Welcome once again, to our 'What Did You Bring?' segment!
For the purposes of this (review) post, player names have been changed to protect the innocent and the mummified.
RAAAAA!! The Sun God Ra is the bringer of life, light and an immensely fun auction game. As a devoted worshipper of Ra, it is our job to enrich ancient Egyptian civilisation through Art, Religion, Astronomy, Writing, Agriculture and the construction of epoch spanning Monuments, all in his name.
Don't worry though, you don't have to do all that in a single hour at the pub. Just shout 'Ra' a lot during the game and hold... hold.... NOW! Bid NOW!!
I like my games simple, and this is as simple as they come - let's not talk about the end game scoring yet. At the heart of this game is a (closed) auction system. So please allow me (a serial hater of auction games) to try to convince you (a non-believer of Ra) to give this game a try if you ever get the opportunity.
RAAAA!!!
Winning, as mentioned previously is easy. All you have to do is bid the highest, and collect as many tiles as you can, which have been picked out of a colourful bag. If you did well, your collection (or set) will be the most valuable and beat the scores of every other player. Boom! Ra loves you, and only you. Go on... give that big Ra statue a kiss. It's beautiful. Kiss it.
At the start of the game, depending on how many players there are, each player is given 4 rather chunky Sun Disks numbered between 2 and 16. The Sun Disk with the 1 on it, is placed centrally on the communal tableaux. Ooo.. I've never written that word before... tableaux. Sounds lush.
Anyway, each player uses their Sun Disks to bid in the upcoming auctions, but you only get to bid once in each auction! So if you really want those tiles for your collection of Monuments, Rivers, Civilizations, or Gods etc. then you had better pay up son!! The higher the number the higher the bid.
This game is broken into 3 Epochs - which are essentially rounds. During each round, players have 1 of 2 simple decisions to make during their turn. 1. Do you draw another tile from the sack and add it to a burgeoning public display of gifts to Ra? Or 2. Do you just call RAAA!! Thus beginning an auction and prematurely ending the 'Generation Game'* style conveyor belt of victory points amassing. Pro-tip: If you do call Ra! Then you will get a distinct advantage in the bidding process, as you will bid last. This turns out to be a delicious game of chicken with your opponents. Do they use their high numbers to secure the auction win? Or do they let you take all the tiles for a measly '3 Sun Disk'?
When you eventually do win an auction, then you will swap your winning Sun Disk with the central one left over from previous bids - and keep it for future rounds.....yep that happened. Congratulations, you just played yourself. Or did you....? ::sly smile::
During the game lots of other bad stuff can and will happen too. There are Disaster tiles! Of course there are, this is ancient Egypt. These tiles are like a fly in the ointment of your offerings to Ra, they force players who collect them to lose some of their collection's value. Some tiles only score when accompanied by other tiles; other tiles only score if you have the most of them, and one tile even penalises you for having none of them. Plus, just in case you weren't having enough fun yet, several tiles that are drawn from the bag are Ra tokens! This token artificially begins an auction, which can be both horrible and sublime at the same time. They also act as the Epoch (round) countdown timer.
If you have been paying attention, you will have noticed that every new conveyor belt of offerings to Ra has value, however, that value is different for each player. Therefore every auction is exciting, fast and mouth-watering (in it's own way). Between the screams of "RAA!!" and "Stop them! They are going to WIN!", you will be trying to count the value of your offerings - hoping that you can predict the outcome. Do not do this. You are wasting your time, and you could easily miss the opportunity to gain massive rewards, or even prevent another player from doing the same thing.
After the 3rd Epoch has finished, and the count-up begins - this is where the game lags a bit. Yes, it can be exciting announcing your totals in turn order, but very frequently I have found this stage to drag a small amount and can become technical. Losing by 2 points can feel horrible, but not as horrible as realising that you just lost by 20 points and was probably playing a different game all along. Ra hates you. But don't be sad though, the game doesn't last very long, and you may even be able to get an additional play out of it during the evening, if everyone is on board.
All jokes aside, this game is kind of genius. Maybe it won't be to everyone's taste, since crunchiness only pops up during the set collection and the count-up at the end. However the interpersonal challenges, the pushing of ones luck and the schadenfreude as you announce "RA!" to the screams of delight from all your new friends... then watch in horror as one by one, they all 'pass' on bidding for the tiles, and you're now stuck with them... cue the giggles.
