Coup the Gras Thur (Part1)

“When I get to your age I want my name to be a Verb too”. Quote of the evening. The Expression “To Drax it” came from playing Powergrid. It means to fatally overextend yourself. In the case of Powergrid to spend all your money on a fantastic powerstation but then realise you have nothing left over to pay for fuel for it. Fur coat, no plutonium if you will.

I have a love hate relationship with Powergrid. I love it, it hates me. Well that’s not true, I’m fond of it and it hates me. I have never EVER won a game of it and I can’t say why. Just like Modern Art the maths are complicated and unlike other games where I get a feel for them. I can’t put my finger on a way of winning Powergrid. That is all.

As as game it’s good. It’s been around as long as Adam’s fig leaf and it’s one of the popular kids like Catan, Caracassone. Ticket to ride. It’s a wholesome, safe, nice game. It hates me.

Drax had a new shiny copy of it so it was important to play it and put our mark on it. Guess who won! ? wasn’t me. Guess who came last?… good guess.

Powergrid is a worker placement game with a limited bit of map based conquest. Each player takes the part of a power company who bid and build ever more efficient power stations and try and expand the amount of households they power. Powering houses equals more income that can be spent on building more connections, better power stations and most importantly fuel to power them. The cock blockery (because it wouldn’t be a real game if there wasn’t some) comes in outbidding your opponents on power stations, making them pay more than they should for them in bidding, bumping up the price of fuel and sneaking in ahead of someone else and stealing a good spot on the map.

The game is pure attrition, make the others pay more than you for everything whilst you pay less and you should win… well I’m still waiting on a win.

the game has more expansions than Malibu Stacey has outfits, some of which I’ve played and have been good fun.

It’s a fine game. It’s NOT an essential game for your collection. If I wound up with a copy of it I’d be happy as a pig in muck. I’m quite happy to play it and one day I’m sure I may even win but there’s a lot of other games out there that are better. The Maths in the game are a bit of a pain especially later as you’re figuring out what to buy and it does lend itself to analysis paralysis if your group indulges it.

If you get your hands on this game at a good price go for it. If you get a chance to play it, go for it. Chances are it doesn’t hate you

Huzzah!

Vic

July 5, 2014 3

Thur Child is Full of Win – Part 1

Why do we love zombies? There’s no denying that zombies are “in” at the moment. TV shows, movies (some of them good), games, books, marches, the real ones outside my window desperately trying to scratch through, calling me to join them in my sleep, we’ve all gone zombie mad! But what is it about zombies that we really like? Is it that they’re just misunderstood old ragamuffins that need hugs (and brains) or that we love the idea of being a survivor in a world that’s had it’s reset button pressed?

I’ve no idea, nor could I care less 🙂

I did however get to play Card of the Dead on Thur night thanks once again to our Polish connection and it’s good solid zombie fun.

Card of the Dead is a card game by AEG with fun cartoony artwork. It’s pure filler and plays out in fifteen or so minutes. It does have the potential to drag on since your move is often a choice between strengthening your own position or screwing someone else’s up. Wild guess which was the popular choice for our group (canned laughter)

Players start with a hand of three from an initial pick of eight and during their turn they draw one card and play. Draw a zombie and you place it in front of you. Draw too many and it’s goodnight zombieville. Other cards allow you to remove zombies, more importantly move zombies to other players or generally cause them headaches. Yet more cards have a foot symbol on them with a number. Get enough of them in front of you and you get to escape leaving all the other players to their grizzly faith.

It’s fun it’s quick, it plays not unlike a whole lot of other filler card games. The artwork is nice, the production quality good and it’s cheap as chips so if you’re bored of your current filler game and a fan of zombies (as if you weren’t) then you could do worse than this. Will I rush out and buy it? Nope, I have a stack of fillers and don’t need more, but it’s certainly welcome at my table any time

More Thur to follow

Huzzah!

Vic

June 7, 2014 2

We also played Tsuro

If Tsuro was a drink it would be a shot, something quick and giggly. Not something you’d sit and nurse for the whole night, nor something you’d savour. It’s fast, it looks good and you can be easily talked into trying it. There ends the analogy.

BGG Link

There’s a limited amount of games you can play together with eight players, too few for werewolf, too many for most table top stuff and extending a game to allow eight is a recipe for downtime and disaster. Tsuro takes eight, it works well with those numbers but it’s not something you’d play more than a few games of. It’s just too flimsy, but it’s fun while it lasts.

