I spoke a few posts back about Player Unknown Battlegrounds, yes yes, it’s not a board game, we all got over that.  What it IS though is the best online shooter in a number of years and you should really get your hands on it.  Ask several other multi-talented Knaves they’ll tell you

Anyhoe in the very irregular bit I do on house rules I dreamt up and we tested out something a little different within the game

PUBG is an open world shooter with a BIG map 8km x 8km across.  When you play in a team of 4 players you normally work as a team competing to be top of the heap against other 4 player teams. Not being know for co-op we changed it up a little, enter RABBIT mode

In this version of the game which is totally player driver one person in the team of four is nominated or agrees to play the role of the rabbit,  they have to evade or kill the other 3 players on their team.  To do this they jump out of the plane as normal. The other three players count to ten before they follow.

I’m here to tell you folks, THIS is a lot of fun.  Remember there’s a war going on down there and anything can happen.  Now the rabbit has quite the task on their hands because not only are they on their own and being actively hunted by EVERYONE in the game they’re also visible on the map to the three members of the team hunting them.

We gave this a good shake down and it’s absolutely brilliant, more so if you have voice chat.  It’s also nails hard for the luckless rabbit, but a welcome challenge.  Top marks to the various rabbits who tried running into a building full of enemy players, hiding on a roof with no stairs down, landing on a vehicle and driving across the map to evade the on foot pursuers (should have run them down when I had the chance) and every other trick we could think on.  No rabbits survived and at best took out one other team member.

Our next adventure is to try PARANOIA where one player is secretly nominated by a fifth person as the traitor and as the game progresses has to murder the other three players….

See you on the battlefield

Huzzah!

Vic

Century spice road sounds a bit like aftershave from the 70s. It's basically splendor+ but with enough differences to warrant having both games in your collection. Unless you hate Splendor of course.

The rules are surprisingly simple. In fact when I read them fully I had already watched a video on how to play because I didn't believe they were that easy. One double sided (sight busy looking) rule card.

The theme is neither here nor there. There's camels and they transport bags of yokes. It's an economy game where you shift around cubes of four different colours each more expensive to acquire.

The playing field is split between scoring cards and economy building cards. Six scoring cards are laid out across the top randomly drawn from the stack on the right. Seven economy building cards under it randomly drawn from the stack on the right. (A playmat would be good)

Each turn players can take one of three actions

Take an economy card, play an economy card or buy a scoring card. Actually there's four you can rest and take back all the cards you previously played.

It's that simple. All the actions you can do are written iconically on the cards. The actions are things like take two yellow (the lowest value cubes) upgrade one colour, swap two reds for one brown and so on. You start the game with two basic action cards in your hand. Gain two yellow (lowest value cube) and upgrade two cubes to a higher value cube (or upgrade one two steps). Better economy cards can be purchased by either picking the leftmost one or putting cubes on each card you skip over from the left before the one you pick. This is a clever mechanic. It means less popular cards start to get goods piled up on them that a buying player takes when they pick the card.

The game is fast. One action per player whips around pretty quick. A limit of five cubes means players are usually only concentrating on buying one scoring card and it's quite possible to derive what they're up to and try and cut them off.

The scoring cards range in value from around 7 to 19 (or so) with a bonus of a gold coin (3 points) and silver (one point) if the cards are first and second in line. First player to get five score cards ends the game (after the round is complete). Count your points and highest wins.

It's an interesting game. You have to think ahead. Careful cube management and watching when players have spent theirs and now you have a march on them is key. Rushing to end the game, slowing it down, card counting, going for high value score cards to keep up with other players is all in there. It's a deeper game than it looks. Certainly more so than splendor and it works well with more than two players. Up to five in fact.

The game is beautifully produced. It's a match for splendor in quality. Actually more so. There's some lovely metal coins in there which top it off nicely. It's pricey but it's a quality game. I really like it. I'd pick it over splendor but the new expansion for Splendor could up it's game a notch or two.

A few copies will be floating around at Knavecon. I recommend a try

Huzzah!

