Tag Archives: The Gallerist

19th February 2019

Blue, Black, Purple, Burgundy and Mulberry were just trying to squeeze in a quick game of No Thanks! before eating, when Green arrived with his parents. They were quickly followed by the first round of food, so it wasn’t until they had finished that the carefully counted piles of chips finally got put to use. The game is very simple: players take it in turns to either take the card on the table or pay a chip to pass the problem on to the next player. If they don’t have any chips left they must take the card when it is their turn (and any chips that are on it). The game ends when the deck has been depleted and everyone scores the sum of the face value of the cards minus any remaining chips—the player with the lowest score is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Last time we played this, Pine dropped a chip, but a thanks to the kind generosity of the people at Amigo Spiele, it had not only been very swiftly replaced, but they had kindly sent spares in case the something similar happened again. And they were almost required straight away, when Black managed to send a couple of chips flying. Having learnt our lessen from last time, we immediately took a quick intermission to play “Hunt the Game Piece”, finding one quickly, while the other perched precariously over the same large gap that the had been so disastrous last time. The rogue chip was rescued without further calamity, but for the avoidance of other mishaps, we might have to put tissue paper down the hole for next time…

– Image by boardGOATS

The game of No Thanks! was a bit incidental around all that excitement. Burgundy took the first card in an effort to get ahead, but it wasn’t the best card to build from. Purple and Blue were forced into trying to build runs from the ends, which is always risky, but can yield huge rewards. This wasn’t going to be one of those times though and Purple’s problems were compounded by the fact that she only discovered the twenty-three in the middle of her long run was missing when it came to scoring. Mulberry was very tempted by some if scoring cards, but despite the fact she was pushed to her last chip, she managed to avoid getting herself into a mess. Black played a very canny game building a small medium value run, not tempted to take a chance on gaps.

– Image by boardGOATS

With everyone finished eating, it was time to decide what to play. Black had suggested that Dixit might be suitable for Green’s parents. However, Green was keen to play the “Feature Game”, Celestia (a remake of the older game, Cloud 9), and as Black was the only one who knew the rules, that meant he was up for that too. Burgundy was less keen, so in the end, as Celestia is better with more players, and to avoid too much shuffling of seats, Blue, Mulberry and Burgundy left everyone else to board the airship. In this game there is no board, instead there are nine city tiles making a path. Players then take on the roles of adventurers exploring the cities of Celestia by airship. At the beginning of each journey a new captain is identified and they begin by rolling the dice to discover the challenges they will face. Before the Captain faces these challenges, however, however, each player must decide whether to stay on board, or leave the airship.

– Image by boardGOATS

At each city there is a pile of treasure cards (mostly just victory points) which get better as the journey progresses. When a player leaves the ship, they take a treasure card at that city, forfeiting the potential riches to come. Once everyone has made their decision, the Captain has to deal with the challenges by playing equipment cards. If the Captain is successful, the airship moves on to the next city where a new captain is identified who rolls the dice and so on. If the Captain is unable to deal with the challenges they face, the airship crashes, returning to the first city and none of the passengers on board get any treasure. Those passengers who left the ship then get back on board for the start of the new journey. When one player has a total of fifty points the game ends.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time, the group added the A Little Help expansion which adds cards that players can use to help out the Captain. There are a few extra cards like The Bandit and The Mooring Line as well, which players who are not on the ship can use to make life harder for those trying to get to the next city. The group also added the lifeboat from the A Little Initiative expansion, which enables players to continue on their journey alone. One of the key parts of Celestia is hand management as cards are scarce. Players start with a hand of cards, six cards in a four or more player game and only get to draw a card when the journey ends, either due to a crash or arriving at the ninth city. With the inclusion of the expansion cards, there seemed to be quite a bit to remember when learning the rules, but as ever, once underway the game flowed and the rules became clearer. Even so there was still a lot of double checking of which cards could be used when. Black and Purple had both played the game before and knew how quickly things could get difficult.

