Cough. I’ll just leave this here…. 

Skull and Roses and Perudo are games with extremely simple components (beermats and dice) but gameplay that far outshines their humble components. 
Chances are you already own perudo in it’s unassembled form. All you need is five dice per player (you’ve loads of dice I’m sure) and something to shake them in (plastic cups would be perfect)

Perudo is a push your luck game. Each round players roll their dice then hide the results from everyone else. Starting with the last player to win or lose the last round they call out how many of a particular dice they think is on the board having only seen their own roll. So it might be “I think there’s four fives between all the dice on the table” and so on. The player to the left then either ups the bet “really? I think there’s six threes on the table” or calls BS on the previous player’s bet. At this point all dice are revealed and either the bet is correct (the person who called BS loses one of their dice) or it can’t be fulfilled in which case the person who called the bet loses one of their dice. The game continues like this until one person only is left with dice. It’s that simple. It shouldn’t be that good but it really is. 

There’s a bit of depth to this. There’s a bit of psychology. You could play this for money and I’m sure people do. To add a bit of spice to it ones are wilds and there’s a few minor extra optional rules in there but the core is solid. 

This is a great game. I was delighted to be reacquainted with it recently. I’d forgotten how good it was. I urge you to assemble your copy of it when a bunch of your friends are around. Or enemies. You know what I meant. 
Huzzah!
Vic 

Ok Knaves I’m adding 

Secret Hitler is a refined version of The Resistance. Posh resistance if you will. I’ll be honest I got bored of The Resistance having played a few dozen times so this was a welcome replacement. 
Interestingly you can download a print and play copy and make your own for free but I went all out and was lucky enough to snag a copy of the Kickstarter version which comes in a protective wooden case which itself should be protected because it’s only gorgeous and far too good for the people I game with. Myself included 

I like a good hidden Identify game. Werewolf is always a hit at Knavecon and spyfall is a right laugh let’s see how the new kid in town stacks up
Players randomly and secretly take the roles of fascists (who want to elect Hitler Chancellor), Hitler (also a fascist) and liberals. When the game starts the fascists (except Hitler) look around and Identify the other fascists (including hitler who still has his eyes shut but has his thumb up). 
Now the game is afoot and the liberals are racing to score all their agendas before the fascists score three and elect hitler. (Or the liberals shoot hitler or the fascist score six agenda)

Unlike say werewolf. Players actions should be more obvious OR ARE THEY? Whereas liberal agendas are just notches on the score post, fascist agendas allow you a bit more power. So you could use a fascist agenda to look at a players party or later on are kill a particular player. Powerful stuff if you have Hitler in your sights OR DO YOU?. Often a liberal will allow or help a facsist agenda to happen to help them corner Hitler. Be careful when fighting monsters lest we become monsters ourselves or more accurately win the game for the fascists. 
Each round the President’s role is passed one to the left and they elect the chancellor. The group as a whole vote ya or nein at once visibly and if the majority votes no a new chancellor has to be picked by the President. Rinse and repeat
Once the chancellor is elected the president draws three agenda cards (there’s more fascists ones in the mix than liberal one). He then picks one and discards it face down and passes the remaining two to the chancellor who picks one. So it’s either a fascist one or liberal one goes on the respective scoring track. 
The fascists agendas as they get scored give the current president more and more powers starting with looking at a players alignment up to executing a player and vetoing agendas. Fascists are so much cooler than hippy liberals

There’s a lovely air of paranoia, fear and mistrust, something which I like immensely and possible warrants professional evaluation of my character but until that’s mandatory I’ll continue to enjoy this type of game. 
The game is fast. Ten mins or so but you’ll play it several times in a sitting. It’s big time moorish 
The Kickstarter version is a thing of beauty. The matryoshka doll center of this game is very high quality. Solid thick cards. Nice heavy wooden pieces. Suitable artwork. It’s real Purdy. 
I can highly recommend this game. Figuring out what’s going on is magnificent. Being a fascist just like being a werewolf is a blast. 
The current Kickstarter is pricey. The print and play a bit dull. The sweet spot will be when the standard edition comes out. Which should be soon. 
Every game group should have a copy. It rocks
Huzzah!
Vic 

O.K. let’s stoke the Smoldering fire that is the Knavecon Raffle and add something else.  You thought New Angeles was good? wait til’ you get a load of this

I was able to secure a copy of this much sought after and out of print masterpiece Forbidden Stars.  It’s currently retailing for over a hundred euros and rising.  This copy has been opened, bagged and played ONCE, is in absolutely perfect condition and can be yours for €1 or more.