Vic

Bang the dice game is the love child of zombie dice and Bang! the card game (I reckon it was unexpected and there was drink involved). 
Bang dice is a classic filler. Small, portable, easy to learn and totally forgettable. A filler game is like a best supporting actor. They’re important but they rarely get much screen time or talked about afterwards. 
Bang dice is a Yahtzee em’ up. Everyone sits In a conspirital circle. You roll five Identical custom dice with the following faces 
1 and 2 : shoot someone one to two players away. 
Beer : gain a health point
Dynamite: get three of these and lose a health point. Also they can’t be re rolled
Arrow.: take an arrow token from the pile. Once the pile of a dozen or so runs out the Indians attack giving you wounds equal to amount of arrows you’re carrying 
Gatling gun: roll three and you inflict one wound on everyone else and return all your arrow tokens. (Important to make the whole cranking handle action when you do).
The idea is to smoke your enemies but right there it gets a bit complex. At the start players secretly draw role cards
Sheriff : shows his card and takes two extra life points. 
Everyone else’s role is hidden and the number of each varies depending on how many players take part (up to 8)
We have the deputies who win if the sheriff survives. The outlaws who win if the sheriff dies and the renegade who wins if he’s the last one standing. 
The trick is to figure out what the other players are up to. Shooting the sheriff is usually an indicator you’re an outlaw. Figure out the rest yourself. 
Each player also starts with a random character with a particular skill like gaining one life at the start of a turn or immune to dynamite. All with suitable gunslinger names. 
The game is fast and fun. It’s a deduction style game but very simple and fast. With three to four players it’s just a simple dice chucker but from six players on it gets a lot more interesting as deducing whom the outlaws and bandits are is key. The game lends itself readily to western movie quotes and while it lasts it’s fun. I’d rank it up there with coup as a good solid filler  
I picked up the expansion for it which I’m eager to try out and I’ll review that soon when I do. 
Bang! Itself has been around for a while and is also a good filler game. Bang! The dice game seems like the younger cooler brother of bang and is well worth trying out. I’ll have it at Knavecon and we can have a game then hombre 
Yehar!
Vic 

When I was a young lad, a mere strip of a lad, I lived for a couple of years in Bray Co. Wicklow (or Wicla if you’re a local). I can remember walking home and passing a shop that had Escape from Colditz in the window. I always wanted to play it, but never did, probably because 30 seconds after seeing it in the shop my mind latched on to something else shiny. Flash forward a number of years and little has changed. What was I talking about again? I did get to play a quick game of the original 1973 version a few years back but i wasn’t a huge fan due to some weaknesses in the rules that could see players running down the clock. Enter the 2016 version which I was lucky enough to acquire at the UK games EXPO. Osprey games have taken it, knocked off the rust and updated a number of rules. Nothing too radical, more a refinement of the game. Gone is playing against the clock replaced now it’s a set amount of turns and a number of other subtle changes that makes the game a way more pleasant experience.

Thinking about it, I’m not aware of any other game where prisoners are trying to escape from a prison (dungeon crawls don’t count). Colditz is pretty unique. I won’t insult you by telling you the premise of Colditz (I’ll insult you in person at the next Knavecon) but suffice to say you have up to five players each commanding their groups of prisoner pawns hoping to escape the famous prison while one player takes the role of ze Germans (boo! hiss!) and tries to stop them.

The first thing you notice about this game is it’s production values. It’s a gorgeous game. Osprey have done a magnificent job on it. The artwork is excellent with a lovely old world feel to it. The board is beautifully illustrated. The rules clear and concise. The game includes some lavish touches like a historical booklet on the castle, neat little cardboard tuck boxes, piece trays that fit in a replica of a red cross aid parcel. Take out all the cardboard and you’ll find a copy of an original escape map for the castle on the inside of the box. It’s classy deluxe.

The game is still very much faithful to the original, very little appears to have changed, but the changes are numerous and subtle, things like tweaks to the map, changes to the number of cards, removal of the do or die rules. If you really want to go back the original rules are included for you to try out (Obviously we didn’t and played the new version).

