Mother Russia

We had quite a big turnout this week at IpBoG. Five tables were full of board gaming goodness. I arrive to find people playing Biblios, Machi Koro, Dead Of Winter and  Saint Petersburg, which made it's IpBoG debut.

This week I played Age of Assassins, Sushi Go and Quartermaster General. It was my first time playing Quartermaster General, a game the only really works with six players, and we had the full compliment of people. It's set in world war two where three people are playing as the allies with the other three playing as the axis. I was Germany and so destined to lose. Mike did mention that he'd played it five times and the axis had lost every time, so the odds seem stacked in the allies favor. Quite aptly, on the final turn, I lost control of Germany and Russia removed all my troops from the board.

I saw other people playing Chinatown, Hanabi and Liar's Dice. As always I'm sure a bunch of other games were seen that I missed.

Hello, Sailor!

Two weeks worth of updates this time. Last week I started off with some more Deception: Murder in Hong Kong before moving on to Welcome to the Dungeon, a little push your luck game that i did terribly at. 

As usual the night started off with Secret Hitler. Others were playing Betrayal at House on the Hill, Ca$h 'n Gun$, Dominion, Pit and Timelines.

I ended the night with Container a game about producing, shipping and selling goods. At its core it's a bidding game. Goods are worth a different amounts to different people and you want to end up with the goods that are the most valuable to you. The twist is that the type of good you have the most of at the end of the game doesn't score anything. I got an early lead and somehow managed to keep it right up until the end.

In the second week so many games made their IpBoG debut. King's Forge, Tsuro and Las Vegas along with my new acquisition, Madame Ching. This was a bargain from the recent bunch of liquidated stock to be picked up by The Works. It's a pretty light little game when it comes down to it and there aren't that many choices to make. I didn't mind it thought and Dan seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. We both drew for first place with Dan beating me on the tie breaker.

There were some IpBoG classics too. I played Chinatown and For Sale and I saw others playing Tragedy Looper and Citadels.

Chaotic and Cooperative

The blog didn't get done last week due to lazyness but I do have a list of games that were played. Here goes! Arctic Scavengers, Coup, Falling, Lemonade Stand, Onward To Venus, Pit, Splendor and Timelines.

Now on to this week. After the usual bank holiday slump we were back in full flow. We actually got a record breaking 24 people, up from 23 a few weeks ago. We had a bunch of games making their first appearance at IpBoG this week including The Walking Dead: The Board Game, Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game, Spaceteam and Zany Penguins.

Zany Penguins is a game I picked up a few days before and hadn't got a change to play before. It's a 15 minute filler card game and I ended up playing six games of it. It played a bit like a multi player Lost Cities. I've heard it's kind of like a reverse Arboretum but I've never played that game so I can't really compare it. It has a terrible name, pretty average artwork, the slipperiest cards I've held (or at least tried to hold), but pretty good gameplay. Everyone seemed to like it and newcomer Matt even said he was thinking about buying it himself.

I also played Coup and Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game. I've not played this version of Legendary before but I have played Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game which is similar but a bit more complex and much harder. The Marvel version is semi-co-op whereas the Alien version is fully co-op but the Marvel one is much to win. So much so I wouldn't really call it a co-op game, it's almost as if you're using the win condition as a timer to end the game.

Steven had picked up Spaceteam which attempts to bring the digital game to the tabletop and labels itself as a chaotic and cooperative card game. Does it succeed? I don't know, I didn't play it, but kinda is what people seemed to say. It definitely had people shouting orders at each other and frantically running around the table.

A bunch of regulars were played too including Falling, Lords of Waterdeep, Chinatown, Arctic Scavengers and King of Tokyo.

Dee Un Dee

Twenty two people this week. One down from last week! There were a lot of games making their IpBoG debut appearances.

I turned up this week to find people already mid-game. One table were playing the game with the longest name I've ever heard Dungeons & Dragons: The Fantasy Adventure Board Game. Although it bears the name of the RPG, it it's more of a standard dungeon crawl than a role playing game.

I brought Mythotopia, the game with probably the most generic name in board gaming. It's pretty much a multiplayer re-implementation of the Martin Wallace game A Few Acres of Snow which is conversely the game with probably the least generic name in board gaming. It was my first time playing it and the rules are a but fiddly. It ended up taking us the whole night and we didn't get to the end. It's probably our fault more than the game's. We let Dan have the honorary win because he was winning throughout most of the game although Alex was hot on his tail towards the end.