The game itself is beautiful, it’s got just the right amount of quality without being expensive. The artwork is really nice, it captures the feel of those old Japanese bamboo painting rolls. The pieces, all eight of them are solid and minimalist, the cards straightforward and simple. It’s a work of art.

The game itself is very simple. So much so that there’s only limited skill to it, but it’s still fun to try. Each player starts with 3 tiles with a number of paths marked on them (If you’ve play Tongianki you’ll get it straight away) and a stone (their piece) at the edge of the board. The board is a lined playing area with room for 49 tiles to be laid in a 7 x 7 arrangement. As you place your tile you move your stone forward along the path you’ve placed. If it collides with another player or goes off the edge, BONG that it. And that’s the game.

There’s a little skill in

1. Staying away from other players

Eh, that’s it.

If you do get near another player prey you have a card that will send them off to an early shower and you to continue on your way.

On the plus side it’s easy to teach new players and kids will love it. There’s a newer version called Tsuro of the sea, I’ve never played it but I’m sure it’s better and seemingly it’s got sea monsters so win win.

Try it at the next Knavecon, I’ll bring it along

Right that’s enough of that, serious boardgames next time

Huzzah!

Vic

June 1, 2014 4

Kneedeep in Seamen

Having played Serenissisma a number of times I thought I had heard every possible Seamen joke, I had been misled….

We had a big group on Thur night and we tried our best with an eight player game of Tsuro but when it’s that size the only thing to do is split into two groups. Our group played this.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/232/serenissima-first-edition

Serenissisma is a nautical game of trading in the Mediterranean in the 14th Century. Integral to the operation of your fleet are your seamen. Being a group of 16yr old schoolboys at heart and mind, the game very quickly became a series of jokes about the aforementioned lads. So what follows now is review of the proceedings liberally infused with seamen ‘jokes’…..

“Let’s not beat about the bush (you see what I did there), I’m a big fan of Serenissisma, My copy has been knocking about for a long time and only occasionally do I get to whip it out and play with it with unsuspecting gamers”

The game is played out on a map of the Mediterranean with up to four players taking control of a major power. The map is made up of a number of ports that each supply one of seven goods Wine, Iron, Wood (of course), Cheap Plonk, Knock off CDs, (well maybe not but you get the idea.) and around 30 or so sea square Each of these ports that produce a particular good want goods of the other types so you’re job is to zip around in your ships full to the gunwales of goods and seamen and drop them off like a merry postman, sticking your flag down to claim ports as your own and getting into or avoiding fights with other players doing the same. A Pat Mustard of the waves if you will

There’s a limit of five spots in a ship, so the balance (and there’s always a balance in games) is between how many goods you stick on board and how man seamen you ram in there. More seamen means more protection and speed for your ship but less space for valuable trade items. Even more fun as you probably guessed it is to attack other players ships and take their ships and goods as prizes.

In all the games you’ve played THIS is the most unforgiving of plays. You build up a fleet of ships, buy some goods are thinking about your Ferengi profit and BAM! some savage steams in, pistol whips your swimmers and gets all familiar your very expensive goods and ships, THEN to add insult to injury, sails off and sells your previously owned goods. Pirate code me hoop. This is not a safe game, once you get tangoed like this you’ll never forget it so guard your stuff well.

“The key to the game is your seamen… (waits for laughter to subside), you need seamen, lots and lots of seamen, if you’re going to succeed (oh err missus) and come out on top, you’ll need more seamen than the other fella (canned laughter). “

Once again the old puzzle, which comes first the chicken or the egg problem is evident here. You can’t afford lots of seamen if you don’t sell lots of goods, you can’t protect your goods without lots of seamen. So you do you’re best. A Gamer worth their salt does this sort of thing the whole time. Still hurts when you get holed below the keel and your plans evaporate.

The other thing I like about this game is you don’t really have time for vengeance. Go after someone who’s wronged you and you’ll probably lose the game. You need to pull up your big boy/girl pants and get your house back in order and then ON YES then you get to exact a revenge on them IF you have time. So in essence get your vengeance in first and make sure you do it so they never recover.