The game is played out over a number of rounds (50 for noobs, 40 for less noobs and so on) after which the Germany player wins if none of the prisoners has gotten two of his boys out. The problem with the old game was everyone WOULD escape given enough real time, the limited amount of turns side steps this nicely.

Dotted around the map are a number of key escape points that can be moved through with the right equipment, keys for getting through locked gates, passes for walking past checkpoints, ropes for climbing down walls and wire cutters for cutting through barbed wire. None of these will mean jack if you don’t also have an escape kit (food, disguise, compass and map) for when you do finally shaw shank your way out. The good news is you start with one the bad news is you have to get two guys out (you can split the kit if you escape on the same turn).

The map is made up of a central spot called the appel, this is where your pawns start lined up and is den (safe from guards), outside this area is the inner courtyard where German guards patrol, you generally want to spend as little time around here as you can because the German guards will bump into you and if you’ve got escape equipment will stick you in solitary (have to roll doubles to get out). beyond the courtyard are the various rooms and halls, prisoners can move here (guards usually can’t) and if you get two pawns in a room that has the right symbol on it you get the corresponding escape equipment card (and transported back to the appel).

movement is real old school, you roll two dice (doubles grants an extra roll) and you add them all together as movement points, roll low (below 5) and you get an opportunity card, these grant a pile of options like fast travel to a particular room, hide equipment, open one of the three escape tunnels and so on. The Germans likewise get security cards that allow arrests in rooms, shoot to kill, roll calls and various other cards to help them and ruin the prisoner’s best laid plans

Once you think you’re ready to rock you can make a break for it (make sure you roll high), start burning your equipment to get down walls, through locked areas and through fences. If you’re caught by a guard outside the inner courtyard you get locked up but this time lose equipment, worse still it’s quite possible to get shot outside the grounds by guards.

The security officer (German) player has a tough time of it, they need to be horrible to the players (Obviously I shone at that role). Keeping them all in is like herding cats. In one game we played one of the escape player’s entire set of pawns spent over half the game locked up in solitary (I guess if you can’t do the time). The escaping player have to co-operate with each other and trade escape equipment, they WILL NOT escape on their own. This was way outside the comfort zone of my group, but I think they learned an important lesson they will never discuss.

As it turned out one prisoner got two guys out and won. Next time the timer will be lower.

This is great game, it’s a classic and the rule improvements are excellent. With newbie timing it can drag on. It’s important to keep it on the rails and take your turn quickly. The turn does whip about fast enough, there’s little down time. for a game which is pretty much from the 70s it stands up surprisingly well with more modern titles.

Coldtiz is tense and exciting, uncertain and unforgiving. Players can co-operate in escape but… do you really want to help someone else be the one who won the game? and THAT’S why I’d still be in prison at the end of 50 turns.

I’ll have this at Knavecon. Definitely, definitely check it out. Rules are simple, game looks good, kids will love it, adults too. Top game, real nostalgic trip but well worth your time

Huzzah!

Vic

Modern Art has been around for a very long time. It’s a Reiner Knizia game but in spite of that it’s well worth a look 🙂 It’s a bidding game with a theme tacked on. Shocker. For Sale is a simple enough bidding card game not at all unlike it. 
Players first wind it up by bidding on properties then unwind it by selling them off for the money available in the buyer’s market. It’s a simple and fun filler game worth your attention 

Two things strike me about the game. It’s overpriced and it’s bidding mechanic has a tiny twist that makes the game refreshing. The game consists of two small decks each of two dozen or so cards and a set of cardboard coins. That’s it. I’ve never seen it for sale (pardon the pun) for less than 20 quid. 
The bidding mechanic is interesting. You bid one after the other until someone passes. Whomever passes takes the lowest value card and here’s the twist pays Half the bid they’ve made rounded down. The last person standing pays full value for the highest card. This is key. It gets away from the normal egging people on with false bids. It’s a closed pool of money too so there’s a limit on what you can do and it’s strategic bidding all the way. 
The second half of the game sees a spread of money cards laid out one per player just like the house cards and players secretly put forward one of their house cards to snatch the best loot. Once all are revealed the highest house value grabs the highest money card. Since it’s a random spread of cards anything from 0 to 15k clever hand management and card counting is crucial. 

