates with any that fall below one moving to the morgue. In contrast, anyone who exceeded six is discharged at the end of the round, but the more that are discharged at the same time, the more points the player scores.

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As the game progresses, players continue to improve their hospital getting more specialists and acquiring blood bags to help treat their patients. The game ends after eight rounds and the player with the most points is the winner. When the group finally got underway it became clearer how to play and what actions were available. The key to the game is knowing which specialists to get and which ambulance of patients to take – admitting healthier patients gives less choice of ward/doctor (and potentially get something which is of little use) , while curing the sickest patients is more difficult, but gives first dibs specialisms.

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The administrators dealt out at the start of the game can provide players with a direction for their strategy. Teal and Green had ones that meant that they could leave one patient of a specific colour untreated per round without them declining. Teal was able to use his a few times, but Green found that he just could never seem to get enough red dice to make use of it. Lilac was trying to get at least two red patients healed each turn as her administrator privilege gave her an extra point if she did; she managed it a few times (which was where the red dice kept going). Ivory’s administrator would give him an extra point if he healed at least one patient of each colour which he managed to good effect several times.

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After a couple of rounds Green commented that he had found it was best to keep a balance of Ward’s and medics otherwise there either wasn’t enough staff to treat the number of patients, or there weren’t enough usable wards to send the your doctors to. Teal and Lilac were quite good at regularly healing patients, but at one at a time they were scoring only one point per round. Each subsequent patient healed in a round scored an extra two points each With more than six worth three points extra. Thus holding on to heal more per round, meant more points. There was also a five point bonus for completely clearing the hospital, but nobody got close to that, except Ivory in the final round.

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Throughout the game, Teal and Lilac kept healing a steady trickle of patients. Green however was having all sorts of trouble: he found himself with ward’s he couldn’t use, his hospital filing up rapidly, and started losing patients (minus two points)—his was definitely a Failing Trust! Ivory, however, was romping away, keeping his hospital from getting over crowded and kept amassing points. Although his start had been slow start and he didn’t score anything until the third round, he made up for it after that. In the end Ivory proved to have run the best hospital trust, while Teal’s slow steady trickle worked out quite well as his hospital was the second best with Lilac was a close third.

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Ivory left for home, but Isle of Skye had not yet finished and, although there wasn’t time for Imhotep, there was still time for something quick. So Teal introduced Green and Lilac to a game they’d not played before, called Diamonds. This is a trick-taking game played with normal suited cards from one to fifteen where players are trying to win diamonds—not the suit, but the gemstones. When players cannot follow suit they get to do a “Suit Action” based on what suit they actually play. For example, playing a Diamond card gives one diamond gem from the supply placed into the player’s safe while playing a Heart gives one diamond from the supply to the pile in front of their safe.

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Similarly, playing a Spade allows the player to move one diamond from outside their safe into it, and on playing a Club the player steals one diamond from outside someone else’s safe and places it in front of their own. Additionally, at the end of the round of ten tricks, the player that won the most tricks in each suit gets to do that Suit Action one more time (in the case of a tie no-one does it). With the game taking six rounds there is plenty of chances to gain diamonds. It did not take long for the group to understand the game, although the for first few tricks the group were a little uncertain.

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Several times players found that although they had won, they couldn’t do anything as either the person they were supposed to steal from did not have any diamonds or, when they could move one diamond into their safe (from in front of it), they didn’t have any. Plus, several times they found they had to steal from themselves so nothing happened. The group also found that when they started to win tricks, they got control and were able to lead in suits the others didn’t have and so kept winning. It proved to be a clever little game, but the group felt it probably plays much better with more people, so we might try it with a larger part of the group in future. At the end of the game, however, Teal was the master diamond merchant with Green the apprentice.

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Learning Outcome: A career in diamond trading is not for everyone.

Essen 2017

It is that time of year again when the gamers’ minds turn to Essen and – The Internationale Spieltage. To Gamers worldwide, Essen is synonymous with the largest games fair in Europe and, arguably, the world. The fair runs Thursday to Sunday in mid/late-October every year and is the one of the biggest and most significant of all the boardgame conventions with many new releases and timed to coincide with the end of October. This year the first day will be this Thursday, 26^th October and games, publishers and their wares are all making their way to Germany for four days of fun and games.

– Image from merz-verlag-en.com

Last year several of the group went, and they came back with a lot of expansions for well-loved games like Istanbul, Colt Express, and Orléans and picked up some new games like Key to the City – London, Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails and Cottage Garden. This year, new games include Queendomino, Indian Summer, Altiplano and Keyper, with expansions to old favourites like Isle of Skye, Imhotep, Ticket to Ride, Terraforming Mars and Splendor as well. Once again, several locals are going and they are sure to bring back some interesting toys to play with over the coming months.

– Image used with permission of designer Richard Breese

21st February 2017

We started the evening setting up the card games, The Golden Sails and 3 Sind Eine Zu Viel!, but as more players arrived and time was getting on, we abandoned them in favour of the “Feature Game”, Bokken Schieten (aka Ziegen Kriegen or Cliff Hanger). This is a game that that arguably should be come the group’s signature game as it is very simple little trick taking card game all about goats. As the rules were explained, Grey (on one of his rare, but much valued appearances), commented that it was like Blackjack (aka Pontoon or Vingt-et-Un) – i.e. play to a limit, but exceed that limit and you are bust. The idea is that players choose a card from their hand and play it face up in front of them – the person who plays the highest card takes the trick and with it all the cards played in the round. The player who plays the lowest card plays draws a Goat Island card. These have two ends with different numbers on them, so the first “loser” takes a card and places the goat-meeple on one end, choosing which end will become part of Goat Island.

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The game continues with players playing cards and winning tricks, and the player who plays the lowest numbered card adding to Goat Island, choosing whether to add a large or small amount to the total. At the end of the game, the total of the four cards that make up the island define the limit and players who exceed that value are out. The catch is that players are not summing the face value of the cards (which go from one to fifty), instead, a little like 6 Nimmt!, they are counting goats head symbols which have little relation to the face value of the cards. We played the game twice through, since we made a bit of a mess of it the first time. After a long discussion about whether completed tricks should be placed face down or not, Red who led first misunderstood and thought the cards were played face down, so that screwed up her first turn and lumbered her with a pile of cards she didn’t want.

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This led to Grey’s comment that the game was poorly designed as once a player is bust their game is over. In fact though, the game is so short that effective player elimination doesn’t matter that much and in any case, players who are out can still try to take as many others with them as possible. After the first hand (taken by Grey), we gave it another try. By this time, Blue had managed to find out who leads after the first trick so instead of passing the honour round the table, we played correctly and the winner led. The second game went to Red, and was definitely more fun as we began to see what the aim of the game was and how to screw up other people. We were just beginning to get the hang of it, but felt we should move on to something else now everyone had arrived. It was genuinely very quick though, so we’ll probably play it again and it might be worth trying some of the variants too.

