Egyptian Gods

Only nine again this week. Maybe it's the weather or perhaps board games are just seasonal. Or maybe next week everyone will come at once and we'll finally get over 20.

I started off with Kemet, an area control game of Egyptian gods. I was some sort of blue crocodile. I got off to a slow start and thought I'd fallen too far behind but with a few sneaky moves I managed to hold my own. Steve was the first to 8 points (in fact he had 9) but it was at the end of the night and you need them at the end of the day to win. We spent our last turn trying to claw the victory points back off him but couldn't quite manage it. Both him and Dan finished with 8 but Steve had earned more through attack wins in a tie meaning he won Kemet two weeks in a row.

Although playing the short game it took us over two hours. The others got a couple of games of Betrayal done in that time. Once with Frankenstein and once with something else that I've forgotten. Both times the betrayer lost. I left a bit earlier than normal but some more games were played. I think Coup and maybe some others.

Haunted Houses

It was a slow night this week with only 9 attendees.  It's been a long time since we've had single figures. Only two tables of games this time. A few people had turned up early to get an early start.

Dan had had a birthday and had brought a bunch of new games with him. I arrived at 7:30 and a game of Kemet was being set up. They were playing the short game which is up to 8 points, but Steve managed to get all the way to 10 points on his final turn, the score needed for the long game,  making him the victor.

With Halloween approaching I started off with Betrayal at House on the Hill. It was Cathy's first game and she ended up being the betrayer. This can sometimes be a bit confusing if you've not played before but she managed well. She was controlling a poltergeist and we were attempting to exorcise her. Usually with Betrayal the build up lasts about half an hour and the game after the haunt is over quickly. In this game the haunt dragged on a little and became a bit of a monotonous, dice rolling race but in the end good overcame, the ghost was exercised and the explorers all went home safely.

Dan set up a game of Zeppelin Attack, another of his new games and I played a game of Five Tribes. I played it for the first time last week and really enjoyed it even though I did quite badly. It has a pretty unique mechanic that I've heard called worker displacement, which is a pretty nice pun. This time Alex scored a respectable 60 points for collecting the full set of cards. I thought he was onto a winner and he hastily placed his remaining camels to end the game. My strategy had been the same as last week, to get the most yellow guys but also to only put in low bids for turn order. This really boosted my score ending with over 60 points worth of coins. I ended up getting the top score so I came out liking this game even more than last week.

In non board game  related news Sam's made an IpBoG Steam group if people are that way inclined.

Braaaains!

Today was a pretty good day at IpBoG, 15 people showed up and David gave me an onion ring!

Sam arrived with Zombicide and Johnny's new Betrayal at House on the Hill. Johnny arrived a few minutes later after making the trip home from work to pick up Betrayal only to find it wasn't there. Sam and Johnny launched straight into a game of Betrayal. The Craig was the betrayer and the haunt was zombie related, so out came the Zombicide figures onto the Betrayal board. Good prevailed and zombies were defeated. But not for long because straight after Zombicide was set up and played.

New guy Steve brought Food Fight along and that was played by another group follow by Citadels which was won by Dan although he was the only person playing that had played it before.

I brought Kingdom Builder and, similarly to Dan, I won at my own game. Next we played Splendor, my second play but it's debut at IpBoG. Phillip won and I came in last. It's been causing waves the last few months and I like the game, but I don't love it like a lot of people seem to. Maybe I'll like it more when I don't suck at it. The final game we played was the new Days of Wonder game Five Tribes. I'd heard mixed reviews about it and when Alex was explaining the rules it all sounded a bit complicated and daunting but after a couple of runs I think we'd all quickly got the hang of it. It turns out the game has a pretty unique mechanic picking up and placing meeples of certain colours which activate certain powers. Still, I did terribly at it and there was another case of the owner winning at their own game with Alex pulling off some pretty impressive moves (if board game moves are able to be impressive) to gain him the victory.

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.

Worlds Apart

About 10 people braved the wind and rain to turn up at IpBoG this week.

I went straight into a game of Trains while Dan's table started off with Diskworld: Ankh-Morpork. After only a few minutes I was told the game was about to end but everyone pulled together and managed to stop the end conditions from being met. The game lasted twice as long before it was finally won.

The cards picked for this game of Trains included four green cards (I think this must be all of them) which are variations of lay rails trains. I think only a couple of them were picked. I went for my usual strategy of aiming for the cards. Alex went hard for laying rails. Luckily my engine (of the card, and not locomotive variety) kicked in just before Alex played all his rails. I'd already got a few skyscrapers in my hand and managed to scrape a win.

After Diskworld, Dan got out Power Grid. I headed over just as they were finishing up. Craig showed me his wads of cash, telling me he had it in the bag. As it turns out he wasn't wrong and he won the game.

I played Dan's copy of Small World along with a couple of the expansions (Cursed and Be Not Afraid, I believe). The new races and powers were too confusing for me. I stuck to my comfort zone, picking only the base components. We had to cut it a bit short, partly because the bar was getting ready to close but also because it was Dan's game and we didn't want to make him sit and watch for 15 minutes waiting for his game back. We cut the game two rounds short and counted up the coins with Duncan claiming victory.