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.

Six Tribes

Alex had brought the new expansion for Five Tribes that, among other things, adds an extra tribe. It also adds a bunch of extra tiles, expanding the size of the playing area, and walls that can be placed between tiles to block movement. And probably some other things.

This week I came armed with 7 Wonders and got straight down to it. We played just the base game as it was new to some of the people. There were five of us playing and it ended up with me and Gemma tying for first place. We played our second game with Philip and Mike joining us for the full compliment of seven players. It was Philip's first ever game but he ended up winning it. Afterwards he admitted that maybe he'd made a couple of mistakes and played some cards that maybe he shouldn't have been able to. But everyone makes mistakes and it's only a board game so who cares, right? Because everyone had fun and winning is just a thing that happens after the anti-climax of adding up the scores. The others were playing Spyfall, One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Warewolf.

Afterwards 7 Wonders we played Spyfall ourselves. Has it already lost some of the appeal that it'd had last week? I'm not sure, maybe a little, but it's still very good. There were a few games where the spy got caught out straight away. For example we were on the train and by total luck within the first few turns the spy was asked if they were moving and they said no. It was immediately obvious they were the spy and the game was over. But that's not necessarily a problem, it creates a funny moment and we just start a new game.

Afterwards we played a quick game of Coup followed by a quick game of Yardmaster Express which I'd recently bought the Caboose expansion for, which, although doesn't add much, adds some well needed variation to the caboose cards that add bonus points for creating certain combinations of carriages, etc.

I left with Mike, Alex, Dan and Joe finishing up a game of Quantum.

Adjacent When Possible

Numbers dwindled to just 12 this week. With next week being our one year's anniversary I'm guessing this is just the calm before the storm.

This week we started off with three groups. Dan brought Cutthroat Caverns which I was totally interested in playing again but totally missed out on. At the end of the game there was all to play for, whoever killed the next monster would win but it was Dan that made the fatal blow.

I'd brought Kingdom Builder. We played a couple of games with me winning the first and Matt storming ahead in the second. At another table Joe destroyed his opponents in King of Tokyo, winning five games straight.

Afterwards, we played 7 Wonders with Babel, an expansion where you have the ability to place tiles that affect all players. I did terribly, not being able to get the resources I needed from my neighbours and coming last. At the end of the game everyone thought Matt had won, having played about ten resource cards but when we totalled up the scores, we found Adam had beaten him by two points and Dan had beaten Adam by another point.

While this was going on Mike had been playing Quantum. I left before it ended so I don't know who won but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Alex. Sorry Alex.

Next week will probably be some sort of King of Tokyo tournament (Joe is probably banned). More details to follow!

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.

Anti Humanitarians

I think in total we had thirteen people this week. A sharp drop from the dizzy heights of the previous week but still respectable all the same.

I started off with Skull and did pretty badly. Player elimination is usually quite rare but I was the first to be taken out followed soon after by a couple more. After the first game James arrived having heard about IpBoG from Mike when attending the Colchester Board Game Club, and joined us for a second game. Again player elimination ensued but someone ended up winning. It was a few days ago now and I've forgotten who. Please accept my deepest apologies and a promise to try harder next time.

Philip had brought a newly purchased copy of Forbidden Desert (unless it turns out to be Forbidden Island, I've not played either so they both merge into the same game in my head) and Dan, owning the game himself, offered to show them how to play it. And by show them, I mean show them how to lose.

After Skull I played a couple of games of Biblios. After getting a stern telling off for getting the card distributions the wrong way around when I was explaining how to play, I won the first game. The second game was won by someone that wan't me. Yeah, I remember my own wins, what of it?

The usual group that had been turning up recently to play cards against humanity didn't show up this week. Still, it got some play this week by another group along with Fluxx. Zepplin Attack also got some table time.

I ended the night with Quantum. Last time I played this with Mike, I won with Mike barely being able to place a cube. This time the tables were turned with me not being able to score and Mike storming ahead to a quick victory. He'd built himself an almost unbeatable combination of command cards.

Expand, Exploit, Exterminate

Just like last week we got three newcomers and fourteen attendees. We've been getting quite a few newcomers this week so maybe we'll hit the mythical twenty-one.

Mike had mentioned on the facebook group that he'd be coming at 8:30, armed with Quantum. I really wanted to try this game out so I started off with some small filler games so I could pounce on Quantum as soon as it arrived. I started off playing No Thanks! but the deck wasn't shuffled very well so it was easy to get runs. In this game lowest score wins and I won by hardly taking any cards and having a few tokens, resulting in a minus score. We shuffled the deck (properly this time) and played another game. I managed a double win, getting the lowest score in this game too. Afterwards we played Yardmaster Express with Dan winning. Mike arrived and joined us for another game of Yardmaster with Dan getting a double win himself. Yardmaster is a pretty cool game but it comes with caboose cards which are shared goals and there are only four of them. The game really needs more caboose cards to add some variation.

While we were playing our fillers, Johnny was running Power Grid. I don't think he realised how little of the rules he remembered and had to spend the first half of the game buried in the rule book. Although it took a bit longer than expected, Johnny ended up winning.

Alex was running a game of Inkognito. Last week he said it was the game that Cludo should have been but when he described it to me it sounded more like Guess Who. Guess Clue, maybe? Apparently it's good but needs exactly four people and you play in pairs. Alex was paired with Cathy who ended up winning.

Mike had arrived and so brought out Quantum. It does a maximum of four people and we had five but it was getting late  and Gemma had to get going. That was until Alex came over to pick up Carcassonne and she jumped at the chance to play it. As soon as the Quantum box was opened everyone was far too excited about the dice. They're so big, like King of Tokyo dice, and all translucent. And the game! Well, it's sort of like a 4X game except not really because there's not much exploring. I guess it's more of a 3X game. I really enjoyed it but I could be biased as I won. It was a close game between me and Dan but I managed to place my final cube on what would have probably been the turn before he managed to. It would be a contender for one of the best games of 2014 if it wasn't for the fact that it was released in 2013.