– Image by boardGOATS

So Black and Purple cashed in their travel tickets early in the first round and hopped off the airship quite early on, leaving everyone else wondering if they were missing something as they sailed onwards. In contrast, Green and his parents (who had not played before) stayed on board and as a result took a lot of points. This all seemed a little too easy and on rechecking the rules it became apparent that something was wrong. Players had been drawing cards after arriving at each city as the Captain changed rather than after it crashed, which meant everyone was awash with cards. From then on the group played correctly, but the damage had already been done. The balance of cards had been destroyed, and Green and his mum had an unassailable lead. Green came out he victor with some canny play that allowed him to hop on and off the airship, but it was a hollow victory as those first twenty-five points were not fairly won. The game definitely deserves another try though as it is a clever and fun game when played correctly.

– Image by boardGOATS

While the airship was being filled, Blue, Mulberry and Burgundy debated what they were going to play. Orléans was very tempting, but as Celestia was supposed to be relatively quick, the trio decided to play the shorter Tokaido instead. This is a simple, but very clever game where players are traveling the East Sea Road from Kyoto to Edo (Tokyo), meeting people, tasting fine food, collecting beautiful items, discovering great panoramas, and visiting temples and wild places. The winner is the player who discovers the most interesting and varied things and is the most initiated traveler. The really clever part of the game is the turn order, because the player at the back goes first. Although this is an unusual mechanism, it is not unique and is also seen in Glen More, an out of print game that is getting a face-lift and reprint this year as Glen More II: Chronicles.

– Image by boardGOATS

The idea is that each location on the road can only be occupied by one player. Players only ever move forward and the player at the back has a free choice of which empty location they move to. They can choose to stop at the first empty location which means they will be able to maximise the number of locations they can visit, or they can choose to skip a few locations potentially gifting these to their opponents, but ensuring they stop at the locations they will profit most from. Thus the game is all about optimising movement, compromising visiting the best locations, visiting the most locations and preventing opponents visiting the locations they want by getting there first.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each player starts with a character card which gives them a different start condition and a special power. Burgundy was positioned at the front playing Yoshiyasu enabling him to draw a second card whenever he encounters someone, and choose which one to keep Encounter cards give a one-off bonus, so being able to choose instead of relying on random draw is a nice advantage. Mulberry started in second position on the track and as Kinko, was able to pay one Yen less for her food at mealtime. There are several stops for food along the way and money is always scarce so anything that saves money is always good. Blue began at the back (and therefore started), playing Sasayakko who gets the cheapest souvenir for free whenever she buys two or more when visiting the Village.

– Image by boardGOATS

In this game, it is essential that players make the most of their special powers, so Blue visited as many Villages as she could, collecting as many sets of souvenirs as she could. To do this though, she need lots of money and money is not easy to come by. Similarly, Burgundy stopped to make as many encounters as he could and coupled this with visiting the Hot Springs. Hot Springs simply give a two or three point card drawn at random from a deck, with the three point cards depicting monkeys playing in the spring. Somehow, every time Burgundy drew a Hot Spring card, it featured monkeys, while Blue and Mulberry received no monkey-love; after his fifth card it was something they really began to resent.

– Image by boardGOATS

Mulberry was the first to score points and Burgundy wasn’t far behind. Blue was slowest off the mark, but eventually caught up and overtook the others, romping into the lead, helped by Burgundy who persisted in moving Blue’s token when he scored points. That wasn’t the full story, however. At the end of the game points are awarded to the players with the most Hot Spring cards, the most Encounter cards, the most Souvenirs, for donating money at the Temples, and for the player who spent the most on food. With Burgundy taking the vast majority of these points, he caught up and, after several recounts, both Blue and Burgundy finished on eighty-one points with Mulberry not far behind. With more achievement cards, Burgundy was the clear winner, but he’d tried to be generous with his points throughout the game and insisted on sharing victory with Blue (to go with the lack of sleep they shared).

– Image by boardGOATS

Celestia was still going and wasn’t looking like it was going to be finished very soon, so Blue, Burgundy and Mulberry decided to try something else. After a bit of discussion, they opted for a new game by the producers of the Spiel des Jahres and Deutscher Spiele Preis winner, Azul, that had been brought back from Essen late last year. Blue had played Reef with Pink, Black and Purple after The Gallerist during a recent “Monster Games” session, but otherwise it hadn’t made it to the table. It isn’t a complex game though and is very quick to teach: on their turn, players can either take a card from the pool of face up cards, or play a card, adding the pieces of coral depicted in the top half to their reef and then scoring the pattern shown in the bottom half of the card.