Joe won at Quantum but Joe always wins at Quantum. In what can only be described as a strange attempt to prove me right, Mike brought Friese's Landlord, a recent re-implementation of Landlord! the first Friedemann Friese game to ever be published back in 1992. Rhino Hero, the dexterity game for kids that's also enjoyed by adults, also made it's debut this week.

People also played Star Realms, Light Line, Chinatown, Machi Koro and almost defiantly a bunch of other games that I didn't see.

Off Again, On Again

After a brief kerfuffle about whether we would be able to do board games a Cult this week it turned out we could. There was something going on but it turns out it started at 6 and wouldn't but eating into board game time.

It was a terrible week of board gaming for me. I lost both the games I played. And by lost I mean I came last. By a lot. The shame! The first game I played was Gold West which Dan won.

Afterwards we played Caylus Magna Carta which made it's IpBoG debut. It looked like Dan was going to win this game too but Alex manged to take the first place spot. It's a card game version of the Caylus, the classic worker placement game. It plays very much like the original Caylus but a bit of a cut down version. But like the original it still has the provost, the little token that lets you screw over other people.

Johnny ran a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill and Danny ran a game of Chinatown. These seem to be pretty much Johnny's and Danny's go to games and, of the non-filler game, are probably played the most played at IpBoG.

A couple of five minute bursts of shouting can only mean one thing. People were playing the noisy bidding game Pit. There was also some Codenames, Skull & Roses and Spyfall along with some other games that I've no doubt missed. But we'll be in Cult for sure next week so I'll see you all there for more board gaming goodness!

Terra Mystic-agh!

It was a good turnout this week. As if last week's blog was a premonition, this week we breached the 20 people mark. I think there were 22 in total. Its not record breaking but its pretty close.

As you may have guessed form the title of this post my entire night was filled up with Terra Mystica. David has been promising to teach me Terra Mystica for probably over a year but whenever he brings it I seem to be tied up teaching a game. This time I was resolved to playing it so play it I did. It's well knows the be one of the best of the euro style games and it didn't disappoint. The first few rounds plodded along but the turns progressed my stress levels increased. Trying to optimise your turns on the final round can be an logistical nightmare. I was sure I was going to come in second with David wining but after the final scoring, although David was ahead of me by a single point Johnny had beaten David by two points. It was a tight finish.

Cath brought along The Downfall of Pompeii. The game comes with what looks like a fully functioning volcano. Unfortunately it's actually a fully non-functioning volcano. William did his best to avoid being preserved in an ash sarcophagus and won the game.

Laurence brought Betrayal at House on the Hill. It was some sort of treasure hunt scenario I think. The took a long time, over two hours, but Joanne finally won. They finished off the night with a few games of Spyfall.

Alex started off the night with Founders of the Empire. After that Mike turned up with Danny's copy of Chinatown. I'm pretty sure it was all legitimate and Danny had lent it to Mike, nothing untoward. That was played and Dan won. In classic Mike style Mike had brought along a classic. This time it Through the Desert, a game from Reiner Knizia's tile-laying trilogy. That's actually a thing, I guess that proves just how much of a classic it is. The other two games in the trilogy are  Samurai, which Mike brought a few weeks ago, and Tigris & Euphrates, which he'll no doubt bring in a few weeks time.

I also saw some Machi Korro being played and no doubt some other games were played that Iv'e missed. I left while Through the Desert was in full swing and a few others were starting a game of Resistance. My brain was too fried from Terra Mystica for any more board gaming that night though.

Keep Fearing The Kraken

I'm not sure what went down at IpBoG last week, I was ill and couldn't make it. I imagine board games were played, that's usually the kind of thing that happens. This week we got around 17 people, maybe a couple more. It was hard to count, people seemed to be coming and going all evening. However many it was I don't think we met the rarest of beasts that is over 20 people.

I started off with a game of Abyss with the Kraken expansion. Except last week my friend painted the kraken miniature it comes with. You can see it at the top of the page in all it's colorful glory. Tim and I draw for first place. There's probably some kind of tie break condition but I totally forgot to check at the time. It's probably to do with pearls. It probably also means Tim would have won. Let's say Tim won.