Let’s not forget we also have New Angeles in the mix  (told you it was going to be a great raffle) and more to come……

MORE TO FOLLOW

SO! how do I get tickets early and beat the rush on the day and benefit from the 2 for 1 offer before the friday before the Knavecon?  Simples just paypal my Swiss bank account at

victorgannon@yahoo.com

Prices are currently

• 2 x raffle tickets for €1
• 20 x raffle tickets for €7
• 50 x raffle tickets for €12

Should you feel inclined, feel free to pre-book your tickets for the event too.  Tickets will be available on the door on the day as usual.  It’s going to be a busy con!

• Adults €18
• Students and unwaged €10
• Accompanied Children Free

Huzzah!

Vic

“This is the greatest trick taking game of all time Vic”…..
“Go on so I’ll bite”
There are a LOT of trick taking games out there. There’s more than a passing similarity between them. Some are more complex than others. Some based on the standard 52 deck of cards. Quite a few not. Saying this is the greatest trick taking game of all time smacks of talking big. A punishable gaming crime… He wasn’t wrong though 

Wizard is a deceptively simple game similar to 45, 110 you name it. It shares a mechanic with the mighty Tichu. Not only can you bet beforehand, You HAVE to bet beforehand. In this case on how many tricks you’re going to win. Get it wrong and you lose ten point per trick you’re out by. Get it right and you get a bonus and points for your psychics hotline accuracy. To help in your judge childlike precognitions the deck contains four wizards and four fools. The wizards are round winners. Unbeatable once played so if you have a couple in your hand odds are you’re winning a couple of tricks. The fools on the other hand are super low cards that definitely lose you the round (I know it seems non intuitive to LOSE a round). With this little bit of wriggle room and based on the cards in hand you can make a fair stab at how you’re going to do in the round. At least at first

The game is played out over fifteen rounds or so. Each round your hand size increases by one. Early on it’s easy enough to predict how many tricks you’ll win. Later it becomes trickier (no pun intended) with larger hands. Flash forward to a hand of fifteen cards and it’s quite the skill to predict how you will fare out in the coming round, but predict you must. 
I was skeptical when I played this. The artwork is simply atrocious. I could close my eyes and draw better princes, peasants and wizards with a sore hand and a brown noddy crayon. The colors are terrible too, truly ghastly but after a few rounds you get used to it like an arthritic hip. Once you play it a bit the game starts to make sense and you can see the depth of this beauty appear. There is so much joy to be had in foiling another player’s plans, doubly so if you complete yours. 
I have to admit this IS one of the best trick taking games I’ve ever played. It’s not a team game like Tichu (although I’m sure you could play in teams) this is a free for all and it’s glorious. 

Some people are going to play this game and be totally nonplussed, some are going to clutch it to their ample bosoms. Me, I went out and bought it straight away. For a Tenner it was a no brainer 
If card games are your poison I recommend you get with this program and start dosing yourself now
Huzzah!
Vic 

“Gaming is like the black pudding industry. It needs constant fresh blood”

In conjunction with the Grand Raffle I’m offering tickets and games for dragging new victims, I mean gamers to the next Knavecon.  I want you knaves to get out there and persuade some fresh blood to join us.

So here’s the plan…

Persuade a buddy who hasn’t come to Knavecon before to join us and I’ll give you a couple of tickets for the grand raffle.  Better still get them to click on the event and add themselves in to “going” section.

If I get a nice gush of gamers,  I’m going to add something something special (not Sin City or 30 seconds) to the Raffle

Now take to the skies my flying monkeys and bring me back fresh blood for the blood God

Huzzah!

Vic

For all of you planning to attend or just happy to support Knavecon I once again give you the Grand Raffle.  for the princely sum of €1 your name will be entered into our now famous draw for a selection of Board Games which will be raffled on the day.  (early supporters will get TWO entries for their buck up until midnight Friday 3rd March)

The prize fund will be added to as time progresses and more games will be appended to the list and this post updated.