So is it any good it being so simple? Yes. It really is. It’s a game that should be dry and boring yet it’s far from that. It’s got bottom. It requires quick thinking, bluffing, bullying and a head for figures. I played a buddies copy some time back and was impressed with it. I was able to get a copy at the Expo and having played it again I’m still impressed. It’s most definitely more than the sum of it’s parts. I can see some people not liking it. It’s pure marmite but I think it’s definitely worth your attention. It’s also neat and portable a really good holiday game for 3-6 players. 
I’ll have it at Knavecon. It’s quick so I recommend a try. 
Until then
Huzzah!
Vic 

francis Drake is a worker placement game in a similar vein to Age of Discovery. You play the role of a sea captain who will undertake Three (not four not FIVE!) voyages to the West Indies to try and score more points than your fellow sea men. School boy humor will reign. 

You do this by sailing over and knocking the shite out of the locals and half inching all their gear. Bonus points for conquering cities and fortresses. Each player gets a number of action disks numbered one to four and has to place them face down on various objectives. Once all are revealed it kicks off and first in line at the trough (if they overwhelm the locals) gets the best pickings. There are limited spots at each of the dozen or so objectives so carful use of your action cards and careful bluffing is key. In the event of two captains attacking the same location with the same initiative on their action disk it’s decided by the captain that left port and set sail earliest. 
Overwhelming the locals is straightforward. They have a number of visible cannons and men and a turned over card with a few more. So you need to bring more men and guns to the party (which you then spend) to win the day. Additionally you need to bring supplies to reach further objectives, a bigger ship to attack galleons and trade goods if that’s your sort of thing. Where in the world can you find these useful knickknacks? Why back in port I’ll warrant ship mate. 

The Voyages are split into two phases. The Victualing and the Voyage (which we just spoke about) 
Victualing is akin to opening the doors of Willie Wonkas factory to a mob of Augustuses. Players rush to be the first to grab whatever they think they need from the dock side buildings before raising anchor. 
The dock is a one way street of cards which grant access to men, cannons, supplies, trade goods, bigger ships and various other bonuses a jack tar needs. The sizzle is that the first to jump on a particular card gets the most of that particular resource with players arriving after getting sloppy seconds, treacherous thirds and possibly ferocious fourths. If you pass a building you can’t go back so it’s a balance between stocking up and getting to the new world first while all the good stuff is still there (sloppy seconds etc.) It’s a really neat mechanic. Buildings are a spread of various goodie giving cards and these change from voyage to voyage so mind how you go. 

The game is really nicely produced. It’s big. The board is big. The pieces are big. The various chits are big. The box understandably is big. It’s a proper man sized no nonsense Tonka Toy board. I like a good board but it’s often a pain if you combine that with a big player board and sets of cards. I was delighted the player board was small and self contained bar a neat little treasure chest to store and hide your ill gotten booty. The art is good, nothing stellar but more than adequate and not overly distracting. The whole thing feels good and solid when you play it. It’s like a Volvo of a game. 
Gameplay is excellent. It’s fun and competitive with little or no dice, just decisions and opponent’s decisions to decide your destiny. Cock blockery abounds but no direct confrontation with other players and this feels right. It would have made the game very unforgiving if you could directly attack others. It supports five which is a nice round number (I know) for gaming. There’s a lovely game of two halves here with a lot of thought and strategy required but not to the point of over analysis 

I like it. It IS pricey but definitely worth trying out. One of the Thur crew has it so I should have a copy of it at Knavecon 10 and definitely it’s worth checking out
Decent game. Well worth your time
Huzzah!
Vic 

Hive is a great little holiday game, sitting out having a drink, compact, easy to teach, fun but with enough depth for a seasoned gamer.
Enter onitama. In my eyes a similar beast and a possible pick for holiday game 2017. I picked it up at the games expo in Birmingham and finally got to play it having seen it all over the interwebs last year. Haven’t seen much mention of it this year but we’re a feckless lot we gamers. 
The game is very simple. A lot of the tiny rule book is fluff or adverts. You have four pawns (or prawns if you prefer) and a bigger pawn called the master who move around on a 5×5 grid like chess pieces. The board is suitably japanesey as are the pieces. Much dishonor if you lose.  