In conclusion, I do recommend giving Ra a try if you get the opportunity.
If you want to know more about this game, then you can find the Board Game Geek link here! Plus if you have any suggestions on which games to review in WhaDiYoB? then pop a comment down below for us.
Enjoy your screaming. I mean evening!! Enjoy your evening.
Ro-ma, ro-ma-ma. Well, I expect that reference to split the audience.
This week - possibly in a fit of indecision about what to play - we had the old school and noted giant of euro gaming Ra in the house, a classic title by a classic designer Reiner Knizia. If you're into your board gaming and haven't been in the gaming wilderness for the last 20 years then you're very likely to know who Reiner Knizia is, and if you have your proper board gaming chops, have at least heard of, if not played Ra.
Ra, Ra, ooh la la. A classic Knizia game.
If you don't know who Reiner Knizia, then suffice to say he is a prolific game designer of the euro type , and is part of a stable of game designers that cemented the term "euro" into the gaming dictionary in the first place.
If you want to get fancy about it, then maybe you could consider Reiner Knizia a crucial fuelling part of the Renaissance era of gaming ( where pre 70's ish would be antiquity, 80's and prior are medieval and say, post late 90's are modern ).
Ra is a simple Egyptian themed auction game, where players compete to out bid their opponents to pick up auction lots of tiles. Tiles are scored on some simple rules, set collection, bonus points, penalty points, and with the game split across three rounds ( or epochs ), scoring is performed three times, with a bit of overlap between rounds as some tiles stick around for the whole game. So the whole art of the game is in assessing whether a group of tiles is something you'd like to bid on, getting your scoring sorted out into some semblance of brilliance, and a bit of jockeying for position in timing of bids, availability of tiles and what exactly your bid strength is. The game despite being known as an auction game, and talking about auctions, and bids, and yada, isn't really anything of the sort - it's a trick taking game where your bids are fixed amounts determined by the tokens you are holding ( effectively everyone is playing with a single-ish suit from a deck of cards, and playing highest card wins, which kinda is an auction, but in the same way that playing Top Trumps is kinda an auction - IE no one ever refers to playing card trumping games as an auction . Oh you nicely outbid me there with your King of Hearts on top of my Jack of Hearts... this is never said. ).
Ra is a classic beloved by many of the gaming cognoscenti, but for my money, it's too dry, too simple, the theme makes me want to stab my eyes out, and I'd rather be playing something other than Ra. Not that it's bad by any means. Inoffensive. Like porridge. With no sugar. Or salt. Or anything in it. That makes you sit up straight before you eat it. And recite your 12 times table. Just. Yeah. Next ! Ra combined with Tigris and Euphrates - another well beloved Reiner Knizia game - are enough to make me throw up my hands in despair and go and find other things to do, such as beat my head against a wall.
Planet Norwich in the Norfolk System.
The clans have returned from distant stars to invade the Inner Sphere, the til now peaceful Commonwealth planet of Norwich suddenly finding itself the target of a rapid and brutal clan assault. Clan Ghost Bear landing advance forces onto the planet have already decisively engaged with the defenders, where despite being outnumbered have succeeded in pushing through defences and leaving a trail of destroyed enemies behind them.
Having broken through Inner Sphere lines, roving Clan scout forces now fan out in a rapid advance seeking to strike directly at the enemies capability to conduct and supply a war - ending the fight before it can really begin. Commonwealth forces in the form of the Davion Guards scramble to close the breach in the front lines whilst simultaneously reinforcing all strategic points behind the breach in danger of being overrun. But the task is a difficult one - the clans with superior mobility and firepower can strike at will and fade before a significant defence force can be assembled.
Reorganising the reserves into fast response defence lances, Davion Guard forces are distributed widely across the breach pocket with a hope of forming an anvil to delay Clan raiders caught in the act, before landing the hammer blow of a fast response.
Sector QF, just south of the Dereham lowlands - a call distorts across counter measure disrupted frequencies. Clan forces spotted, heading inbound towards the Unthank industrial zone. The Guards force on point scramble to their mechs, the brave pilots prepared to face the onslaught of the clans and provide the anvil. Meanwhile 60 klicks away, turbines spool up and thrusters ignite as the fast response drop ships pick up their mechs and prepare to speed to the battle to support their defences and deliver the hammer blow.