– Image by boardGOATS

The reefs are a three by four grid and the pieces of coral can be played anywhere and can stack up to a maximum height of four. Scoring the patterns is as viewed from above, and each one can be scored several times with different patterns worth different numbers of points. This means there are two approaches to the game, scoring low but frequently, or building to one large score. Mulberry opted for the first approach and facilitated this with single colour piles of coral. Blue tried the alternative strategy, building to a large twenty-plus point score, while Burgundy tried a mixture. As a result, Mulberry quickly built up a healthy lead, and the question was whether the others would catch her or not. It was close, very close, with just four points covering all three players. This time though, little and often was the winner, and Mulberry finished with forty-two points, one more than Burgundy.

– Image by boardGOATS

Celestia was still going, so Mulberry stayed to play one last game, San Juan. This is an old game from the Alea Small Box Series that is sometimes referred to as the card game of Puerto Rico. The idea is that on their turn, the active player chooses a role, Builder, Producer, Trader, Prospector, Councillor and then everyone takes it in turn to carry out the associated action. The person who chose the action gets to use the privilege of the role (pay one less for building, trade or produce one extra item etc.). One of the clever things about the game is that cards have multiple purposes, similar to Bohnanza where cards can be money or beans. In San Juan, each card can be played onto the table as a building, but when in hand they can be used as payment, and during the game they can be used as produce as well. Each card has a value when built and there are a small number of special buildings whose score depends on the other buildings in play. The game ends when a player builds their twelfth building.

– Image by boardGOATS

Mulberry was tired and really struggled, so Blue and Burgundy tried to help explain what she could do, certain she’d get the hang of it. They stressed the importance of not getting left behind on the building, a message Mulberry took to heart, building at every opportunity. Blue made life difficult for everyone though, building a Guardhouse reducing everyone else’s hand limit to six. Burgundy saw one of the valuable six point plus violet building cards early in the game, but that was it, so he ended up building lots of production facilities. Blue on the other hand built lots of violet buildings and with it a City Hall giving her one point per violet building. In the meantime, Mulberry kept building so when Blue failed to spot she had eleven buildings she accidentally triggered the final round. It was very, very tight, but somehow, Blue just kept her nose in front finishing with twenty-three points, one more than Burgundy and two more than Mulberry.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the meantime, Celestia had finally come to an end. With Green and his parents wanting to leave and Pine finally putting in an appearance after a long day bird watching in the West Country, the group we went for a very short game, one about birds: Pick Picknic. This game combines simultaneous card selection with bluffing and a slice of luck. The idea is that there are six farm yards of different colours, if someone plays the only chicken card of a given colour, they get all the grain at that coloured farm. If multiple players go for the same coloured yard, then players can either agree to share the corn in any way that is mutually acceptable or roll the die for all of it. Foxes don’t eat corn, however, they only eat chickens, so if someone plays a fox card, they will eat any chicken cards of that colour. This time there seemed to be a lot of hungry foxes, and lots of fighting birds.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

These were accompanied by the usual exclamations as people realised that their attempt to grab a pile of corn was stymied by someone else’s decision. It was a close game, with four players within four points of each other. It was tight at the front too with just a handful of points between first and second place, but it was Purple who just edged Green’s father into second place. With that over Family Green headed off and, as Burgundy was still occupied playing San Juan, everyone else felt it was a good opportunity to play Splendor as someone else would have a chance to win. Splendor is a game we’ve played a lot and it is ideal for late in the evening when everyone is tired because it doesn’t need too much thought.

– Image by boardGOATS

Splendor is very simple: players take it in turns to take gems (chips) or use the gems to buy cards from the display. Cards can be used to buy other cards, but some of the cards also give points, and collecting certain combinations of cards allows players to claim a Noble tile giving more points. Essentially, it is a race to fifteen points, though as players finish the round (so everyone gets the same number of turns), it is the player with the most points who wins. This time the game started with everyone evenly matched. There was a lot of overlap in the colours required to claim Nobles tiles, so they were claimed at much the same time. Then Black took the lead and although both Purple and Pine were close to adding to their respective totals, Black’s score of nineteen was unassailable.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Close Games are Good Games.