When the game starts all five of your dudes are lined up on your side of the grid, the master in the central home space called the temple the others two left and two right of him. Now you need to either knock out the opponents master or get your master into your opponents temple square. 
So it’s a sort of checkers. Well yes and no but mostly no. In truth it’s all no. Movement is a little different and it’s what makes the game tick.  
At the start five movement cards are drawn (suitably names after martial arts lore) two for each player and one at the side as the next in line move. The rest go back in the box. Players take a turn by picking one of the movement cards in front of them and using it to move one of their dudes onto one of the permissible spots based on the picked card. You then take the next in line card and pass the card you used to the other player as their next in line cards. 
The game is quick and deadly. It’s all over very fast If you don’t watch what your opponents reach. Since movement cards swap between players thinking ahead is key. At least 3 moves. 

Do not play this game with anyone who over analyses games or it will be a long haul. The game is pretty quick but it takes chess like concentration while you play. It’s all about making mistakes preferably your enemies. Seeing movement cards pass by and speculating when they’ll come back or setting up movement combos to wipe out enemy pieces is key. 
Going directly for your enemy master is perilous. You need to reduce his reach by knocking out his students first. There’s subtly and sacrifice here 
For newbies the movement can be a little confusing but it settles pretty quickly. After a number of games I can see a little bit of depth here but it’s going to take quite a few plays to really get into it. It is easy to learn but I dare say difficult to master. Replay is excellent. A pick of five movement cards from a possible twenty per game will see a lot of variety and I started to recognize certain cards as really useful after a time. 

Production is magnificent. The box the game comes in has a magnetic lid, a roll up rubber play mat and lovely little pieces and cards all sitting pretty in recessed holders. It’s reminiscent to the original Tsuro in a number of ways. 
The game reminds me of Hive in a way but it’s a lot bulkier and having played a lot of Hive I can’t compare it honestly. To me it doesn’t feel quite as good, so far I prefer the former. The more I think on it the more depth I see in it 
It’s going to take a while to figure this one out. I’ll write another review of it in a few months time. For now it’s an intriguing and hopefully deep 2 player strategy game that is inexpensive and worth a look. 
Huzzah !
Vic 

I do not hate co-op games. I do think they’re like the coaches son. They need to work that bit harder then their fellows to prove themselves. There are some very fine coops I’m persuaded.

I just can’t think of any of them at this exact moment. 
Truth be told I may not be the best person to review This War of Mine but I’m here now and so are you so let’s get on with it and we need not look each other in the eye for some time. TWOM is a single player game masquerading as a coop. It is. Seriously. The game has a little of the feel of Dead of winter with it’s events but there it ends. You don’t control your own dudes you take turns controlling ALL of the survivors and there’s no traitor mechanic. 

The game is based on the now dirt cheap and seemingly good (haven’t played it but I will) video game of the same name. It sees you controlling a group of survivors in a war torn city struggling to survive in horrific conditions. You need to scavenge for food and other resources to ward off hunger and despair along with a few other ailments. It’s grim stuff. The map is grim the colors grim. A funeral home is more upbeat than this. 