The game ends after eight turns (more if there’s less players) and rattles along for a good 2+ hours depending on players. There’s a good range of decisions to be made each turn and there’s very little downtime as everyone else’s move can have a big impact on you. Some of the mechanics like getting a monopoly on certain goods and setting the prices for them can really rankle players so if you’re militarily weak it’s often a case of appeasing other players but ultimately if you don’t hire seamen and plenty you’re goosed good and proper. As the game progresses it becomes more and more crowded with ships and it’s very much a powder keg waiting for the spark that’s most beneficial for you. This game can be very tense at times, mostly towards the end. It’s also possible to be really petty, sacking a person home city just because, even though you’ve got them on the ropes already.

Is it any good? Yes. It is. Iv’e got an older copy, a new revamped version two came out and I haven’t tried it but I understand it’s a bit different from the original but opinions are divided as to which is superior. Will I play it again soon? Wellllllll… probably not. I’ve played a good bit of this game and whilst not bad it’s not as good as some newer stuff out there. Worth getting. Welllll again there’s better out there but that doesn’t make it bad. Try it at the next Knavecon. I’ll bring it along and you can join in a chorus of comments about seamen.

Don’t get me wrong I like this game but if you get overrun by someone else seamen, it can leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Sorry.

More of that next week

Huzzah!

Vic

May 30, 2014 2

Pirate Ninjas Rule

I got to play a game I’ve seen a few times lurking on the edges in Amazon also boughts. Smash Up by AEG

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/122522/smash-up

I had very few expectations going in, I figured it was going to be a bit like King of Toyko but it’s not. It’s borrows from a number of different games. I’m not sure where exactly it stands. Definitely a filler game, definitely as good as King of Toyko but it needs more play to be sure and I intend to give it some.

The game I played was a two player and it allows up to four which I suspect would be as crazy as after eights eaten at 7:30.

It’s quick to learn. A player starts with five cards which are of two types either actions or minions. On the board are a number of bases with all very colourful titles (Monkey lab anyone?) a completion value (from say 18-24 or so), a score value for first, second and third positions and a special ability.

Each turn a player gets to place a minion against a base, use the minions special ability (which could be kill another minion there, increase some variable, do something, I dunno else, it varies quite a bit from faction to faction) and also play an action, which could be Kill another minion, increase some variable (you get the idea). Each minion has a strength value or say 2-5 and when enough minions in total from everyone are at a base the based is scored, the highest strength of minions from one player gets the first scoring value and the next gets second prize and so on. You obviously want to be first if possible to snag the highest score. Once it’s scored a new base is wheeled out and the process repeats until someone scores 18 points or more, then pulls their jersey over their head and does their winner dance/slide/gesticulation

What makes for an interesting game is that at the start you pick two sets of factions from a base game of around a dozen or so. These vary a good bit so you have some colourful stuff, like Pirates, Zombies, Ninjas, Cthulu and so on. I opted for the obvious awesomeness of Pirates and Ninjas whilst my opponent went with Time Travelling and Zombies. You then carefully blend the play decks of your two choices together and wind up with a combined deck of 40 cards and play begins.

It was surprising fun, the theme of each it very well done, Ninjas are sneaky and good at assassination, Zombies just keep coming back again and again. Mixing two factions together makes for a different experience each time. Maybe even 132 different combos, (though my maths may be off)

Would I recommend it? yes, I would. I wouldn’t rush out and buy it, but I’d definitely play it if it was lying around. It’s not getting bumped up on my must buy list, but it’s good fun and if you have a spare 20 minutes and this at hand you could do a lot worse

Huzzah!

Vic

May 27, 2014 6

Running Rings Around – Thur

Thur night was a night of stealth and deception. First up we played something that’s been on my shelf for a long time but never dusted off

Lord of the Rings – The Confrontation

I’ve never been a massive fan of Reiner Kniza’s LOTR games, they’re fine but the whole happy happy co-op thing just doesn’t work for me. They’re also a bit too simplistic. The Confrontation is another in the same style. Same sort of box, same type of artwork but this time it’s a two player game and it’s very much not co-op (The name does sort of give it away)

The Confrontation is like a cut down version of Stratego with only nine pieces per side and the addition of combat cards. That pretty much sums it up, so feel free to get back to your life and not read the next bit.

Ah thanks for joining me again.

