Start as you mean to go on...

With Christmas feasting and New Year frivolities out of the way, this week saw the return of gaming to the Ribs. A record equalling/busting ( depending how you count ) 23 people turned out for the first NoBoG of 2014 as an epic five tables of gaming were setup.

Lords of Waterdeep, Kingdom Builder, Caverna, Suburbia and Village were played - Stu's table played something before Kingdom Builder but I forget what it was.

It's not the first time Village has been down to NoBoG ( earlier play description here   ), but it's been a while since it made its first appearance, and not many got to play it. This week Village was played by a new audience, and Rich, Pete and Ed all had good things to say about it - Ed liking it despite coming in an abject last and suffering from a swollen foot. Not sure if this was beneath the table foot stamping signals that had got out of hand or an earlier injury, but nevertheless after a triumphant Pete had killed the most of his villagers for the win, Ed went limping home, happy but sore.

Pete then managed to sneak Race for the Galaxy out onto the table for a quick round, before finally the various tables finished and the customary end of night Resistance game ensued. The evil do-ers had a torrid time, with a straight three victory win for the good guys, and some shifty behaviour by the tell dropping bad guys sealing the slick win. However, all was not lost, as the bad guys still had a chance to assassinate Merlin, and even with Ewan playing it cool and ignoring the general pointing in his direction, the bad guys chose to assassinate him - who was revealed indeed to be Merlin. A win for the bad guys via assassination !

Caverna ( play description ) had another run through down the pub, with only one other seasoned Agric player - and no Caverna players at all - at the table, the game was initially daunting for the new players. Everyone picked it up quickly however, and Owen the Agric vet piled on the weapons to score strongly at the end with 73 points. Alas he was pipped to the post by my peace loving dwarves, who with no weapons and only one mine could hardly be counted as dwarves at all, but eked through with a score of 76 - and a remarkable number of dogs.

For those ardent fans of Race for the Galaxy, this week saw the release of the new expansion Alien Artifacts, which brings a small board element and in theory more player interaction to the otherwise purely card based and largely solo game. It's likely to turn up next week if you are interested, although the whole Orb board game bit seems a bit.. well... poor. But your mileage may vary - hit Pete up for a blast, as I am sure he will have it with him.