As Renée Zellweger famously said in the movie Jerry Maguire “You had me at Cthulhu”*.

SO, I decided to have a crack at Mansion of Madness once again. All pieces were laid out the instructions carefully studied and it was quickly brushed aside when players arrived. This is going to elude for a while. I’ve settled on a plan to set it up with a friend of mine not on a Thur night and do a play through to get the hang of it. It’s just too good a game to ignore and too good a game to get wrong, so bare with me.

First up of the night was

Alien Frontiers
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/48726/alien-frontiers

The tagline on the front is “Do you have what it takes to colonize a new world?”. Based on my performance in last nights game I would have to say NO. it’s a nice little game. Can be quite quick and involves some nice cock blockery. Had been a while since we’d played so took a few rounds to get back into the swing of things i.e. cock blocking. I didn’t win. but since Drax didn’t come thur night due to some dentistry issue (I can only assume he had his fangs removed by the vampire council) it didn’t matter.

It was then straight into

Lords of Waterdeep
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/110327/lords-of-waterdeep

This is the game that just gives and gives. It’s very much more than the sum of it’s parts and I love it to bits as does everyone who’s played it so far. It’s proving to be the game of the year so far for me anyway. Again no success like some of the newer players but it’s all about playing and not about winning*

*(it’s about winning)
**(and drax losing)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichu

Last of the night was a ‘quick’ game of Tichu. Our newest member picked it up like quicker than a student would pick up a half smoked fag. The new team awesome after a tichu fail and a 1,2 win against never got off the stocks and with a shortened end game (500pts) and a late finish 2am. We had to concede defeat. We didn’t have to LIKE it but we did have to concede it.

BTW If you haven’t played tichu yet, you really are missing out. Incredibly awesome and relatively simple card game

SO more of this short of thing next thur and a hearty

HUZZAH!

Well after a thorough read of the rules we were all set for Mansions of Madness. After a full half hour of talking rubbish, drinking coffee and talking more shite, ohhing and ahhing the models, looking at all the extensive cards we agreed it looked like a fantastic game, so we put it away and took out Spartacus with a promise of revisiting MoM real soon. Maybe even next thur.

So it was we had at it with Spartacus once again.

I Totally confused Borys a couple of times during the game, once by being nice to Newton and the second time by flipping a coin to decide something (I hand’t actually said heads or harps I just flipped a coin and said, NO, can’t do it but thanks for them money). The way to go in this game is definitely be the host. a couple of unexpected wins by some underdogs and somehow I convinced people that Borys was Bad and I was good and I cruised home to a handy victory. It was only at the end they copped what I was up to by selling everything i owned and having and unassailable bid for host pushing me over the line. Great game but I think we’ll let it sit now until the expansion arrives

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/134466/spartacus-the-serpents-and-the-wolf-expansion-set

With a tired bunch we decided against K2 but that’s going to be a definite for another night so it was

Kingdoms
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/119/kingdoms

This is a game that can go terribly right for you or terribly wrong. It’s a wee bit too random for me, but then again I have never won a game of it so I would be critical.

a very early lead by Brian couldn’t be stopped despite our best efforts so some embarrassingly low scores crept in at third and fourth positions.

SO, next week DEFINITELY it’s Mansions of Madness

Huzzah!