22nd January 2019

Green was delayed, so once food had been dealt with, we started with the “Feature Game”, Auf Teufel komm raus. This is a fun, push-your luck game with a betting element, in the vein of games like Incan Gold. “Auf Teufel komm raus” literally translates as “On Devil come out“, but roughly means “by hook or by crook” or according to rule book, “The Devil with it” (as the title is officially translated). None of these really give any information about the game though they inspire the lovely artwork. The game itself is fairly straight-forward though: everyone simultaneously places bets on the maximum value of coal that will be drawn out of the fire by one player in the round. Players then take it in turns to draw coals, either stopping when they choose or going bust if they draw a piece.

– Image by boardGOATS

The player who draws the highest total value coals without going bust gets a fifty point bonus, as does the player who draws the most pieces of coal without drawing a Devil token. Everyone whose bet was exceeded by the maximum value keeps their stake and wins the equivalent value from the bank. If the player with the highest bid was successful, they win double their stake money. This is key as it means the largest stakes are very lucrative making it in everyone else’s interest to stop once their stake has been met, unless they are in the running for the largest total or the most coals of course… The game ends when one player passes one thousand six hundred at the end of the round and the winner is the player with the highest score.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is beautifully produced with lovely poker chips, nice wooden coal tokens, a colourful board and chunky score tokens, but it is the little things in the game play that make it enjoyable. Bizarrely though, it took the group several rounds to really get the hang of what decisions they were making. Firstly, players had to work out what a reasonable level for bidding was. There are approximately the same number of tens, twenties, twenty-fives, fifties and Devil coals with a smattering of seventy-fives and hundreds, but it took a round or so for people to get a feel for the statistics. Then there was an understanding of the tactics when drawing coal—it took most of the game for players to realise that once the highest bid had been matched, players might as well keep drawing until they win something as there was no penalty as long as nobody had “made a pact with the Devil”.

– Image by boardGOATS

Making a pact with the Devil is not something one generally chooses to do; it is simply a catch-up mechanism, but significantly changes the dynamic of the game. Basically, a player alone at at the back is given fifty points by any player who draws a Devil token. This prevents the “devil may care” attitude once the maximum bid has been met. It only happens rarely though (especially with six), as players don’t reveal their precise score, only the range of their score. As Black put it, players only know the rough size of each other’s “wad”. The aspect that makes the game fun though, is the encouraging, discouraging and general barracking as players try to manipulate others to their own ends.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the “wad” scoring and everyone feeling their way, it wasn’t entirely clear how people were doing to begin with, but Mulberry suffered from a huge unsuccessful overly optimistic bid in the first round. Making a pact with the Devil helped Mulberry catch up, while Pine pulled away at the front. Burgundy, Black and Blue weren’t going to let him get away with that and started pushing the boundaries with their bids and their draws. As players began to get a feel for what was a safe bid and what was a risky bid, everyone joined in with lots of “Ooos” and “Aaahhs” as coal was drawn from the Devil’s cauldron. Purple seemed to have an unerring knack of finding Devil tokens, but despite languishing at the back, the fact she had Mulberry for company meant neither of them could benefit from making a pact with Lucifer (maybe something that could be “House Ruled” in future). In the final round everyone put in large bids, but Blue’s was the largest, a hundred and fifty. Purple had gone bust while trying to meet Blue’s target, but the slightly more modest bids from Burgundy, Pine and Black had all been achieved, leaving all or nothing for Blue as the last player to draw.