Elsewhere I got to suffer play through another session of the even older than Ra - Battletech ( a game from the medieval period of gaming if we are keeping up the analogy, so, similar-ish to modern games, except no plumbing or toilets, other than a hole in the wall to stick your arse out of, giving rise to odd smells, suspicious lumps of matter loitering in odd places, and a certain air of unwashed, inelegant, grime about it all ) , Sean was dead keen on giving this a go being a bit of a Battlemech fan ( and who doesn't like big stompy robot things.. ), and having watched it being played a few weeks back.
Battletech, the filthy Clanners hug the edge of the map.
And that was cool, I found it pretty riveting, the time whisked by, a fair bit of analysis paralysis, a lot of thinking, a bit of taunting, and a good deal of ineffective fire. Highlights included a jumping mech making a bad landing and falling over in the river, and then me deciding to jump on top of their sorry ass to try and kick their head in, followed by a graceful pirouetting jump out of a cauldron of fire into a back flopping landing in a lake. All performed in a 55 ton mech. There was also lots of gratuitous use of the laser line of sight checker.
Everyone enjoyed themselves, albeit, such is the way of things, it was a harrowing session, and I think it's fair to say everyone felt like they'd gone ten rounds in the ring with a heavyweight champion by the time we called halt to the game.
For the record, the clan pushed up to the edges of the industrial zone, then were perturbed by my jumping shenanigans and some supporting fire from Andy ( notably Sean spent all game waltzing around without firing a shot until the last rounds - we had assumed until the very end of the game that he was some kind of pacifist handing out leaflets.. albeit in a 50 ton walking mech ) .
Battletech - in the distance the clan raiders pull into sight
The clan advance crunched into a confused rabble, sidled along the edge of the map in comedic hand holding fashion ( Sean did a very good spontaneous mime impression of this which you had to be there to appreciate ), before just getting into the industrial zone as the reinforcements arrived and the hammer blow dropped. We stopped one turn after that. But it was fair to say that things were looking grim indeed for the Clan, although Andy's Warhammer had by then had both it's arms blown off. Just a flesh wound. I'm invincible !
More miniatures and dice rolling were going on on the table across from us, where David hosted his quasi regular Imperial Assault game, with his Empire once again facing off against the heroic rag tag Rebel team. Pete playing as ever the wookie reports that he had great fun charging into the fray,
Imperial Assault. One of the monsters seems to have
had an unfortunate incident with it's knicker elastic.
running screaming down corridors in the way only wookies can, and laid about cleaving stand in bad guy extras left and right. Causing chaos and confusion the hairy hero bleeding profusely stumbled to the macguffin console, only to fumble through the blood and tears the activation sequence and fail the mission.
There is a reason they don't give wookies medals. At the end of Star Wars watch closely. There's Han. Here's a medal. There's Luke. Have a medal. There's Chewie... screw you buddy, we're fresh out of medals ! You and your hairy ass can just stand in the back being generally unappreciated ! Harsh. And it's all Pete's fault. They've never forgotten the time he fumbled that console roll. Do you know how many Bothans died for that ? Many Bothans ! Many !
As this is the second failure in a row for the Rebel team I have come to the conclusion that David is facing off against the B Team of the Rebel Alliance. These are the guys that you never see in the films, the one's they don't tell tales of derring-do about, the ones that generally screwed something up in the first place that then made the presence of the A Team Rebels a necessity. The Death Star ? Yeah. The B Team screwed that up by failing the mission to steal all supplies of Imperial hammers to deny the building work from ever starting. Resulting in one blown up planet. And a last minute emergency mission to blow the completed Death Star up. That's why there's no medals for Wookies. A failure to delete the hammer invoice order from the death star construction console. Peeettteee ! Or in character. "aaarrrrarrarrr-arr-arrrarr-arrrrr".
Moving on from Rebel debacles, Sam got to try out the excellent Colt Express with the new stagecoach expansion, which brings hostages, whiskey, and victory points for getting shot ! It all sounded pretty cool, and I absolutely have to give this a go when I get a chance and am not playing
Thunderbirds are go ! F.A.B !
