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 

My copy of New Angeles has had a very roundabout route to get to me but it arrived a few days back and there was no doubt it would be played straight away on games night. Better still come the night come the players and we had a full compliment of six to test drive it. 

It’s semi coop with a POSSIBLE traitor in there which makes for a nice level of paranoia. Each player takes the role of a powerful Mega Corporation all of which will be familiar to anyone who have played in the Android universe before. The corporations are all working together like ebony and ivory to give the people what they demand in the form of tech, entertainment, and four other resources I can’t recall the name of. Doesn’t matter what they are. You flip a demand card three times in the course of the game and the people suddenly want various quantities of different resources (the feckless rogues) and it’s up to all of you in two turns to give them want they want or face the ire of the government. 

Ire it seems can be quantified. The government is keeping New Angeles under its Sauronlike gaze. If the corporations working together can keep the people happy then they too are happy, but if they fail to match the people’s wants the group incurs threat points and if it reaches 25 EVERYONE loses. Other things each turn like unchecked disease and crime earns you threats. It’s all too easy to gain these and extremely hard to reduce them so it’s a race to get to the end of turn six before the bottom falls out of your gravy train world. 
Obviously I wouldn’t be talking so excitedly about a game if it was pure coop. It’s not. At the start each player draws a secret rival card. Your goal apart from having everyone win is to have higher capital than your secretly drawn opponent. So it’s a case of a number of of people could potentially win but there’s going to be some really bad losers. Now. Add to this one of the rival cards is actually a traitor card and that player is now secretly working for the government and wants the threat to get to 25 and everyone to lose, in which case they win, you’ve got a tasty paranoid meaty stew with secret agenda lumps glistening under the bubbling surface. 

The game plays out by the rotating active player putting forward a proposal card to fix or improve something in one of the ten sectors of the city. Another player may put a counter proposal card in place and everyone abstains or throws a number of limited action cards in to vote for one or the other. The winner gains an asset as a result that will give him some plus or bonus later on and may well benefit from the proposal in terms of more capital (both your gold and your score). What’s really thematic here is someone could play a proposal card that stamps out crime in two sectors which would be very laudable if they didn’t control private security and made capital like a bandit from the action. Worse still it might be a case you can’t ignore crime any longer so you all willingly have to make it happen. 
Everyone has an angle in this game. Players also draw a secret agenda card at the start of the demand arc that benefits them if certain things happen when demand is fulfilled, like ensuring there’s a certain amount of outages in the city, the police are out in force and so on. It’s entirely believable and if it wasn’t a cyberpunk setting you could certainly see players all dressed in stovepipe hats waxing their villain mustaches and grinning manically and most certainly not being able to comment on their motivations. 
The game is surprisingly fast. It’s only 6 turns. Even with a full compliment of six and all new to the game it took a little under 3 hours to finish and everyone wanted badly to see how it finished. In our case the traitor slipped the clutch on the very last action and won it for himself. Damn government. 

There’s a lovely plate spinning mechanic going on here. Each of the various corps specialize in things like medicine, law enforcement, repair and construction and they benefit in capital when these actions happen in the city. Ignore a particular area like health completely and it goes from a headache to a migraine which will cost everyone the game. 
Deals are a big part of the game to get your agendas over the line as is backstabbing and general caddish behavior. It’s wonderful. 
Something I’ve heard from a number of sources is this is like a new version of Battlestar. Absolutely not. It’s a very different beast (Battlestar rocks btw). While it does have a whiff of Battlestar it also has a whiff (as opposed to a pong) of XCOM and maybe a dash of the original Android board game. It’s very much it’s own unique self and I love the unlikely allies mechanic in the game very much. 
Production values are excellent as always from Fantasy Flight. Good artwork. Nice minis, everything you’d expect. The action cards a little small and the card type is tiny and hard to make out but that’s more my issue than the games. 
So far I’m loving this and it’s shot in straight away as one of my top games alongside Battlestar and Imperial 2030. 
Will be there in force at Knavecon 9. Reckon it could be the game of the con
Huzzah!
Vic 

Three sticks is an abstract game for two to four players. It’s a bit like Android Mainframe but even more shit. Oh dear I said it. 
The idea behind the game is to make shapes from three different sized straight pieces. Two, three and four long. You can go diagonal with the four length piece so you wind up making triangles, squares, rectangles and other shapes which have names too. 

You score points if you’re the one who completes a shape. Score is based on how long the perimeter is, a bonus for the complexity of the shape (octagons score more than rectangles and so on) and also for surrounding a spot on the board with a score number on it (a bit like the triple word score in scrabble)

All in all it’s dull and generic. It plays like a big game of dots and if you try more than two players it’s pretty random. It’s also hugely open to analysis paralysis. Kids may like it. 
Any pros you say? Well it’s packaged nicely and I suppose it would burn for a good while but give off Black smoke because of all the plastic). It’s so bad I suspect it will turn up in the toy isle of Tescos or be used to torture school kids. 

All in all there’s a lot better out there for kids. This doesn’t cut the rhombus either for small or big kids. 
Huzzah!
Vic  

Is there anything worse than Monopoly? Perhaps Junior Monopoly? Actually no! Having played junior Monopoly I can say I kind of approve for the simple reason…. it’s mercifully brief. (I’m reliably informed Game of Life junior is even worse btw)
Junior Monopoly takes the very last vestiges of a game from monopoly and pasteurized, sterilizes and bleaches it so you’re left with a random number generator. The game is entirely predetermined. You don’t have to actually play the game to play the game. You move by rolling the dice and moving your cartoony piece on a smaller board than the regular one (six squares per side rather than ten) and HAVE to buy a property where you land if it’s vacant. HAVE to. The money has been simplified so everything is in millions. The first row of properties cost 1m, the second edge of the map 2m and so on around each side. Land on someone else’s and you pay out that much money. If you can’t afford to either buy or pay rent (you start with 20m) game’s over and the person with the most money wins…

Oh yeah there’s chance cards to. One of which send you jail. Woohoo. 
No building houses or hotels, making deals, all gone. In fairness I know it’s a kids game but holy shite this is poor stuff indeed and a terrible introduction to gaming for any child. There’s so many better games out there that are kid friendly. Avoid
Huzzah!
Vic