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With such a short “Feature Game” and everyone being far too polite, we spent a lot of time deciding what to play next. Orleans, Terraforming Mars, Viticulture and Agricola were all on the table, but nobody wanted to commit in case something better came along, or perhaps because they genuinely didn’t really mind and were happy to fill in once those who did mind had made a choice. Eventually, Magenta said she would like to play Isle of Skye and several said they’d be happy to play that if others wanted to play something else. Ivory on the other hand said he was quite happy to play Agricola (which had been brought with him in mind, then Green walked in, making things slightly more complicated as with nine players one game would have to be a five-player which might make it long. In the end Red got fed up with people being indecisive and started to direct people: first she made a three player game of Agricola, then she found two to join Magenta playing Isle of Skye which left Blue, Burgundy and Red to find something else to play, which ended up being Imhotep.

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Imhotep is a very simple game that we’ve played a few times since is was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres last year. On their turn, the active player chooses one of four actions: procure new stones; load stones on a boat; sail a boat to a monument; or play an action card. Players can only store a maximum of five stones and when they procure stones they can collect a maximum of three. Stones are loaded onto ships one at a time, but which of the five possible destinations the boats end up at and the order they are unloaded in is vital, so timing and planning is everything. What makes it particularly tricky is that the best plans in the world can be crushed by opponents with one small action: when they take a boat to the “wrong place” or “at the wrong time”. There are four ships and five building locations, so one doesn’t get visited and the round ends when all four boats have sailed.

– Image by boardGOATS

The building locations are double sided so the game can be played with the less complex Side A, the slightly more confusing Side B, or a mixture of the two. Red had struggled last time she had tried Imhotep since she ended up playing with two people who had tried it before and wanted to play with Side B without fully appreciating how much more complexity it adds. This time, therefore, we stuck to the simpler Side A, but instead added the Stonemason’s Wager Mini Expansion to give it just a little extra interest. This little promotional item allows players a one-off, extra option: the chance to bet on which monument will have the most stones in it at the end of the game. Otherwise the game is unchanged and there are six rounds in total, as usual, with points scored in different ways for the different buildings; the player with the most points at the end is declared the best builder in Egypt.

Imhotep: The Stonemason's Wager Mini Expansion

– Image by boardGOATS

This time, Blue and Burgundy started out visiting the Market picking up statues, but with both in the same market it was always going to be a struggle. Meanwhile, Red stole an essentially insurmountable lead in the Obelisks. Blue took a green card that would yield a point for every three stones in the Burial Chamber at the end of the game, so she tried to encourage boats to go there. Unfortunately, because she also nearly picked up a significant score on the Burial Chamber, but Burgundy was first forced to obstruct her plans and then Red and Burgundy started sending boats to the Temple instead. In general, it was quite a cagey game with everyone concentrating on not letting anyone take too many points rather than trying to make a killing themselves. Going into the final scoring, it was all quite close. Red took the points for the Stonemason’s Wager, and Burgundy took points for statues, but Blue had a lot of bonus points from a range of sources, giving her first place, ten points ahead of Burgundy in second.

– Image by boardGOATS

Imhotep finished, but next game was not far behind, so Blue, Red and Burgundy played a couple of quick hands of Love Letter while they waited. With its quick play, this micro-game is one of our go to fillers. The idea is that each player has a single card in hand, and on their turn they draw a second and choose one of the two to play. Each card has an action and a number, one to eight. Players use the actions to try to deduce information about which cards others are holding and, in turn use that to eliminate them. The winner is either the last player standing or the player with the highest ranking card at the end of the game. In the first round, Blue was caught holding the Princess leaving Burgundy to take the round. The second played out to the final card. With just two possible cards left and the Princess still hiding, Red took a chance and played the Prince, forcing Blue to discard her hand. This meant she had to pick up the set-aside card, which was, of course, the Princess, making it a two-way tie.

– Image by boardGOATS

On the next table, Magenta, Purple and Grey had been playing a game of Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King. This won the Kennerspiel des Jahres last year, and has proven to be quite popular with our group. The game is a sort of upgraded tile laying game with a lot in common with Carcassonne, but with the added feature of an auction at the start of each round and scoring at the end of each round. The scoring is one of the interesting parts of this game as the four scoring criteria change from game to game and, and each one scores three times during the course of the game. Choosing how to prioritise these to drive a strategy is one of the keys to playing well. This time, with points available throughout for completed areas (lakes and mountains), this was a clear target, however, identifying a strategy and making it work are two different things.

– Image by boardGOATS

For example, Purple was unlucky that she was unable to get any tiles with cows on roads until the final round, which meant she struggled to build a score early in the game. Although this meant she picked up the bonus money for being at the back, she still struggled to get the tiles she wanted. Similarly, Grey was unlucky in that he placed a tile that later became an real obstacle making it difficult for him to place tiles later and get points. It was Magenta though who had been able to build an early lead, and kept it throughout picking up points every round. A couple of lucky tile draws gave her good tiles that both Grey and Purple wanted making it a sellers market, and leaving Magenta with lots of cash to spend towards the end of the game. Going into the final scoring, Magenta had a sizeable lead, but Grey had a large pile of cash which yielded a tidy eight points and very nearly gave him the game. Magenta managed to fend him off though with the one point she took for her remaining seven coins, making the difference between first place and second.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the games on the first two tables complete, Red, Magenta and Grey went home leaving Purple, Blue and Burgundy to play yet another in the long running campaign to beat Burgundy at Splendor. This simple set collecting, engine builder has proved to be quite intractable. Blue and Pine in particular have had several attempts to get the better of Burgundy, but so far he has just had the edge. Sadly this this game was no exception, though the game was very, very tight. There was a shortage of Opals cards available, despite the presence of lots of cards needing them. Emeralds were also quite scarce at the start, but Burgundy managed to build a substantial collection of Diamonds to keep the threat alive. Blue thought she had finally got Burgundy trapped but in the final round Purple took a card and the replacement was a sapphire that Burgundy could take and gave him eighteen points, one more than Blue (who was last in the turn order). Yet another very, very close game – we’ll get him in the end…

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Meanwhile, all evening, Ivory, Black and Green had been engaged in an game of Agricola. This had started out with an extensive effort to disentangle the cards for the base game from the myriad of expansions Blue had somehow crammed into the box. Once this was sorted though, and the game was set up, a rules explanation was necessary as Ivory hadn’t played it before. The archetypal worker placement game, players star out with a farming couple and a shack and during the game try to build up their farmstead, livestock and family, the winner being the player with the most successful farm. Actions available include things like upgrading the farmhouse, ploughing and sowing fields, enclosing areas, taking livestock, and, of course, procreating. One of the clever parts of the game is that each round, an additional action become available, but the order of these is not known in advance. The stress is provided by harvests that occur at intervals during the game and require players to have enough food to feed their family, or resort to begging (which yields negative points at the end of the game).