The game is played out on a stylized map of middle earth with Mordor on one side and the Shire on the other and a dozen or so locations in between. Each player gets a set of nine characters and work to get either Frodo to Morodor OR the Witchking to the Shire. Now I have no idea why the Witch King wants to get to the shire, maybe he’s heard the food it good, Maybe he’s going to take the waters, maybe he wants to buy a T-shirt that says something like “I Soured the Shire and all I got was” but if he gets there or Frodo gets to Mordor it’s game over. Equally if three of Saurons forces make it to the shire together like a bunch of beered up soccer hooligans it’s a win for the forces of evil too.

Here’s where it gets a bit more interesting. Your opponent (via a nice set of plastic blocks you insert the cards into) can only see the back of your cards so they have no idea where your key players are, more importantly they have no idea where your hard hitters and wimps are in your mix.

When two opposing characters bump into each other they reveal their characters, each of which has a combat value and a special ability. The special abilities are resolved straight off (Boromir in keeping with Sean Bean dies in his first combat but takes the enemy with him, The Orcs win their first battle automatically and so on), if the two characters are still standing they secretly pick an attack card with a combat value from their limited set of cards and the highest combined combat value wins. The cards are limited btw. It’s simple, it’s neat, it’s cheap, It’s FAST, A game can easily be played in 20 minutes and it’s good fun. There’s also a number of variants to it, like alternative characters and abilities, extra magic cards and so on. As two player games go, this is a goodie and so far I’m liking it a lot. It’s also quite a simple game and plays quite well with younger players. All in all a winner I reckon

Next up was another game of Fury of Dracula. (Show him your cross!)

It’s great how with fresh players games can get a new lease of life. One of last weeks players (not me) decided to take their chances as the snappy dressing Transylvania….. and he lasted about as long as those 5 dots back there. BOOM, staked, good and proper. So after a quick bit of pointing and laughing we decided to have a second game with the same vampire and this one was way more interesting.

Dracula is a great game, I think the most fun is to be had as Dracula himself although it’s good to be a hunter too. Dracula led us a VERY merry dance and unlike most other games he was popping out lady vampires to beat the band or more accurately beat we the hunters. There are two cards in the game that are real show stoppers. Hypnosis where you can find exactly where drac is and eh… something else that effectively lets Dracula teleport to another spot on the map.

Mid game Dracula got the first and despite our best efforts (and our worst) we didn’t get so much as a sniff of colonge of our target. It was looking bad and after extensive searching we finally reckoned (a scientific measure) he was masquerading around England far from the maddening hunters. With little time to go before he completed his dastardly plan and scored his six points we finally tracked him down (via hypnosis) to London and one of our number confronted him cook report style. After a ‘robust discussion’ with Dracula he finally slipped our net and having lost more blood from his body than John Holmes he staggered off confident of a quick win. Then I arrived, grabbed him and renditioned him right off a cliff. Bye bye Vlad. You came close but no cigar.

Great game. Always fun and absolutely no shame should be be attached by us to the Dracula player for losing.

Twice.

In a row.

More of this sort of things soon

Huzzah!

Vic

May 24, 2014 4

Back to Thur – Being a Drax Report

I was THIS close to winning Dracula, damn those meddling kids (and by kids I mean a bunch of old blokes and one young fella)

We didn’t get to game last week so it was great to get back in the saddle, meet some good* friends* and try out a few new games. First up was a polish special. A favourite of this blog

“Rycerze I Zamki”. (I reckon Countdown would have been a very different game in Polish. “I’ll have a Consonant Kharol, and another Consonant, and another Consonant”). This is the the fourth game

I’ve played from this games company and they’re all great fun, also cheap as chips. €5 for a game is just wonderful. I suspect our man in Poland will get asked to smuggle back in several more games the next time he goes home.

Rycerze I Zamki which means Knights and Castles (My google is strong) is a very simple game, you have a set of three castle types which can be made of Wood, Brick or Stone. Everyone starts with a set number of cards (Knights, Catapults, Archers and so on) that have a value from one to ten in these three elements. Some better than others in the three different categories. Each turn you draw a castle which is worth 1 or 2 points and players secretly pick two of their cards and reveal them. Duplicates between players are removed and the combined value of both cards in the element for that castle wins it (the points value of which are totalled at the end of the game). A few other rules like one castle being randomly removed at the start, being able to draw back some of your cards and so on make for a very interesting and very fast little game. It’s lite, it’s fun, it’s a great filler. All hail Rycerze I Zamki and the Polish game industry. It has yet to turn in a dud

