The Last Draft

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

I 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.

After 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.

By 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.

The Big Box is Back

So we got a respectable 15 this week. There's some sort of RPG group that usually happens on a Monday but they were between campaigns or something so we had a couple of newcomers from there.

I managed to haul my Kingdom Builder big box down along with Trains, which I was borrowing from a friend. We split into three groups. One played Munchkin. I hear it turned into a bit of an RPG and never really finished. I've never played Munchkin or an RPG so I don't really know what this means. I can only assume the newcomers were trying to assimilate us and they seemed to be doing a pretty good job at it. After they released the board gamers from their clutches they got in a game of For Sale.

I started off with Trains. I thought I had this game in the bag but I didn't realise how close Steve was to using all his stations and ending the game. I went into whatever the Trains version of duchy panic time is and started buying the low value victory point cards. Still, it was too late and Steve beat me by a single point, winning the game.

The others played Small World which Sam won. After that they played Level 7 [Omega Protocol].

We played Kingdom Builder. Again just the base game, I've still not had time to read the expansion rules and in all honesty I'm not in a big rush to, the base game has plenty of game left in it yet. Steve somehow manged to obtain about five chits giving him way too many special moves for anyone else to compete with. He wiped the floor with us for a double whammy of a win. We played a second game and things were much more balanced. And by much more balanced I mean I won. I think it's worth noting that Dan did incredibly badly and scored less than half what I got. Sorry Dan.

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Box

With a couple of new recruits and our fair share of regulars we mustered 16 attendees this week.

My Kickstarter of the Kingdom Builder Big Box Edition finally arrived. It was waiting for me when I arrived home on Monday so I took it straight to Cult, opened it, punched out the pieces and spent the rest of the evening playing it. The box is as big as the name implies, filled to the brim with expansions but we just kept to the base game for now. I got in three games but didn't manage to win any of them. Matt got in a double whammy before ducking out to play Small World and Cathy won the other. For a game that often gets mixed reviews it was very well received by those that played it. How often I can muster the strength to carry a box of that size down to IpBoG is another matter.

A couple of copies of Munchkin were brought along and two games were going on in parallel while the others played Cosmic Encounter which Steve ended up winning. Some Love Letter and half a game of Alhambra (I'm not too sure what happened there) were also played. I left while a few stragglers battled it out for supremacy in Small World.

My plan for the long promised King of Tokyo tournament is to have it in two weeks' time. Pencil it in your diaries and start spreading the word!