I got a win in my next game anyway which was Hanabi. Hanabi is a cooperative game though so really it was a win for everyone. And with only minor accidental cheating which is almost unavoidable. I nearly messed up one of the runs by discarding a blue 5 but we were playing with the wild cards and manged to play a wild 5 on the blue instead. I don't think I've ever played with wilds before it seemed to make the game a quite bit easier.

My final game of the night was Flip City. Last time we played it we didn't manage to get through a whole game. This evening we did and I managed to win it.

One table table played Skull, Spyfall, Chinatown and Splendor. Another spent the evening playing VivaJava: The Coffee Game. I actually left a little early this week so no doubt they played something after. Maybe Red 7 but in all honesty that's a total guess. I did see Alex had brought it though so maybe.

No Kittens Were Harmed In The Making Of This Blog

The last IpBoG of the year. For me it was all about dice games. I'd brought Quarriors along with the Quartifacts expansion. I played a couple of games over the evening. It's basically Dominion with dice. For me that almost takes away any strategy and turns it into a bit of a luck-fest.

I also brought and played Tiny Epic Galaxies. Another dice game and, although it can be a bit luck dependent, I think there's more strategy than with Quarriors. It's also a bit shorter so there's a better luck to length ratio. Or maybe I'm just feel like that because I won this game but lost both of Quarriors.

Cath brought some friends along and they played Betrayal at  House on the Hill. I think the scenario has something to do with kittens. I guess some kind of scary, evil kittens. They also played Coup and Skull. No kittens were involved.

Other people played Red7, Chinatown and For Sale. Next week is Christmas and Cult is closed so we'll be skipping IpBoG for a week. See you all next year.

The Thomas Wolsey

Last week I turned up to Cult to find a Gospel band playing. Cult were kind enough to reserve some tables for us but it was too noisy for board gaming so we opted to go somewhere else. We tried Isaacs but it was pretty busy that night so ventured on to The Thomas Wolsey. Again, it was pretty busy but we didn't want to turn the night into an impromptu pub crawl so we made do and settled there for the night.

I didn't stay for too long that night but I did manage to fit in a game of the United Kingdom version of Ticket To Ride. I was just ahead on the score track when the game ended and there were just the tickets to score. We revealed the tickets and  I was feeling reasonably confident. I had not only completed all my tickets but also completed more tickets than anyone else. However my confidence was misplaced as I came in last. The others played Cosmic Encounter and I'm pretty sure some other games were played in my absence.

This week we were back at Cult and things were back to normal. We started off with a couple of games of Red7 and then launched into a game of The Bloody Inn while the others played Codenames. We played the longer version of The Bloody Inn and I got my highest ever score. I think this proves that Priest is an overpowered card. It's probably being removed from my copy of the game from now on.

Afterwards we played Mai-Star, a small card game by Seiji Kanai of Love Letter fame. This was not only the first time Alex had played it at the club but also the first time he had ever played it. The game is played over three rounds. In the first round I did pretty badly. In the second round I took a big risk on scoring one of the high value cards and failed. I was in last place. For the third round I chose to take an even bigger risk, trying to play the highest scoring card in the game. It was going to be all or nothing for me. Somehow I managed to pull it off and a smile even crept across my little face. I think the scores were something like 18, 19, 20 and 45. A pretty crazy card.

We finished off with a game and a half of Pandemic: The Cure which is pretty much Pandemic: The Dice Game. The first game didn't go too well. Not only in the sense that we did badly and lost easily but also in the sense that Alex didn't like the game. I feel how well you do on the game is dictated a lot by the characters you use so we cheated a little, hand picked our characters and tried again. We fared better this time but Cult was closing so we had to abandon mid-game.

Mike brought along the Reiner Knizia classic Samurai which made its IpBoG debut and Danny ran a game of Chinatown and I think I caught a game of Quaridor being played.

Language Independent

When I arrived some people were playing Smash Up. I think this was probably its IpBoG debut. I scurried off to find a table and play an evening of fillers.