Kicking off we have a brand new still in the shrink copy of NEW ANGELES a game Knavecon describes as “really good so it is” and my favourite game of 2017 so far

MORE TO FOLLOW

SO! how do I get tickets early and beat the rush on the day and benefit from the 2 for 1 offer before the friday before the Knavecon?  Simples just paypal my Swiss bank account at

victorgannon@yahoo.com

Prices are currently

• 2 x raffle tickets for €1
• 20 x raffle tickets for €7
• 50 x raffle tickets for €12

Should you feel inclined, feel free to pre-book your tickets for the event too.  Tickets will be available on the door on the day as usual.  It’s going to be a busy con!

• Adults €18
• Students and unwaged €10
• Accompanied Children Free

Huzzah!

Vic

“Last Christmas I gave you my heart” I thought was the perfect song to have in the background for this game. Opinions varied
Last Friday is a hidden movement game surprisingly close to Letters from Whitechapel. One player takes the role of the crazed maniac (guess who I played) who’s out to murder the campers in Traditional slasher movie fashion. The others play the hapless campers destined to more than likely get popped in a horrible way. 
The game is split into four chapters and can be played out sequentially or as just one single chapter for a quick fix.  

The main board is a nicely rendered map of camp apache with a boating pond in the middle, surrounded by a shore and further back a set of five cabins. The map is made up of a few hundred spots which can be moved around by campers and mixed in with these a hundred plus numbered spots that the manic moves. If you’ve played white chapel it’s EXACTLY the same, bar the pond in the middle that offers rapid transport across the board (if the boat token is at your pier) 
While the campers move around visibly on the map the maniac moves by noting down his numbered location behind his GM screen. If the maniac comes in contact with a camper it’s bad news for one or the other. That said it does give a clue to his location if he’s murdered someone. The other clue to his location is every three turns he has to show where he was three turns ago. I’m not sure what I think of this mechanic. It works in game terms but I do prefer a hidden movement game where often the others haven’t a CLUE where the hunted is until it’s too late. It’s not by any means a deal breaker it just feels a little weird coming from a lot of Fury of Dracula plays.  

To assist both parties the killer gets a set of one shot maniac tokens which allows him to do stuff like move two squares, not reveal his location when called upon to do so, take an extra turn at the very end or wield and axe to break into cabins. 
On the flip side and very welcome are clue tokens that give players acute hearing (can detect the killer close by), bear trap (reveal location of killer if he walks on it, lantern (reveals killer nearby), shovel (bury bodies and reduce killers score), the best of all are running shoes that allows the camper to move two rather than the slow poke one space. In addition each camper has a special ability which is most welcome. It’s hard out there being a camper 
Chapter one sees the campers starting near the lake with the manic sliding unseen in from one edge of the board. The campers aware that something is wrong have to move around and flip the tent counters over to reveal keys or possibly the remains of the owners so they can gain access to the safety of the locked cabins. 

The maniac has to move around and bump them off before they can get to safety. 
Chapter two sees the tables reversed with the campers hunting the killer. The one who does the deed becomes the chosen. Chapter three sees the killer back from the dead hunting just the chosen while the other campers try and defend them and chapter four the camper have had enough and try and end it once and for all
Now the chapter system I like. I’ve complained before about the new Dracula where night and day is too fast. Here you’ve got a good long stretch at being the hunter then a good long stretch being hunted. On top of this successes early on carry on into the next chapter. So a good start will see the killer with a few more maniac tokens for the next chapter and visa versa 
I’d heard this game spoken highly of by some. Thematically it’s excellent. Having the manic appear suddenly beside a group of campers (don’t bunch up) is superb when it’s been too quiet for a while. Production is good. Art is not up to the standard of Fantasy Flight but it’s perfectly fine. The game is nicely presented and it doesn’t have too many fiddly components or cards 
Compared to other hidden movement games it holds it’s own. It’s a match for White Chapel and being new it’s novel. I haven’t played enough of it yet to see what it’s like long term but I’m liking it so far. The chapter idea is good and being able to play as many chapters as you like means it won’t drag like Dracula. 
All in all a decent, hidden movement game with a great theme. Will be demoing it at Knavecon. See what you think
Huzzah! 
Vic