Next up was something I’ve wanted to played for a few weeks now. El Grande (pronounced “Y Grande)” and featuring a Castillo (Castiyo) and a bunch of Caballero (Cabayero). So Spanish music channel and “we don’t like your type around here” jokes were the order of the day. El Grande is a worker placement game which came out nearly 20 years ago. It rates high on Boardgamegeek and…. we’ll I didn’t win it, I didn’t come close, but it’s still a fine game. Spanish music was stopped after a bit. It was like being in a taxi to your hotel on holidays and didn’t add to the 15th century vibe.

El Grande is set in the 15th Century funny enough where Grandes (large coffees from starbucks I assume) vie for power and more importantly score around the edge of the board

It’s all about placing your Caballero on the board and gaining dominance (biggest numbers) of as many provinces as you can come the scoring rounds, of which there are three. Unlike life there are prizes for both second and third place when a region is scored, but any number of cards and cock blockery can affect things.

The game has got elements from Eight Minute Empire in fact Eight Minute Empire is like a lite version of El Grande in every way. It also borrows a tiny bit from a Study in Emerald (or maybe I just really Like ASIE and I want to work it into every blog) The Caballero work in a similar manner where you have a two stage staging area where you firstly draw them into your muster point from the void (provinces) then use another action to place them on the board.

The game plays out over nine rounds after 3,6 and 9 there are scoring and that’s it. You do you best. A clever mechanic is your power cards which are finite and dictate your play order. The earlier you play a round based on your power card the less Caballero you get to bring to bear on the board so it’s a juggling act. Going early gets you an early pick of the action cards which do things like, score certain areas once off, move existing pieces, move the king who exerts power on a certain area and everyone fawns over him by only deploying men in adjacent regions.

It’s a nice game. It’s also medium fast so it should be possible to get it all done and dusted in ninety minutes I would guess. It plays five which is sort of a magic number for gaming and it’s close and fun throughout. I started scoring early on and looked good but got caught up mid game and was left coughing scoring dust late game. There’s a bit of a pattern here but, we need to play more of this. All in all I like it. I’m still a bit unsure of it but it’s definitely good, not stellar but good. Maybe replays will make it stellar. Who knows

Having finished this fairly quickly we had to play something else of medium length. Some of the lads hadn’t played Fury of Dracula (or Furry Dracula if you prefer) so they got introduced in quick order. To paraphrase Mannequin there are two things I like doing, fighting and playing Dracula. I got to play Dracula again.

Fury of Dracula is like a more complex version of Letters from Whitechapel, which is itself a more complex version of Scotland yard. Before we go any further let me declare my interest before the right honourables. I LOVE this game. I loved it from day one and still love it now. It’s stupendous. One person plays Dracula and the other four players play various vampire hunters who must work together to flush him out and stake him good. Dracula who steals the show must spend his time sneaking around Europe, setting traps, avoiding pursuit, hiding during the day, attacking hunters at night and leading the hunters a merry dance. It’s all good.

Fights ensue, Dracula is more than a match for hunters at night but weak and mortal during the day. He had a limited amount of blood points that get whittled away from fights, spell casting and sea travel and when it’s down to zero it’s

good night Vienna. The Hunters have only six days to find the fiend, less if he starts killing them off and gaining bonus points that way. But enough about the rules, more of the merry dance.

I started off as far away from the hunters as possible and slowly ambled my way up from Greece while the aforementioned scratched (amongst other things) their heads trying to find me. It was day two before I popped up and I quickly disappeared again. I bumped off Nina Harker (oh err missus) and it was looking rosey until the hunters started to successfully second guess me. A robust exchange happened in Prague and there were wigs and fangs on the green and shillelagh law ruled the day. Dracula just about survived as did one of the hunters so he was in trouble BUT close to getting his six points and winning. Then disaster struck, I took the group for fools (and I was right) but they stumbled onto me anyway and like the scene in Full Metal Jacket with the bars of soap in the pillowcases I got seven shades beat out of me and died my undeath again. THIS CLOSE I was THIS CLOSE to winning

Great game and of course we got a rule or two wrong even though we’ve played it several times before

More of this next Thur

Huzzah!

