Numbers were low due to a mother-in-law audit for one of the players so we started with Canal Mania

Canal mania is all about building… well canal’s funny enough in the 1800’s and NOT railroads although that distinction was missed more than once during the game.  Even though it’s a fairly straightforward game and we’ve played it before it took a while to remember so we smoothed over the lack of knowledge with lots of “this is straightforward” and “we’ll figure that out later” and a typical “AH, shit we forgot about THIS” and “We’ll play that rule from now on”

It’s a lovely little game, there’s something about it, I can’t put my finger on it, but everyone who have played it have been impressed with it.  It’s quite a gentle little game with a certain degree of cock blockery however the games tend to be close and competitive

Off the bat I was left trailing way behind and despite my best efforts I couldn’t catch up, the real action was up from between Kieran and Drax with Drax leading the way with Kieran never quite getting past… until the last turn… bad luck drax 🙂

Next up was

Kingdoms

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

Reiner Knizia games are like Marmite. Not great.

Ok that’s unfair they’re a bit like madonna records, all the bloody same

I tried this one on the iphone and didn’t really like it, HOWEVER it’s a whole different story face to face. Simple game but takes a bit of learning to get a swing of it.  Possible to score big in the game and scream ahead but again one game doesn’t tell all.  it’s quick and it’s nasty, so perfect for the group

Remember B@stardcon Lite is on the 27th make sure to come along on the day

Huzzah!

MrTimewalk

I’m still a big fan of Spartacus, it’s great value on Amazon at the moment, so we had a bit of that

Instantly Drax and myself were at each other throats for no good reason (there doesn’t need to be a good reason)

I wound up with Batiatus again who’s always short of money and my betting was woeful for the whole game.  Drax on the other hand was pulling money out of the nether left right and centre, I thought for a while he had the pieces from the second copy the game under the table.

The trident made an appearance early on (which had been devastating in the last session) but appeared to be made of foam rubber this time as the wielder died in every battle.  QUITE a bit of backstabbing went on, in fact there were no alliances and nothing was freely done the whole game, just the way it should be.

No decent gladiators appeared and then suddenly Borys was off like a rat out of an aqueduct and he slipped into the lead that couldn’t be stopped despite the best efforts of everyone.

Next up was the long titled  DC COMICS DECK-BUILDING GAME

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/125678/dc-comics-deck-building-game

It’s not bad, a bit Ascension a bit Dominion but a bit simpler.  the primary resource seems to be arse kicking or Power as they politically correctly put it.  If you’ve played either of those two games you’ll pick it up in under a minute.  Art work is nice, game play is not bad.  I’m not a huge fan of this type of game I freely admit although I know some in the group would have whole nights of them if they could.

I find them too solitary, I much prefer being able to stick it to someone and shout HA! in their face, but I digress.

Just like Dominion you start with a small amount of power cards, buy more and better ones and try and defeat villains to gain score.  There’s a set of super villains that you need to defeat (buy with kick assing) and once they’re all defeated it’s count your few points time.  unlike dominion there doesn’t seem to be the same variety of possible game types by changing the setup decks. It does have the half eaten biscuit sensation of wanting a bit more so I’m going to reserve judgement until I’ve played it again.

Aquaman is in there and of course no-one picked him for the whole game

Last up of the night was the classic

Settlers of Catan

Since finding them we’ve been playing the welfare rules variant

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/150443/the-famous-welfare-variant

I highly recommend it as it makes for a less random game.

Some Awesome start spots and some absolutely terrible ones so an interesting game all in all.

I got a near monopoly on stone however the game will still very close from start to finish.  It was Drax that got over the finish line but everyone else had 9 points pretty much and were DEFINITELY going to win next turn 🙂

Some good chat about upcoming Bcon and a look at what we’ll be taking with us to play

Spartacus is a defo

So more of that next thur

Huzzah!