Terra of the Seas

Tom turned up this week a fluster with cats. Rejecting Bondys criticism last week of the dubious nature of a cat theme, Tom insisted that cats were a great theme and indeed every game could be improved by anthropomorphic felines.

Thus on hearing that Terra Prime would get a play on table 1, he asked if it had cats in it. Cats piloting space ships.

I fear Felinia has awoken his inner furry.

Dejected about no cats in Terra Prime, Tom then brandished another cheap game he had managed to pick up - he seems to be into cheap games at the moment - amongst a set of three, Industry - another Michael Schacht game, Village and Vineta.

Of the eight players, five beat a hasty retreat from the game brandishing Tom, leaving Stu and Robin to challenge him at Vineta.

Vineta is new to me, never heard of it, but it has something to do with killing off the followers of your fellow Norse gods through the power of the sea. The island of Vineta is obviously not big on religious tolerance. The trick to the game however, is that no one knows which colour of meeple ( houses in this case... which can move around... ok... ) are your lucky chosen few that you want to keep alive. Nor which district is the one you are secretly protecting. Points are scored for murdering correcting the folly of those houses not under your guidance, and a special bonus is scored if your district is the one that survived at the end.

An interesting bluffy kind of setup.

After Vineta - no idea who won - the three played a few rounds of the groovy Forbidden Desert. When I looked over they seemed to be doing quite well although the storm had kicked up to strength four.

Terra Prime was launched on table 1, Matt, Ewan, Rich, Sam and myself setting to this. This game has you piloting your ship into unknown space, looking for planets to settle so you can haul produced goods back to Terra Prime and fulfil orders for Victory Points. Colonies will net you points in themselves, and your ships can be upgraded in a number of ways leading to a variety of strategies that you can attempt to pull off.

Rich took an early lead with a planet that proved very popular - netting him 1VP for everyone visiting and hauling cargo / upgrading their ship, but managed to blow his entire lead with a cavalier attitude to exploration that saw him blunder into an alien warfleet and get shot to pieces. Scanners are for wimps apparently. And people that don't like their ships getting shot up.

Upgraded with stealth fields and a navigation computer, Ewan finally made it into the deepest parts of the unknown to explore the rim and bribe some aliens into letting him settle on a high prestige planet. This triggered the end game, leaving Ewan to a commanding victory.

Cool game. More than meets the eye to it. And it plays in a decent amount of time.

Lastly we finished with a few rounds of The Resistance. This is a game I have been wanting to try for a while but just haven't got round to.

This is another quick filler traitor in your midst type game and plays really well. A very simple blind voting mechanic sets up the field of play for bluff and sabotage and the usual accusations and backchat quickly surround the table. If your group is up for that kind of play it makes for a great game, funny, tricky and sneaky

If there's one criticism I have for it, it's that it's too quick. A winning total of best of three means that  rounds can be over very quickly, and I found I just wished there were a few more turns to play with and sort out who's who. Nevertheless, great stuff, I look forward to playing more of it.