Battletech until midnight. Prior to this Sam busted out the FAB game - ah ha ha - Thunderbirds, a brand new spanky offering of this now 50 year old... we'll go with classic. To be honest I have no idea what goes on in this game. It's co-operative. It has miniature depictions of the Thunderbird vehicles. One can only presume you go around the world saving people whilst displaying very little face movement and refusing to walk anywhere where you could instead build an unfeasibly complex mechanical system to ferry your sorry ass around in an automated chair, thus avoiding the burdensome necessity of actually getting up. International rescue is one thing. Being bothered to get your ass out of your armchair is a whole other ballgame. I'm with you there buddy !
Who knows if Sam's intrepid team won or lost ? But really, playing Thunderbirds the Game in your automated chairs, I think we can all agree that everyone is a winner, regardless of game outcome. I'm not sure, but I could swear at some point I saw Sam with serene face gliding past in an automated chair headed for the bar. FAB !
Another old school classic was also on show at the Tun in the form of Alhambra. They played a pretty full six handed game of this I think, with I'm going to take a guess at a pure vanilla setup. So none of the bazillion expansions on offer.
Elsewise the lovely Suburbia got a turn on the boards, Lewis got vanilla Smash up out and Codenames and a host of other fillers also got a play through. I had my head buried in Battletech so I probably missed a lot.
After all that NoBoG statistic compilation of what was played where, I had to go have a lie down for a week. And so missed last weeks blog.
Mr Bond was attending the Beer festival, turned up for half an hour at the Ribs to say hello, and then went back to boozing taste testing with a vague promise to be back for the fillers. Which he failed to materialise for. Presumably by this point he was asleep in a shrubbery somewhere between the festival and the Ribs with a happy beer blissed face. So he wasn't going to write a blog post either.
Before we begin, if you've been keeping an eye on other NoBoG channels you might have noticed Owein has launched his own board game retailing enterprise. Here in his own words...
For those of you who couldn't make it to the club this week, I am really excited to announce
that last Sunday saw the Grand Opening of my online games store www.kingbeegames.co.uk King Bee Games stock a wide range of games at great prices,
with an emphasis on middle and lighter weight games. If there is a particular game (or games!) that you are after
that we are not currently stocking, please don’t hesitate to contact me and I
can check whether I am able to source it from our suppliers and let you know
how much it would be. I am also happy to bring along any games you would like to
buy to the club and offer a 10% discount on our normal prices. If there are any
games that you are interested in, please drop me a line at info@kingbeegames.co.uk and I can let
you know how much they would be! Thanks
Owein
Last week we had a record equalling 33 turn up - 34 if you count Mr Bond who didn't play and was asleep in the shrubbery. A few new games were on offer - Fletch had a virgin copy of Planes on the table which regrettably no one seemed to be fantastically interested in playing. This is no slur on either Fletch or the game, but if you've been to NoBoG you will know that by and large everyone is so laidback / indecisive to the point that although everyone has turned up to play games, no one really is any rush to actually suggest or play a game.
Elliot also had some new still sealed game to play, and despite a great marketing introduction ( where it wasn't entirely clear if he was trying to sell it or play it ) the game met with little enthused response. If it's not Lords of Waterdeep, expect no one to have an opinion !
No planes. And no Ticket to ride trains. And you'll be lucky to find a game about automobiles.
At this rate we will be giving mandatory play orders to those who can't name a game to play in 30 seconds. Punishment games will include, Race for the Galaxy, Munchkin, Ticket to Ride, Hansa Teutonica and Advanced Squad Leader. You will play the one you hate / sneer at. Which should cover everyone. ASL for the newbies and pacifists. Munchkin for the hardcore Euros. Ticket to Ride for the wargamers. And Hansa Teutonica / Race for the Galaxy for the thematic Ameritrashers.
Pete too was grasping a new game, Igglepiggle of the Night Garden Lord of the Ice Garden, but whether it's Pete's unique silver tongue/weaselly diplomacy, his amazing spectacular ever changing hair or possibly the game itself, his new offering quickly found some players to give it a shot.
Lord of the Ice Garden.
Peter ( top right ) appears to be giving a
shakespearean
monologue / epic rules explanation to set the scene.