– Image by boardGOATS

This time, instead of playing the family game, we played the full version which includes occupation and improvement cards. The challenge with this game is to use the cards effectively, but not to get carried away and try to force the strategy to use cards to its detriment. Green started with occupations and used them to quickly fenced a large padock for sheep (building one gave him three extras). He then ploughed and got three fields up and running before going back to enclosing pasture for cattle. Despite only having two family members, he struggled to have enough food until he eventually managed to nab a cartload of clay and used it to build a an oven, which proved invaluable at keeping hunger at bay. Towards the end, he finally managed to develop his family and added a pig for a total of twenty-nine.

– Image by boardGOATS

Black played a quiet game, also didn’t grow his family and farm developed only slowly too. As he often does, Black instead concentrated on home-making and upgraded his house to clay and then stone in quick succession. Somehow he didn’t struggle at harvest time as much as Green, probably because he went into building ovens which provided his food. This was at the expense of his farm, which remained stubbornly small, right until the end. The unused spaces cost him though, as did his lack of pigs, and he finished with a fine house, but only one child and a score of twenty-three points.

– Image by boardGOATS

Ivory went for a different strategy, starting by going for lots of food, and support for getting food later. In particular he made good use of his Mushroom Picker. Building his food engine so early enabled him to grow his family early in the game giving him extra actions. These he used to quietly collect lots of resources, which enabled him to build a large field for sheep. He then enclosed second pasture and just swiped a field full for boar before Green got them. He only ploughed late (perhaps it was the snowy landscape that delayed him), but his early food strategy really paid off. All his extra cards were valuable too and added ten points to his score, giving him a total of forty-one points and victory by a sizeable margin, despite Green’s inadvertent cheating!

– Image by boardGOATS

Just as Agricola came to an end, Splendor finished too. So, after helping to shoe-horn the miriad of little pieces back into the boxes, Ivory and Green headed off leaving Black to join the others. The ever dwindling numbers were boosted with the arrival of Pine, who had been two-timing us with the WI – he said they had the lowest average age of any WI he’d ever come across, so maybe that was the appeal. The remaining five gamers felt there was time for one more game, as long as we could keep it to about forty-five minutes. We are not the quickest at playing, or choosing and time was beginning to get tight, so we opted for Bohnanza as it played quicker than other suggestions and it wouldn’t need any rules reminders (like 11 Nimmt! and Port Royal). The game is one of our old staples, is quick to learn and keeps everyone involved throughout. The key to the game is that players cannot rearrange the cards in their hand and must play them in the order they arrive. Thus, on their turn, the active player first plays the first card in their hand with the option of playing the second if they desire. Once they’ve been planted, two cards are drawn which can be traded, but must be planted by someone. This can lead to free gifts, but also players being nasty and refusing to take even the apparently most lucrative trades.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time, Pine was making up for lost time, and the well-known good nature of the WI hadn’t rubbed off. He accused Burgundy of just about everything he could think of, in an effort to persuade everyone else not to trade with him. Black had one of his worst games for a long time with all the wrong cards coming up at the wrong time giving him nothing to work with. Otherwise it was a very tight game. In the dying turns, despite Black’s protestations, Purple and Pine both gave Blue exceptionally favourable trades (possibly in an effort to square things from earlier, but more likely to ensure that Burgundy didn’t win – again). Much to Pine’s surprise, that left him in joint first place with Blue, one coin ahead of Burgundy (possibly the most important factor to him). Feeling she had been gifted a joint win by Pine’s generosity at the end, Blue offered to concede to Pine, but on checking the rules he won anyhow on the tie-breaker, as the player with the most cards in hand at the end.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor spearjr

Learning Outcome: Cheating doesn’t pay.

Deutscher Spiele Preis – 2016

In 1990 the German magazine “Die Pöppel-Revue” introduced The Deutscher Spiele Preis, or German Game Prize, which is now awarded annually at the Internationale Spieltage, Essen. Whereas the Spiel des Jahres rewards family games, the Deutscher Spiele Preis is awarded based on votes from votes from the industry’s stores, magazines, professionals and game clubs, so it tends to reflect “gamers games” and is usually more in line with the Kennerspiel des Jahres. This year the award went to Mombasa with the Spiel des Jahres winner Codenames in second. Spiel des Jahres nominees Karuba and Imhotep also featured in the top ten as well as this years winner of the Kennerspiel des Jahres Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

In Mombasa, players acquire company shares with the aim of earning the most money. The game features a unique, rotating-display hand-mechanism that drives game play. Each round players choose action cards from their hand, then reveal them simultaneously and carry out the actions. These cards are then placed in a discard pile, and the previously played cards recovered for the subsequent round. The company boards are double-sided, so games vary quite a lot depending on which tracks are revealed and which companies they are asigned to.
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– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

6th September 2016

Pink (making one of his rare appearances) arrived first with Red and Magenta, closely followed by Blue and then Burgundy. So, with the food order done, we scratched about for something quick to play when Red suggested a little card game called Unter Spannung (aka 7 Ate 9). This was a game she had picked up in Germany a week earlier when she’d been travelling and had found herself unable to resist spending all her money in a toy shop. Although the rules were in German, Red and Blue had managed to come up with a translation and had played it quite extensively when they had been away in Switzerland for work. Neither Red nor Blue speak any German, so they weren’t certain that they were playing correctly, but they had found it to be fun all the same and taught everyone else the same way.

– Image by boardGOATS

They described Unter Spannung as “Dobble with maths” and basically, the idea is that each player starts with a hand of four cards and a deck of cards that they must try to get rid of. Each card has a number on the corner (the face value) and a modifier in the centre (of the form ±1, ±3 or ±3). The game begins with a single face up card in the centre and simultaneously everyone tries to play a card where the face value matches the total for the centre card (i.e. the face value plus or minus the modifier). Thus, if the card in the middle is 8±1, players can play any card with a face value of seven or nine. The snag is that cards are only numbered one to ten, so the the maths gets a little more tricky. For example, 8±3 is five or eleven, but since there is no eleven, it becomes one. Simple enough, though at the lower end things become more difficult as negative numbers don’t simply become positive, rather, zero becomes ten and any negative must be subtracted from this. So, 1±3 is four or minus two which in turn becomes eight…

– Image by boardGOATS

Like Dobble, cards are placed simultaneously in a frantic rush and the card then played becomes the new top card, which causes mayhem when someone has just got there first. Unlike Dobble, players start with a hand of four cards but can add cards whenever they want, so as soon as there is a bit of a lull in placing cards everyone frantically draws cards from their deck. The first player to get rid of all their cards (hand and deck) is the winner. Although the game nominally only plays four, we added an extra and just played a slightly short round. Red and Blue had an inevitable advantage having played before, and everyone else struggled to get their heads round it. The first round went to Red who stomped her authority on the game early on. Then Burgundy’s food arrived which he used as an excuse to duck out of the second round which Blue took having warmed up a little.