I started off this week with The Bloody Inn, a game I'd recently picked up at Essen. At Essen I also picked up the new French version of For Sale from Iello. The updated artwork is pretty great and it's language independent for the most part. There are some French words on the cheques but I'm pretty sure that these are just the word versions of the numbers so that's probably not required, right? We played three games in a row. Alex won all three.

The new game for me was Founders of the Empire, a tile laying game that Alex had recently purchased. It looks like it's maybe Russian because I don't recognise some of the letters on the box but for the most part it's pretty language independent. I think the words on the box are just the title of the game so that's probably not required, right? Dan won. Afterwards I realised that if I'd have used my tokens properly I could have probably won. Or at least drawn. Sometimes I suck at board games.

Start as you mean to go on, that's a rule I pretty much live my life by and, as such (ignoring the part in the middle where we played other games), we finished off the night with another game of The Bloody Inn.

As usual other people played other games but, as usual, I don't know much about that. Danny played Chinatown again. Tragedy Looper seems to have fallen out of favour for now. I also saw games of The Manhattan Project and Forbidden Desert being played. Or maybe Forbidden Island, I can't tell the difference. Forbidden something, anyway.

All The Debuts

It's been a while since the last post but fear not, IpBoG is still alive and well. Except for one week where we abandoned Cult due to the overwhelming number of freshers. Cult is sort of the unofficial (i.e. ex) student union bar. I'm going to blame the lack of updates in part due to Essen. Allegedly I had some sort of preparation I had to do for it. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'll start with this week as it's the freshest in my memory. It was a week of firsts whith a bunch of games making their IpBoG debut. I came armed with one of my purchases from Essen, The Bloody Inn. A card game with a bunch of interesting mechanics that work together well, an interesting theme and great art work. I predict this is going to be one of the big hits from the Essen releases along with 7 Wonders: Dual (which, although I did mange to play a demo, sold out in English before I could get my hands on a copy).

I also played Mission: Red Planet, a game that Alex finally managed to get hold of after Amazon had been messing him about with his pre-order. I think Mike had the same experience but gave up altogether in the end. It was a pretty fun action selection, area control game. I did terribly. Like really terribly. It was embarrassing.

Mike brought Chaos in the Old World and Danny played a game or two of Chinatown.

The chances of me remembering even half the games that have been played over the previous couple of weeks is incredibly slim but here goes. Luckily I have a small amount of photographic evidence to help jog my memory.

I played a couple of games of Takenoko. The first of which I forgot half the rules and it didn't really work properly. Mike played a couple of games of Cosmic Encounter. The first of which he won in the second round or something and it didn't really work properly.

Mike's Kickstarter copy of Blood Rage came through the post on Monday morning and he brought it straight to IpBoG that night. King of New York made it's IpBoG debut. The general consensus was that it was very slightly better than King of Tokyo.

Eminent Domain made its IpBoG debut. People also played Pandemic, The Resistance, Love Letter, Hanabi, Dobble and Fluxx. I've probably missed a bunch of games but I'll do my best to get back into updating the blog weekly as my life gets less hectic and I can concentrate on the important things in life. Like pushing wooden cubes round a sheet of cardboard.

Back at Cult

With the water issues fixed we were back at Cult this week. We're slowly migrating to the other side of the bar where the lighting tends to be better. We're also more toilet adjacent. If that's a good thing or not I've yet to decide.

When Mike brings a game it's usually one of two things, some sort of stock market manipulation game or a "Sid Sackson classic", As far as I can tell Compounded is neither of these things. If anything it's a bit of a push your luck, trading game.

I was play-testing The Five Families some more, trying out some slight rules variations. This will probably be much of what I end up doing for the next few weeks. The new tweaks were for the worst but that's sometimes how it goes. Dan won, but I'm blaming that on the rules.

I finished up the night with a couple of games of Sushi Go. Dan won both, I guess I can't blame that on the rules. Except we did forget to reverse the turn order for each round so yeah, I'm blaming the rules again!

Pandemic got played. I think with an expansion. Probably On The Brink. I think it was a pretty easy win and the viruses were easily eradicated.

There was also a bit of Citadels and a couple of games of Love Letter going on.

Danny has brought Chinatown to Cult before but I'm not sure I've ever seen it played before. I'm not even certain they got through a whole game. When I left for home they were still less than half way through.