Biweekly Update

Welcome back to what seems to be changing from a weekly update into a biweekly update, And by biweekly I mean every two weeks and not twice a week regardless of what the Oxford English dictionary says (it actually has both definitions, it's a very ambiguous term). I'll try and get back to weekly soon!

In a miraculous tern of events I think I've forgotten almost everything about what went on last week. I'm pretty sure I played Gold West with Alex finishing way ahead of everyone else. We almost defiantly also played Archaeology: The New Expedition and No Thanks! too.

Well, after that monumental failure of memory, on to this week. Hopefully I'll be able to name a couple of games that other people played too. Arctic Scavengers, Choson, Spyfall and Sheriff of Nottingham. Well, there's four, at least. Also Mansion of Madness made its IpBoG debut, some sort of game that looks like Betrayal at House on the Hill but comes with an app. It's probably nothing like Betrayal but going by the name it must be at least a little creepy.

This week I played a bunch of Codenames. My team won every time but we did have an extra person on our team. Is that an advantage in Codenames? I wouldn't think so but the numbers don't lie. Afterwards Gemma beat me a bunch of times at Push Fight, a fun little two player abstract game.

Michael had brought along Islebound, a Kickstart from Ryan Laukat that had arrived that very morning. In this game you sail your boat from port to port, recruiting crew members, conquering island, building cities and ultimately failing to score any points. Or at least that was my experience. Michael's was probably a little different, he won the game easily, scoring pretty much twice as many points as me.

Two Weeks Of Gaming

I may have forgotten to bring my camera last week and, as we all know by now, no one wants a blog with no pictures so here's two weeks worth of gaming in one easy to swallow blog post.

Last week Michael made his triumphant return to the group after his hiatus, bringing with him two great games, Quadropolis and Roll For The Galaxy, both making their IpBoG debuts. I played Forbidden Desert for the first time (we lost) along with Archaeology: The New Expedition, Kingdom Builder and Zany Penguins. A whole host of other regular games were played including Black Fleet, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong and Machi Koro.

The eagerly awaited Scythe Kickstarter orders were arriving in the UK this week. Stephen had backed the deluxe version and was kind enough to let me join his first game of it. It was pretty fun and the metal coins and upgraded resources probably almost made up for that empty void in Stephen's wallet. From the start of the game I think it was clear James was going to in. By the end the scored were pretty close for the most part but no one could quite take Jame's lead.

Mathew brought along Via Nebula the new Martin Wallace game with great production values, bright colours and a low barrier to entry. You wouldn't think it was by Martin Wallace at all.

A bunch of other games were played, as usual. Some the new Magic: The gathering, Saint Petersburg, Kingdom Builder and, of course, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong as well as a bunch of other stuff I didn't see.

Ipswich Waterstones Second Games Night

Mother Russia

We had quite a big turnout this week at IpBoG. Five tables were full of board gaming goodness. I arrive to find people playing Biblios, Machi Koro, Dead Of Winter and  Saint Petersburg, which made it's IpBoG debut.

This week I played Age of Assassins, Sushi Go and Quartermaster General. It was my first time playing Quartermaster General, a game the only really works with six players, and we had the full compliment of people. It's set in world war two where three people are playing as the allies with the other three playing as the axis. I was Germany and so destined to lose. Mike did mention that he'd played it five times and the axis had lost every time, so the odds seem stacked in the allies favor. Quite aptly, on the final turn, I lost control of Germany and Russia removed all my troops from the board.

I saw other people playing Chinatown, Hanabi and Liar's Dice. As always I'm sure a bunch of other games were seen that I missed.

All The Deduction

It's been two weeks since the last update. I didn't make it last week but board games were played interspersed with disappointed football fans.

I made it this week though and brought a couple of new games with me. One was Archaeology: The New Expedition, the new version of Phil Walker-Harding's Archaeology card game. It's a small push your luck-ish, set collection game. It's good but no Sushi Go! in my opinion.

I also brought Age of Assassins, a drafting micro game I picked up in Japan. I finally got round to pasting up the translations and so brought it along. It's a race to 15 points and I managed it after only two round. Matt ended up with zero. Sorry Matt.

We also played Sea Of Clouds. Phillip did well on pirates and amassed an incredible amount of money. None of us stood a chance.

Social deduction games are as popular as ever with people playing Deception: Murder in Hong Kong Night Ultimate Werewolf and Good Cop, Bad Cop which seems to have replace Secret Hitler for the moment.

Black Fleet also made an appearance and Nathan brought Codinca, an abstract game he'd picked up at the UK Games Expo. I left a bit early so there were probably a bunch of other games I didn't see.