– Image by boardGOATS

With food and gamers arriving thick and fast, there was a brief hiatus, before we split into three groups. The first group (Black and Purple) began their belated supper while Red, Blue, Pink and Magenta began the “Feature Game”, which was The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction. This is a fairly short resource conversion card game based on The Manhattan Project boardgame. In this simpler, card game version, players are firstly mining to create yellowcake, then purifying the yellowcake to get uranium which they can then use to make a bomb. Players start with a hand of five cards, each of which is dual function, providing either an action or a people. In order to get the yellowcake players need people to do the mining and then a mining card. There are several different types of people: labourers, engineers, scientists, etc. These can be provided directly by cards, or using people and location cards to generate larger numbers or people with different skills. For example, a University can be used to create engineers or scientists. Combining these with enrichment plant cards and yellowcake gives players uranium which in turn allows players to claim one of the face up bomb cards. When acquired, these can be augmented by the addition of a bomb-loading card which also comes at a price.

– Image by boardGOATS

All the cards come in a range of input requirements and outputs, but in general, the more expensive cards give richer rewards. There are always several bomb cards available and the game end is triggered when one player achieves a total of ten megatonnes of bomb (including any bomb-loading cards). The rules were a little bit difficult to disentangle somehow so it took us a while to really get to grips with what should have been a fairly simple game and there was a high chance that the player who understood first would win. In the event, luck played a fairly large part too as there are additional special cards. These are important as the hand-limit of five cards is quite restrictive and the special cards can enable players to get extras. It was Pink who managed to get the first bomb card, although Red and Magenta both had substantial piles of uranium and yellowcake respectively. Then from no-where, Blue suddenly built a seven megatonne bomb, quickly followed by Red and Magenta. It was all too late though as Pink finished the game and with it comprehensively won. In truth this isn’t really the sort of theme our group usually go for, and with a fairly heavy slice of luck and slightly rough roles we made heavy weather of it. That said, we felt it was definitely worth playing again.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Green, Ivory, Pine and Burgundy played Imhotep, one of the nominees for the Spiel des Jahres this year. We played it a few weeks back in July and it went down quite well, so since Green wasn’t able to stay for long it was a good opportunity for a second outing. In this game, players take the role of builders in Egypt who are trying to emulate Imhotep. The premise of the game is very simple. On their turn, the active player chooses one of four actions: procure new stones (very large wooden blocks); load stones on a boat; sail a boat to a monument; or play an action card. Players can only store a maximum of five stones and when they procure stones they can collect a maximum of three. Stones are loaded onto ships one at a time, but which of the five possible destinations the boats end up at and the order they are unloaded in is vital, so timing and planning is everything and, as we discovered last time, other players have the ability to screw up even the best laid plans. Thus, the challenge is to work out how to accomplish strategies when the boats rarely go where you want them to. There were two players who were new to the game this time, but it is easy to explain and play, although it is much much harder to work out where to place cubes in the boats and when to move things. It usually takes a couple of rounds for the game to settle in and for patterns to emerge, and this time was no different.

– Image by boardGOATS

Once the dust from the early quarry blocks had settled, Green had a one block lead in the obelisk (he had used the Obelisk to good effect last time out and narrowly won that game), Pine already had a good area in the Burial Chamber, Burgundy was big in the pyramid and Ivory had a smattering of cubes in most places. When a boat with a single cube space appeared, Green decided to take a punt on it and see where he ended up. Surprisingly it stayed put until all the other boats had been docked, leaving it with just two choices: the Pyramid for four points or the obelisk to extend Green’s lead there to two cubes. Pine was first to have to make that decision, and chose to defer it by cutting more blocks from the quarry, Ivory and Burgundy followed and did likewise leaving Green with a free choice. His supply of blocks was looking a bit thin though compared to the others and so he also chose to re-stock leaving Pine no choice since his sled was full. After deliberation between the others (no-one wanted Green’s advice) he chose the obelisk and Green was pleased with two cube lead as he thought it would be quite easy to maintain.

– Image by boardGOATS

As the game progressed everyone became more wily at positioning stones on the boats, and Pine was prevented from increasing the size of his Burial Chamber group and no-one else could get a larger grouping than two either! The ‘Wall’ received a number of cubes this game, including quite a few of Ivory’s, and eventually it reached the third level. Burgundy continued to dominate the Pyramid, while the the obelisk continued to grow and Burgundy was began to make inroads to Green’s lead, while Pine kept a watching brief in third. By the latter part of the game everyone was so focused on their own strategies that they often failed to notice Burgundy attempting to dominate one particular boat. The first time he did this he managed to collect two purple statue cards in one turn and the second time he got two cubes into the obelisk (although Green jumped aboard at the last minute to limit the damage). In the penultimate round, Burgundy had got three stones on a four stone ship.

– Image by boardGOATS

Green was next and a quick count suggested that if this were to go to the obelisk it would lose him the lead. So, he felt he had no choice; that boat had to dock somewhere else and he chose the Pyramid as the least damage, though it still netted Burgundy six points. That gave Pine an opening to get a couple of his stones to the obelisk so that he overtook Burgundy, pushing him into second. Going into the final round, the writing was on the wall. Burgundy could no longer win the Obelisk win, and as long as Green placed a stone on the same boat as Pine, he was guaranteed the full fifteen points for first place (as last time). Otherwise it was mostly just a mopping up exercise to get the most points possible with the last stones. Both Burgundy and Ivory had managed two or three purple statue cards and so the final scoring was tight. Despite being the only one without a green bonus scoring card (which gives points for the total number of cubes in the different areas), Green still finished a couple of points ahead of Pine in what was another close and enjoyable game.

– Image by boardGOATS

With both games finishing, Black and Purple having consumed their supper and Green heading off, it looked like it was change. However, in the event, Green was directly replaced by Black and Purple and the other group began another game of Imhotep. The game has an in-built expansion as each location board has a second side with slightly more involved building options. For example, while Side A has just one large Pyramid, Side B has three smaller Pyramids and players choose which one to add their cube to. Pink, who had played Side A at the UK Games Expo, was keen to give the alternative options a try. It turned out that these actually add quite a bit to the complexity as they add another layer to the decision making. This is because instead of just considering what everyone would get at each location, players have to consider what everyone will do at each location and what this will give them.

