Cthulhu, My Dear Watson

Another two weeks of exciting board gaming compressed into a single blog post. Your screen is literally bursting at the seams with excitement. You might want to duck. Or at least get a towel.

The first week first. Danny brought Monikers. It's a kind of party game where, if I remember correctly (I didn't play it), you have to act out some sort of character and everyone has to guess who you are. But there's a twist! In the second round you are only allowed to say a single word. But there's another twist! In the third round you're not allowed to say any words, you have to act it out. You have the same set of people in each round to stop things becoming insanely hard. I didn't play it though, this is just what I remember form the Shut Up and Sit Down review from a year or two ago.

I played Bohnanza. It actually made it's IpBoG debut which is pretty crazy considering what a good game it is. I'm blaming it on the terrible, terrible artwork. If any game ever needs a reskin it's this one.

Another tabled played Dead of Winter, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong made a welcome return and Captain Sonar was also played. It's always played at the moment.

The second week I played a few games of Skull and Roses followed by a game of A Study in Emerald, a game set in a Lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes universe. Although I'd played the game once before that was the first edition, this was the second edition. More streamlined and brand new artwork. It's a strange mix between social deduction, deck building and area control.

Lords of War made it's debut. It's a game I'm not familiar with. It kind of looked like Summoner Wars but I heard it played more like chess. Although maybe someone not familiar with Summoner Wars might think it was a bit like chess. I have no idea.

Thief's Market also made it's first appearance. Dominion was played with the Prosperity expansion. People also played 7 Wonders, Biblios, Welcome to the Dungeon, Choson and, of course, captain Sonar.

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.

Pump & Grind

Due to some sort of water supply problems Cult was unexpectedly closed this week. Instead we arranged an last minute change of venue to the very accommodating Pump & Grind. A fair few IpBoG regulars heard about the venue change one way or another and the night continued as normal.

I'd brought along my game prototype that has the working title of The Five Families. Play-testing went down pretty well and feedback was mostly positive although Dan was understandable angry that he'd spent his time playing a game that there is no Boardgamegeek entry for so he was unable to log his play. Expect more play-testing over the next few weeks though.

Afterwards I played Biblios. It finished in a tie with everyone on the same amount of points however Alex had the most money winning him the tiebreak and the game.

Joanne had brought along her favorite game but she'd lost the box a long time ago and didn't know the title of it. It has something to do with numbers, that's all I know. I guess there was no Boardgamegeek logging of plays for this game either. Afterwards King of Tokyo got played. Johnny got eliminated pretty early on and the game took an unusually long time. Justine emerged victorious. This was followed up by a few games of Dobble.

Another group was playing Dead of Winter. The main objective was completed as were all the personal goals of the good players. Only the traitor didn't manage to complete their objective.

I'm sure by next week the water issue will be fixed and we'll be back at Cult as usual.

Game Of The Year

Another two weeks, another blog. And in the past two weeks the Dice Tower Awards have come and gone. Dead of Winter picked up three awards including best game so in its honor I brought it along. I was the betrayer but never got a change to do any betraying because the game beat us too quickly. So many deaths and so little morale. It was a harsh winter.

Demetri made his not so triumphant return to IpBoG, where he played Citadels and was assassinated for something like five turns in a row while Alex had a run away lead.

Alex brought Rattus, which made its IpBoG debut. I played a quick Sushi Go before finishing off the night with a few games of Lost Legacy. Matt won all of them. Others played Luchador!, Fluxx and Tragedy Looper.

This week the stars finally aligned and Gemma came on a night that I'd brought Abyss so she finally got to play it again. For some reason I quite like winning at Abyss. I think Dan does too and this time he won. I scraped second place. His turn came just before mine and he kept sweeping in and recruiting the lords I'd planned on getting.

But this was to be the end of Dan's winning streak and the start of mine. We played Blueprints next and I won by a mile. Followed by Biblios which I won by another mile. And then a couple of games of Sushi Go which I won both of.

Danny was playing his usual affair of Luchador! and Tragedy Looper. I hear rumours of people playing Pandemic although I didn't witness it myself. This week also saw Zombicide, a game that's not made it to IpBoG in around a year.

The night was finished off with a few games of The Resistance including the Hostile Intent expansion. If there's a correlation between how loud a group is being and how much fun they're having (which sounds pretty likely) then Hostile Intent must be the funnest expansion around.

Cthulhu's Cultists

Bank holidays are always a strange one for attendees; some of the usual suspects can't make it but conversely some people that aren't usually free on Mondays have some spare free time. All in all we managed to pull together eleven board gamers.

Tim is one such guy that is usually busy on a Monday but he came this week armed with Cthulhu Wars. It was a mammoth box, many times the size of a regular game. My understanding is that it also cost many times the price of a regular game. I don't know much about it it except that it's a mini-heavy Kickstarter affair, with some minis so big they can hardly be called miniatures.

I started off with Machi Koro, a game I own but am not overly keen on. This time I didn't mind it too much though. And Gemma won it, obtaining her first ever win at IpBoG.