Vic

May 16, 2014 0

MrSaturday Turns 40 – Part 3

I’ve meant to get back to (some of) the events that took place in Connemara to mark the passing of Mr Saturday from the foolish, loud, impetuous state of his 30s to the enlightened, wise and mellow 40s*. I didn’t. I’m doing it now.

Being a marathon session of gaming in the same way it was inevitable that Hunter S Thompson and Dr Gonzo would sooner or later get into the ether we would have to play a zombie game. Zombicide the current favourite had been hot bunked all weekend. It was mid to late weekend that we jumped on it.

I’ve played my fair share of zombie games, zombies, eh, other zombie games, you name it, I’ve probably played it, to date Zombicide is my favourite. It captures the whole spirit of the zombie thing in the same way as the video game left4dead, it’s simple, it’s fast and above all it’s great fun. (A buddy of mine plays it with his kids who believe that a chainsaws primary purpose is crowd control)

Now I haven’t exactly covered myself in glory with this game. There was an incident on a Thur night were I may have made the classic horror mistake of going ahead on my own and drawing a lot of heat onto the group. I did selflessly hide and let the hoard attack the main group before crawling out and whispering ‘sorry’ as the Zees chomped down on the surprised survivors. It happens. In my case quite a bit. They say some people will freeze in a plane crash and some will crawl over others to get out, chances are I’d take the only parachute and jump just after I suggested they draw lots for it.

Zombicide is a survival game in the classic genre. The world is overrun with zombies, dogs and cats sleeping together, no coffee, basically the end of everything and your small group of six survivors have to

Arm themselves
Achieve some objective
Get to the exit with a minimum of bite marks on their pasty bodies

Optionally allow your fellow survivors to die. It’s not in the rules, I’m just saying

The rules are piddly simple. you can move a set number of spaces and along the way carry out some basic actions like, shoot, search, pass equipment to another survivor or carry out some action based on the equipment you have. After the group has moved All the zombies get to move towards the nosiest square and additional zombies spawn at defined spawn points around the board.

Noise is created by moving, breaking doors, shooting etc. and the zombie hoard gets added to based on the draw of zombie reinforcement cards. Make no mistake it’s a HOARD of zombies and it’s never ending. You need to get your business done as quickly as possible and get out of dodge. Any delay or detour spells grizzle death for both you and your team. More importantly you,

Each of the survivors are suitably different and some are inevitably clichéd. The Cop, the Drifter, The Student, The Token and so on, but there are some novel ones in there like the pissed off office worker and the roller girl and a TON of ones you can download and purchase models for. Each of them start with different equipment and special abilities and each of them have different upgrade paths.

Ah yes upgrades.

As you accumulate kills in a Gimli v Legolas manner, you will start to level up and acquire a choice of new abilities but here’s the rub, it also attracts more numerous and nastier zombies. In the card above you can see how our hapless survivor goes from blue to red to orange and then maxes out in red. The colour indicates what section of the reinforement card to read from, blue being ok-ish and red being very bad indeed. Worse still the spawn rate of the zombies is determined by the highest level character in the group so as soon as one character gets into a higher level it opens a can of whoop ass for all the team.

The zombies aren’t all just shamblers, there’s fast moving zombies, replete with jogging suits, fatties that are tougher to kill and worst of all abominations that are the McBain of zombietown. So as I said get in, get your objectives and get the heck out of there as if your life depended on it. ho ho.

So how did it go at MrSaturday’s event? Well not as planned would be a kind way of putting it. The objective was to get to thirty kills which I obviously took as a challenge that included the caveat of “before anyone else”. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t implicit in the rules but it was real for me. I was allowed the first turn to which I jumped into a nearby police car, drove straight through my team knocking some aside and wounding others and proceeded to do doughnuts around the central building knocking over zombies and well, I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for the haters in my team who working together (for shame) ran out jumped on the bonnet of a nearby car as I screamed by, shot me dead then continued the game without me…. I had a long but not unpleasant wait for the game to end

Zombicide is a cracker of a game, I highly recommend it. There are a ton of additional scenarios and some very nice extra characters that can be acquired. Snake Pliskin anyone? On top of that there’s already a couple of expansions for it set in a shopping centre and a prison and lots of mini expansions. If you’re a zombie fan then this is where it’s currently at with zombies games. Look no further

Huzzah!