– Image by boardGOATS

So for example, instead of just looking at where all the cubes will go in the Pyramid and what they will score, the active player now has to consider which Pyramid each player will pick and what that leaves for everyone else. For this reason, it possibly wasn’t the best choice for a first game. As a result, as they had not played it before, both Red and Magenta struggled with trying to work out what they were trying to do and what strategies would work best. In the early stages, it was all very tentative. Instead of just building the highest, on Side B, points are awarded throughout the game for “mini-obelisks” containing just three blocks, though the early mini-obelisks are worth more. Blue got an early start with Pink following in second place. Meanwhile, Red and Magenta scooped up some of the early Market cards, correctly thinking they were important, hoping that it would allow them to learn what else might be a good strategy.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was in the third round it became apparent that we had a problem on our hands as Pink had taken a bit of a run-away lead in the Temple. When playing with Side A players add cubes to a row of five blocks, with additional blocks going into the second and eventually third rows. Points are scored at the end of the round for each stone delivered that is visible from above. With Side B, blocks are added in the same way, but the bonus are different. Thus, the first “space” on the alter will give one point or two extra wooden blocks. Other spaces give Market cards and even two points making it quite lucrative. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, Pink had somehow managed to steal a march on the rest of us. He then made a point of sending a small boats there which meant his early blocks continued to work for him well beyond their usual lifetime. This was not helped by the fact that Pink also contrived to ensure that the little boats contained his blocks, so any that were covered were covered by his own blocks so he continued to benefit. Blue, having played the game before could see the problem and managed to muscle in a little, but it was slow and Pink stormed into the lead with nothing anyone else could do about it.

– Image by boardGOATS

Eventually, Blue and Magenta managed to break Pink’s strangle-hold on the Temple, while Red began to fall behind but continued to collect purple Statue cards stacking up points for the end of the game. Magenta gradually began to dominate in the Burial Chamber too. With Side A, the blocks are placed in position in strict rotation and the each player scores points for their largest contiguous area according to the Triangular Number Series. With Side B, however, each row of blocks is evaluated independently and eight points awarded to the person with the most blocks in the row, with four points for second place and two for third. With three rows, a player who goes into this heavily can pick up a lot of points which is exactly what Magenta did, winning two and coming placing on the third as well.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the game coming to a close, we all thought Pink had it in the bag, but we still had the end game scoring cards to count up. Sadly, Red’s Statues didn’t get her quite as many as we thought, but it was very close with both Pink and Magenta finishing with forty-two points. Blue just managed to squeak ahead though finishing with forty-three in what turned out to be yet another tight game. So that was three out of three as it had been close first time we played as well when Green had won, taking the Obelisk. This led some of us to speculate whether the Obelisk is perhaps a little too powerful. Although it has featured heavily in all three games, the games have all been exceptionally close so the jury is still out. Now that we know it is a potential game changer though, next time there might be more blocks placed there and a greater battle for supremacy. In turn that could let someone else slip through and score heavily elsewhere which could make it interesting. It’ll probably get another outing soon as we can’t let Green remain unbeaten.

– Image by boardGOATS

While the second game of Imhotep was going on, at Blue’s suggestion, the other group got on with Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King. This won the Kennerspiel des Jahres this year and has proved very popular with our group as there is quite a bit of variability in the set up ensuring the games remain interesting. Despite the fact that she wasn’t playing, it was Blue’s suggestion as she knew that Black, Burgundy and Pine liked it a lot and thought that Ivory might appreciate it too. Borrowing heavily from tile-laying games like Carcassonne, Isle of Skye is a much deeper game without adding an awful lot to the rules. The idea is that players draw three tiles from a bag and and then secretly choose one to discard and set prices for the other two. This is done by placing the tiles in front of a screen and a discard token and money for the player’s stash behind. The money remains in place for the duration of the round, unless the corresponding tile is purchased by another player.

– Image by boardGOATS

This mechanism is very clever as if nobody else wants the tile, then the player uses the money to purchase it themselves. Thus, it is critically important to correctly evaluate the worth of the tile, depending on whether it is most desirable to sell it or keep it. The other clever part of the game is the scoring: This is mostly carried out at the end of each of the six rounds. At the start of the game, four scoring tiles are drawn at random and these are used in different combinations at the end of the rounds in such a way that each appears a total of three times, but only one is used in the first round while three are used in the final round. This time, the first two scoring tiles drawn both rewarded mountain ranges, so although this could have made for an interesting, competitive game, in the interests of balance, we decided to chuck them back and start again.

– Image by boardGOATS

The four scoring tiles were: five points for the player with the most money and two for the player with the next most (A); two points for each cow on the road connected to the castle (B); three points for each vertical row with more than three tiles (C) and one point for each completed terrain (D). Burgundy started collecting cattle while Black went for sheep. Maybe it was because Black got there first, or perhaps it was because someone misheard, but Pine (who can usually be counted on to go for a woolly fleece) tried to use ships to build his score. Purple isn’t a great whiskey drinker, but as usual, she built her strategy on a foundation of barrels. This didn’t leave much for Ivory, but there is always someone who struggles with a lack of cash and someone else who seems unnecessarily flush. This time it was Ivory who made a killing on his tiles and with money in the scoring tiles it guaranteed him a solid number of points to build on. It was a another close game with only five points between first and third. It was Burgundy who just pipped Black to finish in front however, with Pine a close third.

– Image by boardGOATS

Red and Magenta were about to make a move, but with Isle of Skye still going, they stuck about for a couple more rounds of Unter Spannung, which Red and Blue took again, though it was a bit closer this time. As the other group finished and Ivory headed off too, the rump were left to play one last game. Black had been keen to play Pi mal Pflaumen, but had missed out when it was the “Feature Game” a few weeks back, so he was very keen to give it a go. This game is a relatively simple little card game, but one that we struggled with the rules for last time and contrived to make a bit of a mess of this time too. Pi mal Pflaumen (or “Oh my Plums!” as we call it in a sideways reference to another little card game, Oh My Goods!), is a trick taking game with elements of set collecting and lovely artwork. The idea is that each card features a fruit, a number and most also have some sort of special action. Each player begins with a hand of cards and, starting with the start player, everyone takes it in turns to play one card. Then, the player who played the highest value card chooses one of the cards which they place face up in a tableau in front of them, before they carry out the action associated with the card.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are several different special actions, it could be steal a card from another player; take the “watchdog” card (which guards against other players stealing cards), or take three “pi” cards. Instead of an action, some cards indicate a scoring condition and the points awarded for achieving it. These are of the form of, for example, ABC or AAA, indicating three different fruit or three identical fruit respectively. The more fruit involved and the more similar the fruit, the more points they are worth. When a player owns both the scoring card and the matching Fruit cards, they are all removed from their display and put to one side to score at the end of the game. The game is played over three rounds and winner is the player with the most points at the end.