Afterwards we played Biblios where Gemma and I drew for first place. This was followed by a few games of Skull. Continuing her winning streak, Gemma also won one of those games. We finished off the night with a game of Quarriors. Determined not to let her winning streak continue, I used by best dice rolling skills to win that game.

The others played Dead of Winter. Teacher Dan and Alex both won. Despite his victory, Alex pretty much hated the game.

Don't forget that this Saturday is Tabletop Day. No doubt some IpBoGers will be attending.

Two Weeks

So, last week I didn't have my camera with me and, as we established in a previous blog entry, no one wants to see words without pictures, right? I think last week we got around fourteen people. And this week we got exactly fourteen people. A bit of a drop off from the twenties, but never mind, we will prevail once again, I'm sure.

Last week I got to play The Sheriff of Nottingham. I came in second with Alex winning as usual. Dan played a two player Small World with Gemma. I think Dan won but it was Gemma's first ever game, and Dan is notoriously ruthless (this may or may not be a true fact). The others played Pandemic and won, even though that game is notoriously ruthless.

After this we played a bit of Skull. Other Dan won. I think almost everyone was out of cards at the end of the game. There's always such a temptation to bid too high, but it's so satisfying when it pays off. Afterward we joined together to play a ten player game of Mascarade which Philip won. We finished off the night with Eight Minute Empire, with Alex winning as usual.

This week I brought Dead Of Winter along. It was with a new group of players so we played the same scenario as last time. The game was not so forgiving this time however and, although we managed to identify and exile the betrayer, we had no chance of completing our the goal. Morale dropped to zero on the final turn of the game.

Dan had brought along Power Grid and that kept him occupied most of the night. I'm not sure who won but from what I hear Adam was ahead for most of the game. I think maybe a little too far ahead, which made him a bit of a target for the other players and he lost his lead towards the end.

The others played a bunch of games; Carcassonne, Fluxx, Skull and No Thanks! A few of us stayed to finish off the night with a couple of games of No Thanks! after Power Grid and Dead of Winter were done.

Three Weeks

Okay, so it's been a while since the last blog. Three weeks ago my camera malfunctioned (what's the point in words without pictures?) and two weeks ago I couldn't make it to the club. Last week I did make it down and we got an amazing 21 attendees. That's pretty much the number we got on the first ever night. If we were to graph attendees over time it would probably look like the smile that crept onto my face when I heard the news.

Now the bad news. I remember very little about three weeks ago. I'm pretty sure I wrote some stuff down but I'm also pretty sure it went missing. I managed a single photo of Tzolk'in so I'm pretty sure that was played. I'm also pretty sure Alex won. I also brought along Dead of Winter. We beat the game pretty easily with everyone winning their secret objectives except for me and Kenny who was the unsuccessful betrayer.

The week after I know very little about but I hear people came and games were played. Somehow, without me, the group can still function.

It was pretty busy in Cult this week and we almost had trouble finding tables for us all. I was relegated to a small table at the back, away from the main group but I still managed to get a small grasp on what was played. No worse than other weeks at least. There were a bunch of new games this week. Alex had brought The Sheriff of Nottingham and Johnny had come with XCOM. It had arrived in the post that morning and still had the plastic wrap on.

I started off with a couple of game of Biblios. I came last in the first game, scoring only a single point. With a new found determination I won the second game. We followed this with Citadels and K2. Embarrassingly enough I won those too.

Even though XCOM is a timed game it took most of the night. In place of a proper rule book it comes with a tutorial on the app. In the tutorial the first three rounds are played without a time limit so you can get the hang of things. Even still the game was lost and Earth was invaded. I for one welcome our new alien overlords.

Andy had brought Splender and Lords of Waterdeep along with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion and both got a play along with No Thanks! Mike turned up a bit later than usual but still managed to squeeze in a game or two of Quantum.

Crossroads

I was pretty excited when Reace turned up with Dead of Winter. This game has been getting a lot of buzz recently and I've been wanting to play it for a while. Dan and I both jumped at the chance but it looked like we were the only people that had brought games this week. Luckily Johnny turned up at his standard five minutes late time and offered (there was no forcing) to run a game of Small World, again playing with Dan's expansions.

Dead of Winter has some of the nicest artwork I've seen on any game but would the gameplay live up to it? I was worried the game might play you instead of the other way round. As it turned out there were plenty of important choices, many of which we made totally incorrectly. Our scenario started off with the colony full of zombies. We passed the first couple of events and we even managed to raise moral. Things were looking good and I was secretly pleased that I'd completed my personal goal in the first turn. However we were less lucky on the third event, we failed miserably and the colony and locations became overrun by zombies. Many of our characters died and, although they were replaced by new characters, we were unable to recover and our moral soon dropped all the way to zero.

After Small World the others played Ghost Stories. I think for most of the players it was their first time so it's no surprise that they lost to the unforgiving game.

I was coerced into a game of Cosmic Encounter. I've not really enjoyed this game in the past. This time I enjoyed it a little more, but still not that much. It's such a well liked game and I try so hard to like it but it just ends up that I don't really get it. To my luck we were running late and Cult was closing. We had to cut the game short with Ryan in the lead, claiming victory. Same time next week, board game fans.