– Image by boardGOATS

When the first token Blue turned over was one of the scarce hundreds, Black commented in jest that Blue had “marked it”. The reason for Blue’s slightly indignant reply of “Hardly!” became clear in the post-game chit-chat. There are several online reports of the coal tokens being identifiable. Blue had therefore looked carefully at the tokens that had arrived covered in tiny specks of white paint which she had spent an hour scraping off. This wasn’t entirely successful leaving some small scratch marks, so she had then carefully spent another hour inking the backs to try to homogenise them. This had left the coals with a wide variety of glossy sheens, so she had carefully spent another hour rubbing them all with carnuba wax to try to make them all similarly shiny. Unfortunately, the grain meant the pieces looked more even more varied with white wax deep inside the grain for some tokens and others smooth and glossy.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue had then spent another hour rubbing all the tokens with oil which finally had the desired effect – there was still variety in the pattern of the grains, but there wasn’t an obvious trend. Once Blue had explained that she’d spent most of Sunday evening on the exercise, trying hard not to identify any of the pieces while getting inky, waxy, oily, numb fingers, the Irony of Black’s comment was appreciated by everyone. With Blue having drawn a hundred, everyone was on tenterhooks to see if she could draw the fifty she needed to make her bid successful. Pine’s successful bid meant he had just exceeded the sixteen hundred needed to end the game; draw a Devil and Blue would lose a hundred and fifty and finish some way down the rankings. It wasn’t to be though, with a flourish she produced a fifty, giving her three hundred points for the bet plus a fifty point bonus and with it, the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Everyone had enjoyed the game though all were agreed that they’d start differently next time. It had been a lot of fun once we’d got going though, so it will probably get another outing soon. Poor Green had missed out, arriving about half-way through. That left us with seven though, and a conundrum as to what to play next. Time was getting on, but Green was keen to play something a little meatier. Although Burgundy was happy to join him in Endeavor: Age of Sail with the new Exploits, nobody else was in the mood and it is a game that really needs at least three. Blue was tempted, but with her fuzzy, “fluey” head wasn’t up to something new (she hadn’t played with the Exploits before) and Black was of a similar mind. Inevitably Bohnanza got a mention, and as Mulberry hadn’t played it before, it was looking a likely candidate. Pine wasn’t enthusiastic, but was even less keen on Endeavor. In the end, the group split into two with Blue, Burgundy and Purple opting to teach Mulberry “The Bean Game”, while Pine and Black joined Green in a game of Marrakech.

– Image by boardGOATS

Strictly speaking, Marrakech is a game about selling Rugs, but the group just couldn’t stop themselves calling them Carpets. The game itself is a very clever little abstract game made all the better by the addition of fabulous fabric “Carpets”, wooden coins, a large chunky bespoke die and a cool salesman who goes by the name of Assam. The idea of the game is that players take it in turns to roll the wooden die and then turn Assam zero or ninety degrees and move him the given number of spaces. If Assam finishes on an opponent’s coloured piece of Carpet (or Rug), the player must pay rent equal to the size of the contiguous area. Finally, the active player places on piece of Carpet covering one square adjacent to Assam (and one other square as the Rugs are rectangular), before passing the problem on to the next player. The player who ends with the most money and visible squares of Carpet combined, is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

After the first few placements it felt very obvious which direction the seller would have to be facing and then it was luck of the die. Green quickly built a nice large area in one corner of the board, but thereafter game-play resolutely remained in the other areas of the board. This was a bit of a mixed blessing as it meant Green kept his high Rug count, but did not receive any earnings from it. This was compounded when he made a tactical error, turning the faceless Assam into the path of everyone else’s Rugs. From there on, Pine and Black made regular visits to each others Rug areas, although Pine seemed to be coming off slightly better from the exchange.

– Image by boardGOATS

Eventually, with the Green and Black down to their last three Rugs in hand, for some reason Pine had an extra and still had four left. The group decided that he must have failed to place one at some point, so let him to place two on the next turn. It wasn’t clear how much that affected the outcome, but on final count, Pine had just one more Rug visible than Green, but had a advantage in coins so was declared the winner. With Bohnanza ongoing on the next table, the group looked for something short-ish and familiar and settled on Splendor, but decided to add The Orient module (from Cities of Splendor expansion), for no better reason than the fact that one of Pine’s favourite football teams is Leyton Orient.

– Image by boardGOATS

Splendor is a very simple game: on their turn, players take gems (rubies, sapphires, opals, diamonds and emeralds, in the form of special poker-like chips), buy a gem-card, or reserve a gem-card taking a wild, gold chip as a bonus. When taking chips, players must take three different chips, or, if there are enough chips in the stack, they can take two the same. Each card features a gem which acts as a permanent chip (i.e. where chips are spent when buying cards, gem-cards remain in the player’s display). Some cards also give points, and the first player that achieves a set combination of gem-cards also gets points for “attracting a Noble”. The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the round where one player reaches fifteen. The Orient expansion module adds an extra three decks of cards (one for each tier), which have special powers, like double bonus cards or joker cards which help players entice Nobles to their store.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time all the randomly drawn Noble tiles required ruby cards; three of them also needed opals and three needed diamonds as well. When laying out the Level One cards, all four came out as white diamonds and a quick check on the rest of the deck showed this was no fluke, and the deck really did need shuffling further! Once the cards had been randomised, the usual cat and mouse game ensued until Green took one of the Level Two Orient cards. This meant he was able to reserve one of the Nobles, much to Black’s chagrin, as he then had to change tac. The extra gold and additional gems that the Orient cards gave were used a few times to add a new twist to the classic game and Pine managed to use the ability to choose any Level One card he wanted to good effect as well. When Green managed to reserve a second Noble, the writing was on the wall.