And what a pretty shot it is, the game is a real looker, possibly because of its Kickstarter heritage ( which in my experience all tend to have bling to encourage you to spend your moolah on an untested prototype ), and also possibly because it comes from an existing IP of a series of Polish fantasy novels. However, unless you are Polish the chances are you will have never heard or read it, as I don't believe it has ever been translated from its native language.
Lord of the Ice Garden is an area control game between competing players, where combat is distinctly deterministic - there is no dice rolling or randomness here. Pay to activate your troops. Get what you paid for.
Players get to choose what actions they will take in a turn via a typical worker placement / action drafting stage, before enacting those actions during gameplay. Combat occurs, influence can be placed, which allows players to change the domination of an area. Resources and victory points are gleaned from what you control on the board at the end of a turn.
Pretty, pretty models. Fletch however is unmoved.
All that glitters is not gold.
The four different factions are asymmetrical with differing special goals to secure for a goal win, so if you like being a special snowflake in a game, this will appeal. The problem with very groovy and interesting asymmetry in games is the multi headed hydra that is balance. It is balanced ? Good question. Pete has played this two weeks in a row, and for two weeks in a row the same faction has won. The straight forward, smash you in the face, melee orientated faction. Whether this is a bit of group think going on as Pete suggests, or is simply a faction easily accessible to newbies who don't quite grasp the depth of possibilties, or is a genuine balance issue only time will tell.
For the time being almost everyone that's played it has liked it. Fletch in particular did not enjoy it. His game had an epic rules session where Pete spent so long going through rules to the new game that other tables had actually just about finished their first small offering. Long rules sessions can be tiring. I am terrible for them - I tend to switch off and daydream instead of listening. I think Fletch also made a few mis-steps and as is the nature of some games could never really recover. Uh huh.
Richard IV on the other hand gave it a big thumbs up. And as is his recent trend played the new shiny in back to back weeks. Richard is becoming the Leader of the Cult of the New.
Elsewhere I got to play Legendary Villains - another of the Legendary deck builder variants, this time spinning you as the bad guys against the disgustingly upstanding heroes. Although we seemed to be a rather modest group of evil doers as our all powerful most evil globally devastating plan for world domination and suffering turned out to be.... spoiling the X-Men graduation day.
Legendary Villains. Not so Legendary in our case.
I bet they don't make a film about that.
See Wolverine have to cope with removing TP from a tree ! Watch Professor X deal with annoying prank calls to Hugh Jass. Gasp in awe as Storm deals with a sabotaged PA system. Flinch in horror as Rogue checks for the evils of chewing gum on the seating.
Despite our very modest, some would say almost schoolboy level of evil plot, we failed to defeat Odin. Who apparently had something to do with the graduation day. I don't know. What do you mean it's unreasonable to expect a near immortal king to be mucking about with a school graduation day ? You know nothing. It was a super hero graduation day. With super cake and everything.
The game was cool. I was disappointed with the ending. It just all went a bit damp squib. No grand speeches or failures. Just a shuffle of cards back into the box. Serves us right for losing.
Castles of Burgundy
Nate brought out Castles of Burgundy, and prised Elliot away from his trains and settlers. Elliot enjoyed the game, didn't win. I suspect Nate might have won.
Betrayal at House on the Hill got a play, with something of a very awesome haunt about all the players being shrunk to the size of mice and hunted by cats. Very nice ! Which if you know your Neil Gaiman is something he riffed on with the excellent Dream of a Thousand Cats. If you haven't heard of it check it out, it's very good.
Betrayal at House on the Hill.
Other games were played. Ave Caesar. Lords of Vegas. Fillers. Family business. Tim brought along a lovely little filler that I hadn't seen before - Guillotine. A number of aristocrats are lined up for the chop, each with a point score, and the idea is for each player to execute as many points worth of aristos as possible. Cards are played to alter the queue order hopefully manipulating good aristos for yourself, and tanking everyone else. Set collection, special powers and a bit of screwing around is the order of the day, and the theme is comically great. I've put this on my buy list, and if you get a chance you should check out - simple and fun for all, including gameophobes.
This week there are no pictures. The camera was out of juice. Deplorable. We had 35 turn up - a record, but Elliot and Caroline went to see a film instead as no one wanted to play Ticket to Ride Marklin reducing us to 33. I take this as a personal failure - even after offering to play as a third, Elliot sadly declined, game clutched to his chest. Ah well.
