The Thomas Wolsey

Last week I turned up to Cult to find a Gospel band playing. Cult were kind enough to reserve some tables for us but it was too noisy for board gaming so we opted to go somewhere else. We tried Isaacs but it was pretty busy that night so ventured on to The Thomas Wolsey. Again, it was pretty busy but we didn't want to turn the night into an impromptu pub crawl so we made do and settled there for the night.

I didn't stay for too long that night but I did manage to fit in a game of the United Kingdom version of Ticket To Ride. I was just ahead on the score track when the game ended and there were just the tickets to score. We revealed the tickets and  I was feeling reasonably confident. I had not only completed all my tickets but also completed more tickets than anyone else. However my confidence was misplaced as I came in last. The others played Cosmic Encounter and I'm pretty sure some other games were played in my absence.

This week we were back at Cult and things were back to normal. We started off with a couple of games of Red7 and then launched into a game of The Bloody Inn while the others played Codenames. We played the longer version of The Bloody Inn and I got my highest ever score. I think this proves that Priest is an overpowered card. It's probably being removed from my copy of the game from now on.

Afterwards we played Mai-Star, a small card game by Seiji Kanai of Love Letter fame. This was not only the first time Alex had played it at the club but also the first time he had ever played it. The game is played over three rounds. In the first round I did pretty badly. In the second round I took a big risk on scoring one of the high value cards and failed. I was in last place. For the third round I chose to take an even bigger risk, trying to play the highest scoring card in the game. It was going to be all or nothing for me. Somehow I managed to pull it off and a smile even crept across my little face. I think the scores were something like 18, 19, 20 and 45. A pretty crazy card.

We finished off with a game and a half of Pandemic: The Cure which is pretty much Pandemic: The Dice Game. The first game didn't go too well. Not only in the sense that we did badly and lost easily but also in the sense that Alex didn't like the game. I feel how well you do on the game is dictated a lot by the characters you use so we cheated a little, hand picked our characters and tried again. We fared better this time but Cult was closing so we had to abandon mid-game.

Mike brought along the Reiner Knizia classic Samurai which made its IpBoG debut and Danny ran a game of Chinatown and I think I caught a game of Quaridor being played.

First Things First

So last week I was in London for work and I went straight to Cult as soon as I got back into Ipswich. This meant no camera and, as has been established many times before, no camera means no blog. So this week there will be only a week's worth of pictures but two week's worth of words. But don't expect twice the amount of words. Words are hard.

The first week first! Alex ran a six player game of Mission Red Planet. I don't really know what happened but I imagine it was pretty chaotic. Afterwards he ran a six player game of Shadow Hunters. Again, no idea what happened.

I finally got round to playing Mexica. It was a game of bridge stealing. Dan said that it's had a different feel every time he's played it. Philip won.

Afterwards we played Biblios which I won by beating Philip twice on ties, taking the dice. I felt a bit mean because he ended up with no dice and dice are points. But I didn't feel that mean because, of course, it's just a game and therefore doesn't matter at all.

The second week! I brought along Kingdom Builder. Kingdom Builder has three randomly assigned ways of scoring. After we'd scored the second I was way ahead of everyone but I'd neglected the third. Everyone caught up and Jill took the lead. Afterwards we played For Sale and I managed to win that one.

Tim brought along Rum and Bones. He won it in some kind of Frostgrave tournament which is probably some kind of war game or something. I hear Tim does that kind of thing on the side. And I guess he's okay at it because he got some kind of prize. Anyway, I didn't get to play the game but from what I understand it's mostly a two player game but you can play it as two teams of two which is what happened. And although it works, the guys said it's mostly like a two player game.

Alex had brought along a new game called Patronize. It's a new one by AGE set in the world of Love Letter. And from the picture I took it looks as if it has cubes and cards. That's all I know about it. Alex's table also played For Sale.

After this the few stragglers that were left over finished the night with Codenames. My team did terribly. Phillip claims we didn't win a single round. I think we may have won one. But yeah, we did pretty terribly.

Oh, also someone brought Pop-Up Pirate. That someone was Danny.

The Elasund in the Room

So I have no idea what games people that went played this week. At least Bang, Lost Legacy, Codenames and, I think, The Resistance. Although almost definitely lots more.

So I finally got round to playing Tragedy Looper. I dunno if it's just me being dumb but I found the rules pretty confusing. About half way through I got the hang of it. Basically if the mastermind doesn't manage to kill someone in a loop we win. At least for the scenario we were playing.  The game is pretty much 90 percent deduction and 10 percent luck. Luck must have been on our side because we managed to deduce who the killers were and guarantee a success, moving everyone away from them. It was a strange game of confusion and cross referencing. I'd probably enjoy it more the second time now I actually get what's going on.

Afterwards I played Elasund: The First City. If my board game history is correct, when the guy that made Catan first made Catan it was a much more complicated game but the publishers made his simplify it. Elasund is kinda all the stuff that he took out. And it feels like Catan for sure. Again there's dice rolling and if a 7 comes up bad stuff happens. But instead of placing roads and buildings you're placing walls and, urm, buildings. We let Dan get a big lead and tried in vain to stop him all too late. He hit the victory condition when everyone else was about half way there. More board gaming nonsense next week!

Deadly Assassins

The game making its IpBoG debut this week was Hey, That's My Fish! A deceptively cute game where you're penguins trying to get the most fish. But whilst also drowning your opponent's penguins. It turns out penguins are nature's assassins.

Libertalia made its return to IpBoG, a game that I claim is like Citadels although Alex disagrees. I got off to a strong lead in the first week, and did pretty well in the second. Dan did much better than me in the final round but didn't manage to take the lead. For some reason I enjoyed this game a lot more this time round than the previous time.

Afterwards we played some Race For The Galaxy. Dan found the game familiar but couldn't remember playing it before. At least that's what he claims, maybe he was just hustling us because he won the game with ease. 

After that we played a quick game of For Sale which is fast becoming a firm IpBoG favourite. On other tables there were games of Betrayal at House on the Hill, Splendor and Spyfall.

I finished off the night with Codenames and I think we finally got the game. Previously I think most people had felt pretty indifferent about it but at the same time felt there was potential. This was my third play of it and it really clicked this time. The spy masters seemed much better at thinking up clues that could apply to three or four words which is really what the game is about. It shines when there are multiple possibilities and you have to try and work out which are the ones that you should be choosing. Although in one of our games the first word guessed for the first clue was the assassin card, losing the round for that team.

Board Games

Board games! You want 'em? We've got 'em. You want to play 'em? Well, come along on Monday night and then you can play them too! Right, enough question and exclamation marks and on with the blog.

Most weeks there's a board game debut and this week was no different, Race For The Galaxy made its IpBoG debut. Tim said he owned the game but had never figured out how to play it. The rule book can be a bit daunting so I offered to teach it to him. It's quite quick once you get the hang of it so we played a couple of games.

After playing Mexica last week Dan rushed out and bought himself a copy and brought that along to play this week. Now there are even less copies of this rare version of the game in the UK, with well over 1% of them belonging to IpBoG members. That seemed a lot more impressive in my head before I wrote it down. 

After that Dan played Mission Red Planet which he won and I played The Bloody Inn which I won. Another table played Eight Minute Empire: Legends, Love Letter and Citadels.

Towards the end of the night I thought I'd give Codenames another try. I can see its potential but we seem to have problems finding links between words. No one wants to give a clue for a single word but that seems to be what happens a lot of the time. Basically it seems a little hit or miss, if you can find a good link it's a fun game, if you can't then it's very lackluster. Maybe we're just no good at it.