Two Years

This week was our second anniversary. Sometimes it's hard to believe it's been two years since we started Ipswich Board Gamers. In celebration of the fact that IpBoG is still running the plan was to play two player games all night. We kind of got half way there, although there were a enough two player games to go around most of them were brought by a handful of people so there wouldn't have been anyone to teach the games.

Some great two player games did get played though like 7 Wonders: Duel, Android: Netrunner, Lost Cities, Star Realms and Tash Kalar. Games that support more than two players also got played as two player like Carcassonne, Entropy, Imperial Settlers. Although you can play Entropy and Imperial Settlers with more than two players I wouldn't recommend it. To me they seem like two player games they tacked multi-player rules onto. There were some other great two player games that never got to be played like Go, Jambo, Innovation, The Duke, and a bunch of games from the GIPF series.

I started off the night with Lost Cities, the Reiner Knizia two player classic. Dan beat me but 100 points to something embarrassing. I redeemed myself in Entropy beating Dan in that game. Then we played 7 Wonders: Duel. Dan beat me by getting six different types of research which was again pretty embarrassing. Afterwards we played Imperial Settlers, Dan got off to a good start and it looked like he was going to win but I crept ahead in the final round and took the lead for the win. I finished off the night with another game of Lost Cities, this time against Mike. I managed to beat him by ending the game before he could play his best cards. If he'd have had a few more turns he defiantly would have won the game.

A bunch of non-two player games got played as well like Boss Monster, Lords of Waterdeep, Rattus, Red7, Rhino Hero and The Big Book of Madness. Back to normal next week for the usual multi-player stuff.

Twenty Fifteen

Although we started a week later than expected we've made it into 2015. When people arrived last week we found out that Cult was closed for a private function. Apologies to anyone that turned up, we only found out ourselves on the night. Although I hear a few renegades played games in Isaacs that evening. But the good news is that with the addition of Matt's wife, we finally managed to break the 20 attendee mark that has eluded us for so long.

I brought a couple of new games; Imperial Settlers and Biblios. I launched into Imperial Settlers with Muir, Dan and Danny. I'd played the game a few times before but only with two players. This was my first time playing with four people and will probably be my last, it ended up taking us over two hours. I like the game a lot but it's possible to get a lucky streak of cards and have a runaway victory. I'm not saying that's what happened with Dan but it's kinda what happened with Dan. He was able to build so many production faction cards early on there was no way to compete. Danny made a valiant attempt but Muir and I trailed behind. Afterwards I played a quick game of Biblios with Dan and he destroyed me again, with twelve points to my embarrassing four.

Johnny was the betrayer in Betrayal at House on the Hill. Some kind of invisible man haunt was triggered but he was beaten by the forces of good. Afterwards they played The Witches, based on the Terry Pratchett novels.

Alex played Eight Minute Empire followed by Domaine, a game with a name and a box cover very similar to that of Dominion. In its defense it did come out years before Dominion. And is also a totally different game. Alex won Domaine and went on to play Carcassonne which was won by Dan.

Andy had brought Pandemic with the On The Brink expansion. After the game defeated them they played again, winning the second time. Afterwards they played a couple of games of Coup and a couple of games of No Thanks!.

And as usual a group played Cards Against Humanity all night.