– Image by boardGOATS

With only two Nobles remaining for Pine and Black to fight over, Pine decided that he would also go the reserve route and took the third, leaving Black floundering with just the high scoring cards as targets. Green managed to get his first Noble to take a one point lead, and very soon after completed his second reserved Noble to jump to a very good score of nineteen. Neither Black nor Pine could reach the fifteen in their final turns, although Pine was only a turn or two away from completing his Noble. Although we’ve played this expansion has been before, the question arose as to whether the ability to reserve a noble is to powerful. The conclusion was “possibly”, and there was some discussion about a “House Rule” to limit players to holding one Noble in reserve at a time.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, on the neighbouring table, Mulberry was learning the delights of “Bean Farming” in Bohnanaza from Blue, Purple and Burgundy. The game is really simple, but very engaging as players are involved even when it isn’t their turn. The really key part of the game is that players cannot rearrange the cards in their hand, playing them in the order they draw them. Thus, at the start of their turn, they must “plant” the first card in their hand into one of the two fields in front of them, and may plant the second if they choose. Two cards are then turned over from the central draw deck, which these must be planted, but not necessarily by the active player. These cards can be traded or even given away, but must be planted in one of the fields on the table. Once these cards have been dealt with, the active player may trade some (or all) of their cards with others round the table, before they draw cards to refill their hand.

– Image by boardGOATS

Fields can only hold one type of bean at a time, but can be harvested at any point. Harvested beans give money according to the “Beanometer”, and the rarer the card, the more money it yields when harvested. Thus for Garden beans (of which there are only six), three beans will earn three coins whereas it will require ten of the twenty-four available Coffee beans to give the same return. The coins are taken from the harvested beans (the card is turned over to show the coin on the reverse), so the number of common cards reduces as the game progresses, but the rare cards become ever more scarce. The winner is the player with the most points after three trips through the deck.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game followed the usual flow with some players trying to persuade others to take unfavourable trades. Blue spent much of the first part of the game alternately drawing Green bean and Wax bean cards; with two substantial fields and a hand full of them she then benefited from lots of donations and nobody else fancied grubbing their plantations when Blue already had the majority of the cards. All in all, it was a very generous game with everyone giving away cards left, right and centre. Everyone benefited; Purple did particularly well with her Garden beans, but Burgundy got a couple of cheap Soy beans and Mulberry did well too. It was Blue who benefited the most though and it showed in the final scores…

– Image by boardGOATS

Splendor was still on-going, so Blue persuaded Mulberry to stick about for one more short game, NMBR 9. This was another one she’d not played before and Blue felt it would appeal to her natural spacial awareness. The idea is that one player turns over cards in the deck one at a time, and everyone takes the indicated card and adds it to their tableau, ensuring that the edge touches one of the other tiles. Once a few tiles have been placed to form a base layer, then tiles can be placed on top of other tiles as long as there are no overhanging parts, and the tile sits squarely on more than one other tile and it shares an edge with at least one other tile on that level. The higher the tiles are placed the more they score (tile value multiplied by the “floor” number).

– Image by boardGOATS

It was late, and Mulberry got into a bit of a tangle with the higher levels, but the generosity of spirit from Bohnanza lingered and everyone else let her rearrange her tiles so they conformed to the rules. And quick as it is, it wasn’t long before everyone was adding up their scores… With that over, Mulberry headed off while everyone else chewed the cud, discussed “Monster Games” at the Weekend (Food Chain Magnate or a repeat of The Gallerist) and whinged about Brexit. When the Landlord suggested we moved away from controversial subjects and tried Religion and Politics instead, we knew it was home time.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Some combinations of games and groups benefit from “House Rules“.

