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Wednesday 26 November 2014

All Hail the King

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Citadels

Turnouts are getting back up to speed again. With the addition of three newcomers this week we managed fourteen attendees.

Carcassonne
Last week Alex asked me if I could bring Citadels along for him to try so this week I did. We started off with this as our first game. We played with four people because, although this game supports up to 7, it can drag with a high player count. Adam made off with a good start building 5 districts while everyone else only had two or three. Gemma quickly caught up and took the lead, building some districts worth 8 or 9 points. It ends up that Alex was the first to build 7 districts giving him the extra bonus points to win the game, beating me by a single point. While we played Citadels the others were playing Arctic Scavengers and Splendor.

Lost Legacy
After Citadels we broke out Skull and Roses. Again this was won by Alex. Alex owns both the Flying Garden and Starship variants of Lost Legacy. We played the Flying Garden version while another group played the other. I tried my hardest to hinder him but it was to no avail, not wanting to ruin his winning streak Alex won this game too. All hail Alex, king of board games.

When we were done with this the others were finishing up games of Carcassonne and Yardmaster Express so we joined together and combined both sets of Lost Legacy to play one final double sized game before leaving for the night.

Tuesday 18 November 2014

The Last Draft

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Yardmester Express

This week was a good week, we finally got back into double figures. With two newcomers we made it to 11 people.

KemetI arrived to find some people already playing Munchkin. I'm not sure what variant it was, maybe zombies. This left seven of us so the only sensible plan of action was to play 7 Wonders. I started off slowly with neither me nor my neighbors having any wood or stone at all but in the third age I really lucked out getting a lot of free builds due to my previous cards. Dan and I went research crazy and both managed to get five of the same kind of symbol. I also managed to get one of each type of symbol too which edged my score above his, winning the game. Often with 7 Wonders if only one or two people go for research you can score pretty highly but it's a risky move because if people catch on they can block you by discarding research cards or using them to build wonders. A few research of different types is nowhere near as good as lots of a single kind.

Among The StarsAfter 7 wonders we split into three groups. Alex played Five Tribes, Dan played Kemet and I played another drafting game, Among The Stars. Among The Stars is pretty much a space based 7 Wonders. That is space in theme where you're building a space station as well as space in mechanism where you're arranging cards spatially. In this game there are two types of cards, those that trigger immediately and those that trigger at the end of the game. Dan and I had played mostly immediate cards whereas Johnny had gone for a more delayed approach. Johnny was sure he was losing but when it came to the final scoring he'd beaten us by a mile.

Five TribesBy the time we'd finished Among The Stars, Dan had already finished Kemet, a game that took us over two hours when I played it last. It seems Dan had devised a pretty decent strategy and made it to the victory condition in no time. Also there were less people playing it this time so that might have contributed.

Alex had won Five Tribes and had finished up the same time as Dan. By the time we were done with 7 Wonders everyone else was just finishing a game of Coup. I taught a couple of guys how to play Yardmaster Express while the rest played Lost Legacy. Unfortunately I taught Yardmaster Express incorrectly. Instead of drawing a card, playing a card and passing your hand to the next player I taught it like a 7 Wonders/Among The Stars style drafting game where everyone would play their hand in unison. Luckily the game still worked pretty well for the most part. I guess that's what happens when you play too many drafting games in one night.

Sunday 16 November 2014

Scooby Dooby Doo

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Pandemic

Again only nine people this week. We seem to be having trouble making it into double figures recently. I have my fingers crossed for next week!

Machi Koro
Johnny started off with another game of Betrayal at House on the Hill which seems to have become a bit of an IpBoG staple recently. I was playing Machi Koro at the time and Demtri turned up unexpectedly at our table. It turns out he was the betrayer but even he was no match for those meddling kids and was defeated before he got his evil way.

Machi Koro is a game of tableau building and dice throwing. It's pretty luck based but still pretty fun. I usually do pretty bad at it but I won for the first time. Maybe there is some skill involved after all!

After Machi Koro we played Yardmaster Express, a little fifteen minute card game of making trains. It's pretty simple but pretty fun. Maybe even more pretty fun than Machi Koro.

221b Baker Street Afterwards I played Pandemic while the others played 221b Baker Street. 221b Baker Street is a Sherlock Home themed deduction game. From what I understand it involves finding and solving crossword style clues and Dan used his awesome crossword solving skills to win.

Pandemic was a strange one. The starting diseases were all clustered in one area. I still don't know if this was a good or bad thing. Towards the end it looked like we were going to make it but then we realised we were going to run out of player cards. But then even before that we had a couple of chained outbreaks and the outbreak limit was reached.

Afterwards we played Machi Koro again. Philip had gone strong on red and purple cards allowing him to take money off other players. This ended up working well for him with the other players unable to get a decent amount of money and him quickly getting enough to build all landmarks, winning the game.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

Egyptian Gods

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Kemet

Only nine again this week. Maybe it's the weather or perhaps board games are just seasonal. Or maybe next week everyone will come at once and we'll finally get over 20.

Betrayal at House on the Hill
I started off with Kemet, an area control game of Egyptian gods. I was some sort of blue crocodile. I got off to a slow start and thought I'd fallen too far behind but with a few sneaky moves I managed to hold my own. Steve was the first to 8 points (in fact he had 9) but it was at the end of the night and you need them at the end of the day to win. We spent our last turn trying to claw the victory points back off him but couldn't quite manage it. Both him and Dan finished with 8 but Steve had earned more through attack wins in a tie meaning he won Kemet two weeks in a row.

Although playing the short game it took us over two hours. The others got a couple of games of Betrayal done in that time. Once with Frankenstein and once with something else that I've forgotten. Both times the betrayer lost. I left a bit earlier than normal but some more games were played. I think Coup and maybe some others.

Saturday 1 November 2014

Haunted Houses

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Five Tribes

It was a slow night this week with only 9 attendees.  It's been a long time since we've had single figures. Only two tables of games this time. A few people had turned up early to get an early start.

Betrayal at House on the Hill
Dan had had a birthday and had brought a bunch of new games with him. I arrived at 7:30 and a game of Kemet was being set up. They were playing the short game which is up to 8 points, but Steve managed to get all the way to 10 points on his final turn, the score needed for the long game,  making him the victor.

With Halloween approaching I started off with Betrayal at House on the Hill. It was Cathy's first game and she ended up being the betrayer. This can sometimes be a bit confusing if you've not played before but she managed well. She was controlling a poltergeist and we were attempting to exorcise her. Usually with Betrayal the build up lasts about half an hour and the game after the haunt is over quickly. In this game the haunt dragged on a little and became a bit of a monotonous, dice rolling race but in the end good overcame, the ghost was exercised and the explorers all went home safely.

Kemet
Dan set up a game of Zeppelin Attack, another of his new games and I played a game of Five Tribes. I played it for the first time last week and really enjoyed it even though I did quite badly. It has a pretty unique mechanic that I've heard called worker displacement, which is a pretty nice pun. This time Alex scored a respectable 60 points for collecting the full set of cards. I thought he was onto a winner and he hastily placed his remaining camels to end the game. My strategy had been the same as last week, to get the most yellow guys but also to only put in low bids for turn order. This really boosted my score ending with over 60 points worth of coins. I ended up getting the top score so I came out liking this game even more than last week.

In non board game  related news Sam's made an IpBoG Steam group if people are that way inclined.
 
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