– Image by boardGOATS

Last time we played, we had a fairly extensive discussion about the rules. The rules are a little unclear: they clearly state that “when a card is taken you must immediately carryout its action”, but they don’t make it clear whether this applies to claiming points on “Fruit Mix” cards as well. We couldn’t remember how we played last time, but this time we played that points could only be claimed when the card was taken (with cards in the player’s tableau used to fulfill the condition). In an added complication, we also had to decide what implications this had for cards that players have stolen. The rules state that “you can immediately use a stolen card to create a Fruit Mix”. Initially we presumed that this applied only to the fruit mix cards, but a little doubt began to set in. Checking the rules fora online after the event suggested that Fruit Mix cards from the tableau could also be claimed, and the key phrase in the rules stated that “one or more Fruit Mixes” can be claimed when a card is taken, which is only possible if cards in the tableau are used, but this only became apparent some time after the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was another tight game with everyone claiming some low scoring Fruit Mixes in the first round, but Burgundy took a slight lead making him a target for the rest of the game. In the second and third round, the value of the fruit mixes on the cards increases adding a bit of all or nothing element to the game. For example, Blue had spent much of the game with low cards and, as a result had ended up taking the last card more than her fair share. The last card comes with a bonus “Plum” card though, so if she had managed to pick up the twenty-five, she could have claimed a massive twelve points for a total of four Plum cards. Purple did her best to help Blue out, but Black had a large pile of π cards and with Burgundy and Pink’s help was able to control things. In the end it was Pink who finished with the most points, just three clear of Blue with Black in third place.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning outcome: Well balanced games also make for tight results.

26th July 2016

To celebrate Codenames winning the Spiel des Jahres Award, this week it was our “Feature Game”. Although the game seems to be very, very popular, it definitely has the “Marmite Factor” amongst our group. It also really needs a group of a reasonable size. Since it is relatively quick, even the most reluctant agreed to give it a go, especially as Cerise had made it for the first time in ages and it was a game she had really enjoyed last time we played it. It was also Turquoise’s first visit, so a team game seemed a good way of starting. The idea of the game is that there are two rival teams of Spies, each with a leader or Spymaster. The Spies are trying to locate their Agents, but these are only known by their Codenames, and only the Spymasters have the key to who is on which team. The Codenames are laid out on the table in a five by five array where everyone can see them together with some innocent bystanders and an Assassin. The Spymasters then take it in turns to give clues to their team so that the Spies can identify their own team’s Agents by pointing at them.

– Image by boardGOATS

Clues are of the form “word; number”, where “word” is a clue that connects several cards and “Number” is the number of connected cards. For example, the clue “bird; three” might connect “sparrow”, “beak” and “Naomi Campbell”. The team then discuss the clue and point to code cards, one at a time. If they get it wrong, their turn ends straight away, so ideally they should start with the answers they think are most obvious. If the Codename corresponds to one of their agents, then the team can guess again, and keep trying until they have exhausted their theoretical maximum number cards that match the clue (three in the example). Importantly, the only measure of “correct” is whether the Codename is one of the Agents, the agent chosen does not actually have to match the current clue. So, a team who can’t make sense of a clue or identify all the Codenames may decide point to a Codename that matches a clue given earlier in the game. For this reason, when a team get all their theoretical maximum number of Codenames for that turn right, they also get one extra chance.

– Image by boardGOATS

So, the trick is for the leader to come up with clues that cover multiple correct answers so that the rest of the team can identify the complete set before the opposition identify all theirs. Unfortunately, we had a particularly unconnected set of words and two Spymasters, Blue and Burgundy, who were particularly useless at this sort of thing. Consequently there were lots of clues like “continent; one”, and when Blue got adventurous and went for “music; two” she totally confused her team and was perilously close to a hint that could lead to the Assassin (Codename “Snowman”) and bring the game to an abrupt end. “Zooloretto; two” also fell on stony ground since nobody on Blue’s team had actually played it (where everyone in Burgundy’s team had). The game remained finely balanced as Blue continued to try to give slightly more adventurous clues which her team didn’t always get, while Burgundy played safe with smaller clues that his team understood.

– Image by boardGOATS

It all came to a head when, with only two Agents left to find, Burgundy decided to be adventurous and gave the clue “film; two”. His team quickly got one of them, “Alien”, but the second was more tricky. Green thought it was probably “forest” (as in “The Forest Moon of Endor”), but could also be several other things. Cerise, on the opposite team leant a hand and suggested that it could be “wind” as in “Gone with the…” or maybe “snowman”. Meanwhile, Burgundy remained stony-faced, in what were very trying circumstances. Eventually the team ignored Cerise (who had managed to suggest both the correct answer and the Assassin), which gave Blue and her team one last chance. With only one Agent left to guess, there was only a short pause before they finished the game. There was a big sigh of relief all round as everyone was put out of their misery, particularly Blue and Burgundy who had found the whole clue-giving experience very stressful indeed. Unquestionably, with the right crowd Codenames could be great fun, but sadly, we just aren’t it, so it is unlikely to get another outing in the near future – definitely not our group’s Spiel des Jahres this year.

– Image by boardGOATS

With that over, we decided to split into two groups. Black and Purple were keen to give Imhotep a try (one of the other Spiel des Jahres Award nominees), as they had wanted to play it at the UK Games Expo, but it had been constantly booked out of the games library. Burgundy had played it (also at Expo, with Blue and Pink), had enjoyed it and was happy to give it another go, so Green made up a group of four. As well as being the key protagonist in the film, “The Mummy”, Imhotep was also a priest and a great architect. So in this game, players take the role of builders in Egypt who are trying to emulate Imhotep. The premise of the game is very simple. On their turn, the active player chooses one of four actions: procure new stones; load stones on a boat; sail a boat to a monument; or play an action card. Players can only store a maximum of five stones and when they procure stones they can collect a maximum of three. Stones are loaded onto ships one at a time, but which of the five possible destinations the boats end up at and the order they are unloaded in is vital, so timing and planning is everything.