Instead I got to introduce 3 people to Glass Road. Three people who had in fact never played a Rosenberg game before. That's right. No Agricola. No Caverna. No Ora. No Le Havre. Shocking. Which went down well. Secretly I would have preferred Ora and Labora - I have been itching to play it for some time. But given a choice between the heavier Ora and the more streamlined Glass Road, it was the Road which took the play time. Martin had a great start with Glass Road, whilst I had a terrible one. I managed to make ground up in following rounds - at some expense to Martin it has to be said. I had predicted new players scores to be something of the order of 15 or 16 and a winning score somewhere around at least 20. As it turned out Tim scored 15, Martin scored 18, myself 19, and Byron 23. The game was great, and seemed to provide just enough head scratching and thunkery to be a challenge but not an obstacle.
Lords of Vegas got another outing. Fletch had his first go of this. Enjoyed it. Noted there was quite a lot of dice rolling. The lovely Random Number Generator. Tim, Stu and Nicky joined forces to play Revolution. With an exclamation mark. Revolution ! Which seems like a nice game of blind bidding for control. Nicky humbled all competition with a face slapping win that saw her some 150% or so above the next player, and almost double the last two. Yikes. Well done Nicky. They then played some old school Ra.
1775 was played downstairs, where the upstart yanks were handed their marching orders by the courageous Brits, and the Kings Colony of New York remained. Although Ewan seems to think the Dutch won it instead. Lies.
The relatively new King of New York got a blast from an enthusiastic King of crowd, and all really enjoyed it. The maniacally grinning Lewis won. You can always tell when Lewis wins. He grins like a demented Victorian bad guy.
Dead of Winter got played. Not sure if the colony collapsed or not. A bunch of fillers. Incan gold. Sechs Nimmt ( where I went again from leader in round 1 and 2, to abject last place by round 3 ). Hamsterrolle. Cash and Guns. Avalon Resistance and classic Resistance. Classic resistance turned out to be a triumph of the bad guys. With all three bad guys going on the mission and tanking the two fails to lose. Epic. Myself and the two Sams were triumphant in our evil doings. Sam II played a great but very risky mid game play, playing a card that allowed him to see if someone has failed or succeeded the mission. Two spies and two good guys were on the mission. He chose the good guys card and revealed it was a fail. Risky. If none of the spies had put a fail in he would instantly blow his cover. Which given there were two spies on a single fail mission was not unreasonable. As it turned out a single fail was revealed, badly incriminating the good guy who had refuted he had included a fail. A masterful ploy that sunk one of the good guys, and by incrimination sunk another suspicious good guy. Leaving the ring leader good guy to completely trust two spies. Oh dear. He looked so confident in the last round too....
His sad little shell shocked face at the end was a picture. Shame the camera was flat.
A crazy amount of gaming this week at the Ribs. An epic 28 people turned up to partake, giving us six tables of gaming goodness spread over most of the pub.
A smattering of new people ( four ) were also in attendance, with Ra, Small World, Mall of Horror, Manhattan Project, Village and Glass Road being first up on their respective tables.
I played Glass Road with Clive and Pete, and despite Clive consistently building whatever I had my eye on a single turn before I did ( apparently I did the same to him in Caverna a few weeks back ), I managed to grab the win for the Glassiest Brickiest Glass Roader of them all. Which maybe means my default strategy ideas for Glass Road are rubbish. In a slightly bizarre itinerary I then played Glass Road again, this time with a recent returned Mr Bond, Nicky and Robin. Robin got some nice points from an improved Sand works, and beat my resplendent baths by three points to secure the win. Pfah. Everyone likes a nice bath. The same cannot be said of an improved Sand works.
Having also previously beaten everyone off in a noisy Ra session, Robin went home with a double victory to his name. Greedy.
Meanwhile downstairs, the Eds dominated the Village, with the ever cunning but disarmingly friendly Med-Ed piling his villagers into their graves for the win. Never trust a friendly Med-Ed... he's probably winning.
Hanabi got another play again this week - cool game, everyone that hasn't given it a whirl probably should, just for the wacky experience of holding your cards backwards.