31st December 2018

The evening began with Pine’s arrival, and he helped Pink rearrange the furniture for PitchCar while Blue added the finishing touches to supper. PitchCar is a brilliantly simple, dexterity car racing game—players take it in turns to flick their wooden cars, and the first one to get round the track three times is the winner. Before long Burgundy, Purple and Black had arrived and pieces from the base game and five of the first six expansions were all over the place and everyone was diving in trying to make an interesting looking track. There was a problem though, the problem we always have, which is a shortage of straight sections. It was then that Blue produced another expansion from under the sofa: the “Long Straights“. These are exactly what they sound like, two, very long, plank-like, straight sections that are a pain to store and difficult to transport, so rarely get used. They have the potential to add a very fast section to the track though, so this time we used both with a tight hairpin in between them to add interest.

– Image by boardGOATS

Like last year, instead of making a circuit, we made a single long race track weaving around plates of crudites, mugs of tea, and trays of “pigs in blankets”. There was a big debate whether to use The Cross as a cross-roads or back-to-back corners. In the end, the double corners won, the track was complete and we had a push off to see who would start at the front of the grid. Black won with a magnificent flick, followed closely by Purple. Blue stalled on the grid and the only one to come off worst was Burgundy who came off the track and defaulted to the back of the grid. The race began: Black and Purple continued strongly and everyone else shuffled about in the middle order with Burgundy bringing up the rear. Then Burgundy adjusted is driving style slightly and gradually began to work his way through the field. Meanwhile the wheels dropped off for Purple who had briefly taken the lead, but suddenly seemed to lose the knack of flicking, and gradually, the rest of the pack overtook her one by one.

– Image by boardGOATS

Almost everyone had trouble going over the bridge, but particularly Blue, Pink and Purple. Eventually they made it over though and shot down the rail to the hairpin some failed to make the corner, but the long straights added a bit of speed and excitement. The tunnel ended up being a relay race with Black getting stuck under the bridge, only to be pushed out by Blue, who in turn also got stuck and was freed by Pink. Similarly, he was freed by Burgundy and Burgundy was liberated by Pine. And that order was maintained all the way to the finishing line, despite Blue needing several shots at crossing it without overshooting. Green and his lady-friend, Lilac, had been held up though were expected any second; food wasn’t quite ready either so we ran the race in reverse starting with Purple, the last player to cross the line in the first race.

– Image by boardGOATS

Inevitably, we’d only just started when Green and Lilac arrived, so they just joined in. In fact by this time, Blue had actually managed to go backwards and was further behind the line than others were in front of it. With the larger pack, this time round the race was even more eventful with Black managing to park his car in a plate of crudites just missing a bowl of salsa and Pink repeatedly bouncing off the edge of the mouth of the tunnel obstructing everyone else behind him. Bizarrely, although the tunnel caused mayhem, the bridge was much less of a problem this time though with Pine leading the way by deftly bunny-hopping over it and almost everyone else just following his example. Leading over the bridge was a huge advantage, and though Blue threatened to catch him, he maintained his position to the finish. With food ready and waiting, the track was progressively dismantled as those bringing up the rear made their way to the finish line. Although it only gets an outing two or three times a year, PitchCar is always great fun and the seventh expansion, “The Loop” which is due in the new year, looks like it will add even more madness to the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