– Image by boardGOATS

Admittedly the lovely big wooden blocks make this game feel like a “junior” board game, but Imhotep is anything but. It is one of those games that is easy to learn but difficult to master. Although players have a range of options, trying to decide which one is best depends on what has already transpired, what opponents do and how the game will develop. What makes it particularly tricky is that the best plans in the world can be crushed by opponents with one small action: when they take a boat to the “wrong place”. It turns out the cubes are large for a good reason: stacking cubes is a key part of the game and anything smaller would make a very wobbly obelisk. There are four ships and five building locations, so one doesn’t get visited and the round ends when all four boats have sailed. There are six rounds in total with points scored in different ways for the different buildings; the player with the most points at the end is declared the best builder in Egypt.

– Image by boardGOATS

Once everything was set up, the game got under way, but then almost stalled. Nobody had any idea what should be a good opening gambit. Placing a cube on a ship was the easy choice, but which ship and in which position? After some head scratching, everyone began placing cubes on boats, making plans where wanted the ships should go, waiting for them to be full, when suddenly, Purple jumped the gun and sent the first boat on its way. She chose a boat with one cube of each of her competitors and sent it build an Obelisk, catching everyone by surprise. It wasn’t a particularly bad place to go, but the obelisk doesn’t score until the end and since the highest scores are for the tallest towers, it might not actually be the most efficient use of a cube, especially so early in the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

The rest of the first round continued to be a lesson in frustration as each of the other boats ended up somewhere other than where players had planned. The next boat went to the Burial Chambers (another scoring at the end of the game), the third to the Wall (scored at the end of the round, but only one point per cube) and the last went to the Market to get cards. As Green was first on the boat he had the first choice of the cards available and based on that first boat he chose the card that gave him an extra point for every 3 cubes in the Obelisk (any three cubes, not just his own). Now no-one other than Green wanted a boat to go to the Obelisk.

– Image by boardGOATS

The second round began a little more cautiously. Everyone had a better idea of how the round would go and began placing their cubes in particular positions on the ships. The game continued to frustrate everyone as the ships just wouldn’t go where players wanted them to go. This is frustration is similar to that in Zooloretto where players place animals on trucks, but have to wait until the next turn to collect them, if someone else hasn’t got there first, of course. In Imhotep, it was usually pretty obvious where players wanted the boat to go, so someone else almost always got there first to send it somewhere else!

– Image by boardGOATS

The unusual scoring of the Pyramid (not steadily increasing or decreasing points) meant that everyone tried to position themselves carefully for that optimum high scoring space, but no-one ever managed to get the boat set up quite how they wanted. As a result, again no boat went to the pyramid. The obelisks grew, and the pattern of the Burial Chamber was going in Black and Burgundy’s favour and the Wall scored a few more points, mostly for Purple. The Wall was beginning to show its strength as a cube placed there can score round after round until it is covered – potentially scoring well. The market cards were dolled out, with Burgundy and Black both taking a blue extra action cards for later use. Green wasn’t sure what to take and ended up with a purple end game scoring card which would only come into it’s own if he could collect a few more. In the third round the pyramid finally got started, in Black’s favour. The game continued in much the same way, individual plans were more and more obvious and as a result became harder and harder to fulfil. The trouble was, in taking an action to scupper someone else it often helped a different player or upset their own plans.

– Image by boardGOATS

By the end of the game nobody was sure who the winner was going to be. Before adding all the end-game scores, Burgundy was ahead of Black and Purple, with Green trailing behind. Everyone had managed a couple of areas in the Burial Chamber, but despite best efforts to scupper him, Burgundy still had the largest area. The Obelisks had become a fraught battle field at the end. Black had thrown down the gauntlet to take a boat there which only had two of his cubes and pushed him into the lead, but in the penultimate round Green had sailed a sneaky little single cube boat which made his tower equal. By making sure that he placed a cube in any boat that Black had used, Green then ensuring that he would at least share the Obelisk spoils. The presence of a single cube boat in that last round, was interesting, but no-one wanted to use it as it was guaranteed that the cube would get taken to the least useful dock, so in the end the Obelisk scores for first and second place were shared between Black and Green with Purple and Burgundy sharing the scores for third and fourth place.

– Image by boardGOATS

With Black now several points ahead, Burgundy and Green were vying for second with only the the green and purple end-game scoring cards left, though only Black and Green had any. Black scored points for every three cubes in the burial chamber, which extended his lead and now looked unassailable. Green got his Obelisk cubes score, which proved to be the same as Black took for the burial chamber, but with three purple cards giving him another six points he leap-frogged over Black to win by one point. It was an incredibly close game which suggests that where cubes go may not matter as much as it feels like it should. On one hand, this seems like a good thing as it relieves the pressure of all those boats going to the “wrong place”, but on the other hand it may suggest the game is a little too balanced making strategy play is less important, which would be a great shame. Everyone really enjoyed it, however, and would definitely play it again especially as it plays quickly and the alternative tile options look as though they would add variety and new challenges to the game keeping it fresh. For our group, from the nominations list, this would definitely have been our choice of Spiel des Jahres.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Meanwhile, everyone else was engaged in a brutal game of Colt Express, the worthy winner of last year’s Spiel des Jahres. This is a programming game, where players take it in turns to choose the cards to they will play, but only action them after everyone has chosen. Since everyone then takes it in turns to carry out their actions, the game is full of unforeseen consequences. The game has a Western theme and is played on a fabulous three-dimensional train. The idea is that each player is a bandit attacking the train trying to move about to pick up cash and jewels while avoiding the Marshall and shooting each other. Although we’ve played this a few times, we had a couple of people who hadn’t played it before so we had a quick run-down of the rules first. Each player starts with the same deck of action cards and six bullet cards. A round card dictates how many cards will be played and how (face up or down; in pairs or singly) and players each shuffle their action deck and draw six cards.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Players then take it in turns to play the action cards. At the beginning of a round everyone can see where everyone else is and it is easy to choose which card to play and predict its outcome. Before long, however, things begin to become unpredictable and by the time players have to choose a second card it is highly likely that plans will have gone awry, though of course, nobody know this yet. Once the cards have all been played, the pile of cards is turned over and the cards are actioned in the order that they were played. It is only at this point that people realise the mistakes they’ve unwittingly made, shooting nobody or the wrong person, trying to pick up jewels that aren’t there or finding they’ve got nowhere to go because the Marshal is in the way and has screwed up their plans. As the game progresses, things get worse too since shooting someone involves passing them a bullet card. This is added to their action deck, but is a dead card and gives no possible actions. Multiple bullet cards means the chance of drawing them increases making the action cards drawn all the more precious and adding pressure to make the maximum use of them.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Colt Express is a light, fun game and inevitably, someone gets picked on. This time Blue was the victim (playing the character Django). Magenta (playing the innocent looking Belle) started using Blue for target practice, but Cerise (Doc) was very quick to join in the fun. Blue did her best to escape and briefly managed to grab the $1,000 strongbox (gold bar in our version of the game) before Magenta biffed her soundly on the nose and nabbed it. Meanwhile, Cerise and Turquoise were doing an excellent job of gathering up the loot and robbing the passengers blind, before they decided to try to empty their revolvers. Obviously, this was mostly at Blue’s expense and with so many bullet cards she struggled to do anything, but that didn’t put people off of course. Before long even the Marshall was getting in on the act and, much to her disgust, Blue finished the game with more bullets than action cards and no money or gems at all.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