Uluru, Love Letter and Betrayal at House on the Hill rounded out the other second wave of games played, with Rich managing to convince/misdirect/fool two of the newcomers to learn this cool game called Race for the Galaxy.... To his credit Rich wasn't giving them a thorough drubbing, and things looked to be surprisingly equal when I looked over.
Betrayal played out with no one turning out to be the traitor... but all the survivors slowly succumbing to the hypnotising tune of the dark fiddler. In a rather spiteful end game play, Lewis lost his sanity and turned to the darkside on the very turn that the survivors won. Eh. It's always when you think it's over that something jumps out to eat you. Those dead zombies just lying there waiting for you to poke them... never dead. Don't do it. Don't do... oh well.
No Resistancing this week, which no doubt some people were relieved about, whilst others get to go home slightly sad. I think Resistance is turning into one of those Marmite type games, you love it or you hate it.
There has been a request to play King of Tokyo, so I'll stick that in my bag for next week. Also Smash Up has been requested. Although the idea of actually having some sort of plan for the following week is practically blasphemous for the unplanned anarchy that is NoBoG.
It probably goes without saying, but there are likely to be a couple of new people turn up again next week. Turn up early, get your votes in - or laid back apathy - as to what you want to play, and if you see someone new wondering what the hell all this board game madness is, invite them in. Then teach them the rules slightly wrong so you can win a glorious victory. Huzzah.
Over on Steam, a group of NoBoGers Who Also Might Play Computer Games slowly assembles. It's been suggested we have a bit of a Blood Bowl tournament over there. Which sounds like a kick ass plan to me. Now, whether to play comedy goblins or something a bit more competitive...
Nineteen this week, and yes, more newcomers to share in the fun and games - Alina's exasperated cry of "Oh no, not more !" on seeing more people turn up for gaming should be taken as wild and unruly thought. Rest assured that she has been taken to the very deepest depths of NoBoG HQ to receive special thought re-education on the matter and is now well on her way back to normality as a card shuffling and cube counting drone welcoming member of NoBoG.
In all seriousness newcomers are always very welcome whenever you turn up, and as numbers grow we simply expand to fill tables upstairs in the pub, so not a problem. There are even plans for what to do when we fill up the pub / Norwich in general, although I am doubtful the "Norwich is full of Gamers Apocalypse Plan" will ever get put into place. There are shotguns, cans of gasoline, general anti zombie equipment and details of how to fortify the shopping mall in those plans. Hmm. Maybe that's the Day-Z NoBoG plan. *Quiet Year Flashback* *zombies* *heads on spikes* *Agnes the OAP* *Quiet Year Flashback*. Arrg. Ah well. No matter the plan, fear not, NoBoG is prepared whatever the eventuality !
This week Trains made it to table, which as the running joke goes, is a game about Trains. Once you open the box and start looking around however you might actually think it's Dominion... with a map. Trains is a light deck building game where you improve your personal deck of cards over time to either buy victory points for end game glory, or actually provide you with actions to do something useful on the map... which provides you with victory points for end game glory. Points are scored for pure VP cards in your hand and for having a track running into a station or off board distant location.
Building track and raising stations on the map can be achieved by playing an appropriate action card, but crucially, each time this is done waste is placed into your hand ( useless cards to interfere with your sublime deck build ), and, if you are building on top of someone else you get even more waste.
This means Trains has a certain benefit for people that build early or first on the map but in the process are perhaps sacrificing building and optimising their deck early. Which is a nice additional problem to juggle.
The various trains in the game provide you with money - and in an exact replica of Dominion the 3 standard trains are valued at exactly the same values as copper, silver and gold, and for each game a random set of optional cards are added in that provide additional actions and money.
Game ends when either a certain number of card piles are exhausted, someone runs out of track to place or all the stations have been placed. We managed to get two games in for a run time of somewhat over 2 hours - including a rules session.
The game plays nicely and for me is an interesting and welcome variant / extension of the Dominion mechanics, and I can see that this game could go the way of Dominions with perhaps a bazillion card expansions ( and also board layout expansions ), or even a complete re-theme and created as some other game.
Martin took both wins in our time with the game, thus proving that he is the Trainiest of Train Masters.
Elsewhere in the Ribs, Tales of the Arabian Nights flourished its way across Europe and Asia in its inimitable You Are Now Lost / Insane / A Frog type way and entertained five for the whole evening. Sam was apparently doing well this time out, but I have no specifics to offer. You can insert your own 100 wardrobes, Menacing Djinn, rubbish fish reward tales here.