The game is played out over seven days where different tasks and decisions are made. During the day you try to improve your surroundings by digging out rubble and building simple gear from scavenged resources. This reminds me of the base building bit of video game Xcom. The amount of actions survivors can take are reduced by hunger, wounds and fatigue. Over work your survivors and they’re plum tuckered out the next day, don’t over tax them and you risk attacks or lack of food and resources from inaction. Some hard decisions need to be made. 
At night you can send survivors to scavenge for resources, rest up or guard the building. Each of these paths lead to various card driven events and some moral choices in the form of numbered events with different possible choices from a large journal of events. So you might come across a family being harassed by a group of drunken thugs. Do you intervene and risk a fight or ignore it and risk moral penalties later on? I know what I’d do  
The game is very nicely presented but to be honest it’s a single player puzzle game with random elements and a bit of push your luck. The moral dilemmas were lost on my group. We just took the most beneficial option for our team. There was no real connection with the game. All I saw was a set of generic stats and mouths do feed. The map is busy with a lot of cards laid out but it’s all logical. I suspect the designers realized a single player game wouldn’t sell so they attempted to make it a group experience but it wound up more of like students all taking drags off the one cigarette. 

Like a lot of coops the people more in tune with the game will lead It and the others will fall in line and be ultimately bored. That happens here too. 
I didn’t like it. I wouldn’t buy it but if depressing single player thematic games are your thing you’re in luck. 
I think the designers made a fine stab at this game but the source material just wasn’t right for the type of game I like. It did achieve it’s goal however and I’ve made a conscious decision now to never start a war or visit untold horrors on others. Well played 
Huzzah!
Vic 

Rhino Hero is a lovely little Jenga+ game from Haba. Haba produce neat kids games and this is no exception. The concept is simple, you start with a spread of random shape cards and you need to be the first to get rid of all of them before your opponents do. 

Cards have a couple of shapes on them which you stack folded wall sections upon. You have to place these wall sections down then put one of your floor cards on top of it. It makes more sense if you look at the pics. Cards also contain a symbol which forces an opponent to draw another card, allows you to spend two or makes the titular rhino (a big meeple) appear and you have to stand him on top of the tower constructed so far. Cause the tower to fall on your watch and you lose. 

As I said. It’s Jenga with a little more. It’s good simple fun and kids will love it. It’s also cheap as chips. Around a tenner or so. While it lasts it’s fun but don’t expect much and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Simple game younger kids will love it. 

Huzzah!
Vic 

Do you own Caracassone already? Yes? Ok you don’t need Caracassone Star Wars. Do you Not own Caracassone or do you speak fluent Bocce? Ok go ahead and buy Caracassone Star Wars 
CSW is a rethemed version of the venerable Caracassone a nice little gateway game. There’s a little bit of skill and luck mixed equally together here. It’s purely reactionary with a little bit of “card” counting. For all that it’s fun and nice and gentle. Children and non gamers will like it. Hardened gamers will still get something out of it. 

The game consists of around 50 tiles which are drawn one at a time randomly and placed beside the growing map on the table. Tiles contain space lanes (roads), planets (monasteries), asteroid fields (castles) all of which have to be positioned to match up with ones already on the table. When you place a tile you also have the option to place one from your small pool of meeples and claim a spot (planet, space lane or asteroid field) if no one is already there. There’s a little bit of tactically play in denying players the tiles they want, throwing a tile shaped spanner in their carefully planned space scape, deciding when to use and when to hold back your meeples (like Kenny Rogers) and when to fight. Key to play is to not overcommit as meeples don’t come back to your hand unless they’ve completed a full space lane, asteroid or completely surrounded a planet. 
A new addition to this version is dice based combat when opposing meeples merge or more interestingly when you place a tile next to a planet and have the option of meepling (c) onto the adjoining planet. Opponents roll 1-3 decide depending on their faction and possibly the tiles faction or if you use your single Big meeple to do your action. Highest dice wins and losing meeple goes home. Both parties more importantly score points for scrapping. 
The farming which was always a bit confusing for new players is now gone. If you don’t understand ignore that last sense and this one too. 

Two things strike me about this version. The combat is fun the game is locked in to the Star Wars theme so you can’t add any of the myriad of Caracassone proper expansions. That’s ok though. You get enough of the game in the base game. It was never meant to be a lifelong commitment.  
Build quality is good. Artwork is good too. It’s Star Wars. It’s hard to get the artwork wrong in that. It’s also cheap as chips. You’ll pick it up for less than €20. All in all a neat little game with a new skin. Good fun and worth a look if you haven’t played it before
Huzzah !
Vic