Vic

May 13, 2014 0

Rex Thur – Being a Drax Report

House Atreides, House Harkoonen, House Corrino, chances are you know the names well and can pronounce Kwisatz Haderach without any difficulty or a throat full of phlegm. It’s unfortunate that Fantasy Flight didn’t get the rights or didn’t want them or I don’t know why but they didn’t republish the original game DUNE as DUNE they rebooted the game as Rex – Final days of an empire.

Now if they HAD rebooted it as DUNE then it would have been near perfect, definitely in my top ten. Not that I have a top ten but I’d start one if, well you get the idea.

As it stands Rex is not a bad game at all and after last Thur it went up in my estimation. Rex Final Days of an Empire is a game we’ve spoken of before. Indeed what is this WE business pale face, well this blog is fed by a lot of things not just my ramblings but the ramblings of other gamers so it will always be the royal we. Rex is a remake of the 1976 game DUNE (which was actually made in 1979, I looked it up and my guess was off, but there you go). Rather than the aforementioned houses we have six factions from the Twilight Emperium universe which are all fine and dandy and a bit Disney. Turtle and Tiger people, very original, top marks FF.

The game itself is good BUT it does need the full six players to make it work IMHO and it does take a bit of playing to get the most out of it. You need to invest a few games in this before you get into it. It was only through playing a Study in Emerald a number of times that I realised that this game is better than it had seemed in the past. I’m sorry to admit that I had come this close to trading it away as it wasn’t proving that popular.

There are a few bits in the game that are very similar to a Study in Emerald and ASIE is a cracker of a game so by extension we could really be at the races with this game if we invest more time in it. The setting is interesting. A besieged future city, under constant bombardment from orbit is ruled by six factions all vying for power by capturing and holding key points. So all in all dung beetles fighting over a big pile of …. burnt out city.

What makes the game different is all of the races play in a different way. One faction is very sneaky and all about spies and backstabbing (yes I like them), another are peacekeepers (boo hiss), some are weapons dealers and so on. There’s a nice bit of variety in there and the game is different for each player when they replay. Now not as different as a Study in Emerald but it’s fun to play a different faction each time as they all have their own strengths and weaknesses.

After a random draw I wound up with the tiger men guys (not the actual name) whom are effectively arms dealers and gain influence (let’s just call it gold) when anyone buys troops. So I reckon I was on the pigs back from the off (please note there are no actual pig people in the game so get that image out of your head). There are five key points on the map which if captured and held win the game for the holders. If it’s a one player win they need to hold three points an alliance of two players they need to hold four points and a shower (the correct multiple term) of three players they need to capture and hold all five points between them.

I like the way the alliances work. Normally an event card with pick the next spot for a bombardment to happen however a few lull in bombardment cards allow players to quickly make alliances with others and gain some of the traits of the players they’ve allied with. More interestingly an alliance formed during a lull in bombardments HAS to be kept until the next lull, no if buts or maybes. The first lull brought about two unusual occurrences. Three players teamed up together and in desperation I allied with Drax. Yes that’s right you read it right I co-operated with the devil for which there must always be a price. In this case the loss of the game. BUT I had fun and this game has gone up a couple more notches in my likey meter. This will hit the table again soon

After that is was … Modern Art

I may not know much about art but I know what I like, in this case Karl Gitter. Modern Art is an old enough game by Reiner Knizia. It’s been reprinted a few times and I have the …. (Looks up boardgamegeek) …. the 1996 version. It doesn’t matter I think they’re all the same. The game involves buying and selling paintings by a number of artists in the hope of upping their value and reaping the rewards of ownership. It’s a strange game. I’m damned if I can come up with a strategy to win but then again I can’t get my head around certain games like Power Grid either so don’t be put off.

It’s a fairly quick game, say an hour plus and it is good fun. It’s Reiner Knizia but don’t let that put you off :), this time it’s theme does match it’s mechanics and I’ve yet to play a bad game of it. In the same was as Catan is a solid enough game so is this. If you’ve played it a few times you’ll want to rest it before playing again but it will hit the table again and again.

I lost btw. I told you I’m damned if I can get the hang of this game

More soon

Huzzah!

Vic

Oh and we played HEY! That’s my fish and wrung €13 of value out of it

May 7, 2014 2

Sunny Thur – Being a Drax Report

I won a game! I actually won a game…. this is no big deal and should not be considered a rare occurrence, It happens regularly. I’m just saying.

