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.

Anniversary Plans

It's nearly been two years since the first ever IpBoG. We should probably do something fun. Well, board games are always fun, but something a bit different maybe. I was throwing around the idea of having a two player game day and people seemed pretty into the idea. Our anniversary is the last week in March which is two weeks away from now so don't forget to brush off your copies of Star Realms and Andriod: Netrunner. I'll probably be bringing Imperial Settlers, okay it's not a two player game but I'd never play it with any more than two people.

Anyway, to the blog proper. We got something like 21 people this week, it's getting hard to count the exact amount. I arrived to fine people already playing Ca$h 'n Gun$ and also (I think) Zombies!!!

I brought Mythotopia again and we got through it much quicker this time and cleaned up a couple of rules errors. I snuck in late for the win but it was pretty close and could have been anyone's game. Afterwards I played Tiny Epic Galaxies. I game Philip a hint as to what he could do and he did it, losing himself (and me) the game. This is the last time anyone takes any of my board gaming advise.

Mike brought Quartermaster General which made it's IpBoG debut. It's a team game with three people on each side, each player controlling a different country on either the Axis or Allied side.

Dan brought For Sale. He'd been holding out for the recent Asmodee version which has super nice art and super nice components and, not wanting show show off but, is the one that I own.  It's pretty hard to get hold of though, at least for a price that isn't totally extortionate so he finally caved and bought the English version.

Danny had bought the Revolución expansion for Mafia de Cuba which I think went down well. A bunch of other games were played including, but not limited to, Coup and Blueprints. I'm sure others were played but I was caught up on the other side of the bar so didn't get to see them all.

The Crutch of the Matter

First things first, we got 23 people this week. I'm pretty sure that's record breaking. Let's see if we can keep it up! Second things second, Mike made his triumphant return to IpBoG, albeit on crutches. Some sort of incident involving his son's scooter and a misplaced sense of youth. Probably best not to ask.

We took over a lot of tables this week, snaking our way across Cult.  One table I think spent the whole night playing the worker placement classic Stone Age which made it's IpBoG debut this week. Another table played Mysterium followed by Ca$h 'n Gun$.

Danny was back to playing the mastermind in Tragedy Looper. He lost on the last turn, still unable to claw in his first victory in that game. Afterwards another game was played where he was tutoring Johnny on how to play as the mastermind followed by a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill.

I started off the evening with Kingdom Builder. I'm pleased to say that I came first in both games beating Matt twice. He often beats me at that game and after my terrible losses last week it was nice to have some wins under my belt.

Afterwards we played The Bloody Inn. I think Matt came first in that one. We also played a couple of games of Forbidden Island. We lost the first game in the first couple of rounds but managed to beat it the second time round. We spent the rest of the night playing a few games of No Thanks!

The Felixstowe guys played a couple of games of For Sale before Mike turned up. Mike had brought with him his new acquisition Royals, a game from 2004. I was shocked, this wasn't a classic euro, but Mike assured me it was actually a reimplementation of an older game, Heads of State. After they were done with that they finished off the night with a few more games of For Sale.

Snap on Steroids

It was a pretty busy at IpBoG this week with around 22 attendees. We had about five games going on at once. I started off with Ca$h 'n Gun$ but was eliminated in the first few rounds. A couple of others were eliminated just before the end of the game and Danny claimed the victory.

After I was taken out I joined Alex and Joe who were playing Dobble. It's a speed game, a bit like snap on steroids. Each card has eight symbols and each two cards have a single symbol in common. One of my favorite classic card games is a speed game Spit, so unsurprisingly I liked Dobble quite a lot. I was sure I was doing well at it too until it came to count up the cards and I'd come last.

Next I played Splendor. I felt I was doing pretty well but Matt just beat me to fifteen points, winning him the game.

A few weeks ago Alex brought Rattus, this week he turned up with the card game version, Rattus Cartus. After bringing Black Friday last week, Mike brought another stock market game, Hab & Gut.

After Splendor I played Evo, a game about evolving dinosaurs which comes with actual dinosaurs. Well, not actual dinosaurs but small wooden ones. We ended with a double tie, two players had 39 points and two players had 26 points.

I finished off my night with Eminent Domain: Microcosm, a two player little microgame. I got my revenge against Matt for Splendor, beating him at this game.

Plenty of other games were played. An abstract called Quaridor, Citadels, Black Fleet, Ventura, a couple of games of King of Tokyo and more Dobble.

Black Monday

There were a bunch of new games at IpBoG this week including Spectre Ops although I don't think it got played. Personally I hope to get to play it myself soon. Instead Shadows Over Camelot was played, making it's IpBoG debut.

I'd brought along Ca$h 'n Gun$, my own new purchase but didn't get a change to play it either. It was played by another table however and I think they had a pretty good time with it. The rules are so simple they could read them there and then and get playing in no time.

So it turns out we've been playing Abyss wrong. When exploring the depths you have to offer the card up before being able to take it yourself. We'd been playing it so that you could take it before offering it up. This time we played  with the real correct rule. It was pretty similar but had a bit of a different feel to it. Alex won by a single point. I lost hard. Everyone else scored in the 70's and I was somewhere in the 50's.

After Abyss I played Black Friday, a reasonably serious stock market style game with strangely cartoony animal art. When Mike was explaining it I don't think anyone understood what was going on but after a couple of turns we'd gotten the hang of it for the most part. Toward the end of the game me and Alex both invested big in the yellow stock. It didn't pay off, we did terribly. Mike won by a mile.

Danny ran a game of Tragedy Looper and was the bad guy as usual. He also lost as usual. I think maybe he's just the nice kind of bad guy and lets people win so that they have a good time playing his game. I guess we'll never know. There was also a bit of Eight Minute Empire action going on along with some Lost Legacy.