With PitchCar over and the track in a heap in the corner, food swiftly appeared in the guise of enchiladas with corn on the cob, nachos and some strange yellow, habanero salsa that reminded Pine of wallpaper paste. Supper was accompanied by more special crackers, little parcels, Herb Alpert and the Tujuana Brass, and finished with ice cream, and then it was on with the games; after a little debate first up was Ca$h ‘n Guns. This is push your luck game with a gangster theme played over a series of eight multi-player duels over their ill-gotten spoils. The player with the largest haul after eight rounds is the winner, as long as they are still alive of course. Each player has a character standee, a foam gun, and a clip of three bullet cards and eight blank cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the start of each round, everyone simultaneously chooses a whether to “load” their gun with a bullet or a blank, and on the count of three, points it at one of the other players. On a second count of three, they choose whether to remain in, or withdraw taking their shot with them. Anyone whose target is still standing reveals whether their gun was loaded with a live bullet or a blank. Anyone who received a shot takes a plaster signifying their wound and is out of the rest of the round; three wounds and they are eliminated from the game. All players remaining then take it in turns to take a loot card from the centre of the table—there are eight cards, so the number of cards each player gets depends on how many players have survived the “duel”.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game can be quite brutal, and this was no exception, indeed, Black was out in the second round and Green quickly followed. Pine pointed out that everyone on his side of the table had been injured while Blue, Pink and Burgundy were all uninjured. Purple decided to fix that and faced off with Burgundy, both ending up injured as a result. Lilac proved a dangerous adversary as she collected extra bullets from the loot and ended up with a full set going into the final rounds. Blue injured Burgundy and coped a bullet in return. After Black’s and Green’s dismissal, everyone was more circumspect and didn’t gamble as readily with their lives, so all the other players survived to the end of the game. That just left the small matter of the scores.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine and Purple had both been collecting gems, but had finished up with the same number so neither picked up the $60,000 bonus for having the most. Blue had started out collecting artwork, but there wasn’t much available. It became clear why, when the loot for the final round was revealed: almost all of it was art. It was tough in the final round; Blue was taken out by Burgundy, which effectively removed her from the running. Pink had been doing well as the Godfather, but had taken a couple of hits in the latter stages and was also taken out of the final round. Pink finished with $110,000 and second place. The final round was attritional and there were few people left to share the swag. Most of the artwork ended up going to Pine and with it first place overall thanks to a final total of $123,000 worth of loot.

– Image by boardGOATS

There was still time till midnight, and it was a toss-up between two of our favourite light games, 6 Nimmt! and Las Vegas, in the end we went for dice over cards and played Las Vegas. This is a very simple game, but a lot of fun. The play area is made up of six casinos, each numbered one to six with a jackpot drawn at random from a deck of money cards. With eight players, each jackpot totals at least $90,000 and comprises one or more notes. On their turn, players must use all the dice of one number to bet on the casino of that number by placing them on that casino tile. Once everyone has placed all their dice the player who placed the most dice on a casino takes the highest value currency card. The player with the most money after four rounds is the winner. The snag is that before any money is handed out, any dice leading to a draw are removed. It is this rule that makes the game interesting, raising the decisions above the trivial.

– Image by boardGOATS

We usually play with a few “House Rules”: we replace one of each player’s dice with a big, “double weight” die from the Las Vegas Boulevard expansion; we include the Slot Machine, and only play three rounds. The Slot Machine is a little different to the Casinos as players place all their dice of one number on the tile, but each number can only be placed once. Unlike the Casinos, if there is a draw, then the player with the total number of pips wins, and if it’s still a tie, then the player with the highest value die wins. The game is very robust to interruptions which is just as well as we took a break at midnight for toasts to the new year and to Ivory’s new arrival (we are looking forward to his return in March). Prosecco and sparkling apple juice were accompanied by the village fireworks, an exceptional panettone and mince pies and eventually everyone made it back to the table and the game resumed.

– Image by boardGOATS

Perhaps it was the interruptions, but Black’s game went almost as badly as it had in Ca$h ‘n Guns, and he won nothing at all in the first two rounds and not much in the third. It turned out that Purple and Burgundy didn’t do any better as all three finished with just $100,000. That was better than Green however, who made a paltry $20,000. Pink started off really well, but at the start of the second round we realised he was using one more die than anyone else. After paying a $10,000 penalty, he finished with $240,000, $10,000 more than Blue. Lilac, on the other hand, took more in the first round than Blue or Pink took in the whole game and finished with $410,000.

– Image by boardGOATS

Normally $410,000 would be more than enough to guarantee a win, but Pine, who took three $70,000 notes in the final round alone finished with a massive $510,000, a personal and probably group record. With the game over, Green took Lilac home to nurse her sore throat and everyone else finished their drinks and chatted for a while, watching Pink and Pine demolish a bottle of Bavarian whisky picked up in Essen during the Spiel. Everyone who had been there commented how much they had enjoyed The Gallerist at the ninth “Monster Game” session a few days earlier. Although it had taken ages and was very complex, it wasn’t a real brain-burner and everything had been done well. The rule book was good, the board was clearly laid out, the player-aids were helpful, the pieces were great and the box was really top quality—in fact, it was almost the complete opposite of Agra, which struggled through at the previous “Monster Games” event. The second game, Reef, had also gone down well, but everyone was particularly keen to give The Gallerist another go.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: GOATS enjoy a good party just as much as the next ruminant.