We had a large group so despite the safety labels we retrofitted Netrunner Infiltration to be seven players with the use of a Descent model an iPhone and some techniques I’m not allowed to speak of and off we went.

Infiltration has proven to be a great game, the alarm has proven to be a pain the hoop but the game is great. We set the proximity alarm at -1 to get a longer game and for once we rolled a whole lot of 1s at the end of the turn. All was going great…. and yes you guessed it it all kicked off and the alarm jumped like crazy and it was keystone cops to the exit. While all this was going on I decided to (borrowing a buddies expression), “bide my time and strike while the iron was hot” 🙂

I stayed near the exit. I stole everything I could and let the rest tear off onto the wondrous second floor of the complex. In fairness as noted, it’s a pretty crappy high security complex if we can waltz into it every week and it only gets easier each time. A few bright sparks hung back like someone trying to steal home and unusually three as opposed to zero or one of the experienced professional cyber criminals actually made it out alive. Well done team

I was one of the lucky once and will not speak of the terrible faith that befell the ones caught, but will point and laugh loudly at the drop of a hat.

I won on points, one point, but that’s all it took.

A quick round of Dalmuti and… there are some people out there that have never played the great Dalmuti. Honestly. they don’t know some of the nick names for some of the card combos. Which I cannot repeat for libel reasons here. One of them was at games last night. Not sure how he slipped through the net. It’s on the standard 200 question form that gets filled out by all gamers who apply to play on thur nights. If you haven’t I’ll run through it with you if not just jump onto the P200 section.

Dalmuti is a game by Richard Garfield, he of Magic the Gathering, Roborally etc. It’s a fairly simple game with a couple of nice twists and it’s best played with a group of six plus.

The game is not a million miles from gang of four which is not a million miles from Tichu which is the worlds greatest card game. no doubt.

The Dalmuti deck consists of a descending set of cards 12 cards of value 12, 11 or value 11, 10 of 10, right down to 1, 1 card. So in case I didn’t explain that, there are Six cards with a six facing on them and so on. There’s also two jokers. More of them later.

The lower the value of the card the better and as you guessed the rarer.

A first player puts down a set of cards, say 3 twelves, the person to their left can either player THREE cards of lower value say three eights or whatever or pass. Once everyone has passed the person whom played the last lowest set gets to start out the next round. It can be any number of the same cards to start, even just a single card. The idea is to get out as quick as possible. the first person out gets to be the Dalmuti (the head honcho) and gets a couple of the best cards from the last player whom got out (the lesser pion) There’s also a lesser dalmuti that gets one card from the greater pion and the round repeats, forever in some cases or you can score the game. On top of that after a win, all the players have to reoriante themselves musical chairs style in order of their exit position from the last game. The Greater Dalmuti remains where they are, the lesser beside them and so on down to the cock-a-roach at the end that is the lesser pion. Some people have house rules that the lesser pion shuffles. Some that they don’t get a seat. We have a hat 🙂 a jesters hat from a shop I will not speak of. We photograph you when you wear the hat and sent it to your employer. It’s a house rule. or maybe not

The two jokers are wild cards or 13 on their own and if you start with both you can claim the Dalmuti’s lofty job straight off.

Great game, great warm up warm down, well worth having in your collection. Get it now

P200:

After some debate we decided to split up and one group went away with Nations (a great great game) and we had a lash of the often overlooked but much loved Canal Mania.

Canal Mania is a lovely game, it’s basically a railway game with canals. it’s NOT and this had to be repeated, it’s NOT ticket to ride but it does share a couple of it’s traits. I think it’s a far superior game. It has a couple of mechanics going on. Building canals just like you’d build rails in ticket to ride. Picking ‘track’ sections from a communal pile. Check. Completing missions from one location to another. Check. Cockblockery. Check. But is also sports a very nice shipping goods mechanic, a set of engineers that change how you play your hand. The ability to steal the first player spot and a couple of other nice bits. I think it’s a far far better game but then again…. I’m not a fan of ticket to ride. I find it as boring as all hell.

This game reminds me of a very old GW game I can’t remember that you drew lines with markers on the map. It’s a little long but it’s worth the effort. I didn’t win, but I didn’t care I was still glowing from Infiltration.

More of that next Thur

huzzah!

Vic

April 18, 2014 2