For everyone else, however, the game was quite close. Magenta had managed to hang onto the gold bar (aka strongbox) and one gem, but it wasn’t enough to compete with Turquoise and Cerise. Turquoise had picked up a massive five money purses while Cerise added the Sharp Shooter bonus to her one gem and single purse. Much to our surprise, both totalled $1,850 which meant we had to check the rules for a tie-breaker. It turned out this was the number of bullets received, which meant that even though she was a long way from competing, Blue had an influence on the result. As well as being a bullet-magnet, Blue had just about managed to fire a couple of shots in return. Cerise had been one of the main attackers, so she had caught a few of Blue’s bullets as well as a couple of Magenta’s. Since Turquoise had rarely fired at anyone, she had picked up just two bullets and with it, her second win of the evening, with Cerise getting her comeuppance.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor lacxox

With it nearing “pumpkin time” for Magenta and Turquoise, there was just time for one last quick game and, almost inevitably, that was 6 Nimmt!. How this game is still interesting for our group, is a bit of a mystery. It is short, everyone is always happy to play it and, since it has such a small footprint, it gets brought every week which means it is there when the occasion is right, the mystery though is why people haven’t got bored when other games have long since fallen off the radar. This time Purple started badly picking up twenty Nimmts in the first round while Turquoise began with a clean sheet. Burgundy started well with just two Nimmts, but since he always has one good round and one bad, everyone was just waiting for him to start collecting cards in the second round. Magenta and Blue both had consistently low scores, but they weren’t low enough, and while Purple also made a virtue of consistency, that’s not so good when the scores are both high. Sadly, Turquoise was forced to pick up a couple of high-scoring of cards while Burgundy, very unusually managed to string two good rounds together. With a clear round for his second, Burgundy took the game with a total of just two Nimmts, beating Turquoise into second place.

– Image by boardGOATS

With Cerise, Magenta and Turquoise heading off, that left a short hour for something else. Black was keen to play Isle of Skye, the winner of this year’s Kennerspiel des Jahres, but Green somehow hadn’t played it and we debated whether it would overrun. Before long we’d prevaricated enough to definitely rule it out due to lack of time and we started hunting round for something else. In the end we settled on The Game, a nice little cooperative card game that was nominated for last year’s Spiel des Jahres. We played this quite a bit for a while, but somehow it has fallen out of favour a little of late, but for no very good reason. The rules are simple: on their turn, the active player lays a minimum of two cards on any of the four piles following the appropriate trend – two piles must always increase, two decrease; the exception to this is if you can play a card where the interval is exactly ten in the wrong direction (known as “The Backwards Rule”). Players can talk about anything so long as there is no specific number information given and the aim is to cooperatively get rid of all ninety-eight cards by playing them on to the four piles.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

The Game started badly and then it got worse. Before long we were wondering whether we were even going to get through the deck. Our excuse was that the game is harder with five, but that may or may not actually be the case. Eventually, we finally managed to exhaust the draw deck, leaving just the cards in hand, but it was inevitable that we weren’t going to be able to place every card as several players had lots of very low cards in a run. In the end we finished with eight unplayable cards. We felt we might have been able to place a couple more with a bit more planning, discussion and thought at the end, but everyone was tired and it was home time, so our collective competitive streak had deserted us. Maybe it will come back for next time…

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Prize-winning games can be a little bit hit and miss and depend strongly on the group too.

Spiel des Jahres Winners – 2016

The 2016 winner of the coveted German Game of the Year or Spiel des Jahres award is Codenames. Codenames is which is a word-based deduction game played in teams. Each team has a leader who gives clues to the rest of their team who are trying to choose particular word-cards from an array. The trick is for the leader to come up with a clue that covers multiple correct answers so that the rest of the team can identify the complete set before the opposition. It’s not really a game that really suits our group as several of the regulars aren’t very keen on social deduction games, but it is very quick to play, so, although we would probably have given the award to one of the two other nominees, Imhotep (manipulating large wooden blocks) or Karuba (“boardgame Bingo“), it may well end up as the “Feature Game” next week.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

At the same time the Kennerspiel des Jahres was awarded, which honours more challenging games. It was introduced in 2011 to replace the jury’s habit of intermittent special awards for games too complex for the Spiel des Jahres (notably Agricola which was awarded a special “Complex Game” prize in 2008). This year the Kennerspiel des Jahres award went to Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King, which is one of our favourite games. This year was a bit of a “Marmite” year for us as there were a lot of games on the lists that don’t really fit our group, including the two other Kennerspiel des Jahres nominees (Pandemic Legacy and T.I.M.E Stories). The Kinderspiel des Jahres award was announced last month and went to Stone Age Junior (aka My First Stone Age), which is a simpler version of the family worker placement game Stone Age.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Spiel des Jahres Nominations 2016

This week, the Spiel des Jahres Award nominations were announced. There are three awards, a children’s game award (Kinderspiel des Jahres) and the two that interest us more, the “Advanced” or “Expert” Kennerspiel des Jahres and the main award, the Spiel des Jahres (which is often interpreted as the “Family Game” award). This year there are three nominees in each category:

Kinderspiel des Jahres
Leo Muss Zum Friseur (aka Leo) by Leo Colovini
Mmm! by Reiner Knizia
Stone Age Junior (aka My First Stone Age) by Marco Teubner
Kennerspiel des Jahres
Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King by Alexander Pfister & Andreas Pelikan
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 by Matt Leacock & Rob Daviau
T.I.M.E Stories by Manuel Rozoy
Spiel des Jahres
Codenames by Vlaada Chvátil
Imhotep by Phil Walker-Harding
Karuba by Rüdiger Dorn

A couple of weeks ago, we discussed the possible winners of these awards and we felt there wasn’t really an obvious winner this year; now the nominations have been announced it is clear why we felt that way. Our group are not huge fans of the “social deduction” games that have become popular of late, and since three of the six nominations in the two categories of interest to us are of this type, they are not games we have focussed on. That said, we are very, very fond of Isle of Skye, and Karuba got its first outing last week and probably deserves another go. Imhotep was only only released a few months ago and hasn’t yet made it to the table, but otherwise it looks like this year will be a fairly quiet one from our point of view.

– Image from spieldesjahres.de