Cosmic Encounter. No sign of space Goats.. yet...
The classic Cosmic Encounter bounced out for some of the more experienced hands, where I believe that Ed#1 possibly won. It can be very hard to tell with Cosmic Encounter however and it's possible that the bar maid - who wasn't even present - could have won instead. Or maybe the game ended with a Goat. Cosmic Encounter eh ?
Stu talked up playing Ra on the last table - not sure if he actually managed to get this out (*crackly NoBoG radio communications tell me that Ra was indeed played* ), when I walked past mid evening it was Kingdom Builder that was being contested over.
As the evening drew to a halt - those not playing with Insane Fishy Wardrobes - split into two groups to play The Resistance - Avalon and Cash and Guns. Excellent ! If you've never played either games, and more to the point, if you've never played either games with the NoBoGers then you should - it's possibly one of the greatest most fun ways to end a gaming evening. So long as you like lying and attempting to foil your compatriots plans. Or pointing foam guns at people. And let's be honest, who *doesn't* like pointing foam guns at people ?
In earlier weeks there has been a spate of the Good Guys winning at The Resistance - a shocking and immoral turn of events - but thankfully this week, the Bad Guys were back in form and gave Arthur's Round Table a thorough drubbing with three consecutive failed quests. The poor lady of the lake hardly had time to wake up and smell the coffee before the game was over.
The Resistance - left to right, Bondy bag of Cheese & Onion,
Hand of Matt, Silver Tongue Pete, Ed#2, Rich, Ed#1,
Clive Shoulder, American Pete bag of Ready Salted
To confuse matters we elected to play Resistance with two Eds and two Petes. Because it's not confusing enough when you start throwing accusations around about who is trustworthy when everyone has a different name. Next week we may decide to play with *all* of us adopting the name Ed, thus making the statement "I think Ed is a spy" guaranteed to be correct.
Evil Ed#1 managed to foul up some good guy questing early on but bought endless amounts of heat for his actions. Fingers pointed and his desperate verbal defences became shaky, beaten into the submissive statement of "Well, just bear in mind there's a remote chance I might *not* be a spy". Oh dear.
On the other hand Evil Ed#1 did absorb much heat from the other Evil Doers - myself and Matt - and any Good Guy that unwittingly copied Eds actions was then subject to tarring with the same Ed shaped brush. Excellent.
Wily American Pete slammed the accusation hammer down on Ed#1, and started pointing fingers at innocent old me too - I never really clocked that Pete was actually Merlin with inside information, instead, vocal Silver Tongue Pete seemed like the favourite for the bearded one. So good job there !
Alas, despite Merlin's best efforts, the bad guys won, myself and Matt managed to keep a fairly low profile, and even at the end after the final failed quest, I was being named amongst the most trustworthy of good guys ( and got to burn the last quest ).
( That roll call seems like a failed Dwarf name list for the first draft of the Hobbit... scratched line and a hastily scrawled comment... needs more '_ifurs', '_ofurs' and '_alins'..)
A sociable ten for this weeks gaming, which at times could have been mistaken for a Farmers pub night - both Agricola and Bohnanza hit the tables to fill the Wherry Room with bean planting, field sowing, harvesting and some dubious trading with cries such as "I'll trade my stink for your wax". The only tell that it wasn't a legitimate farmers night was the lack of muddy green boots in the room - just non utilitarian city folk shoes.
A four handed Agricola with Paul, Fletch, Rich and Pete saw Rich romp to a glorious farming win - not a huge surprise, Paul was learning the ropes and Fletch still only has a couple of games of this under his belt. It definitely pays to know your way around Agricola - it doesn't pander to the beginner, instead it mangles off limbs in farming accidents for those that are uninitiated. Fab game, but unforgiving.
Ignoring all the farming going on, City of Remnants made it out on table two for three of us. This played long, and we barely squeaked out a finish in an extended over time, Ed pulled off a nice opening aggression followed by turtle win, with a mix of definitely defensive options coming up - strongholds, armament factories - allowing people to consolidate into their areas of power. I had mixed feelings about this game - I ended up in a distant third, had tried taking the battle to both Ed and Sam, 1st and 2nd respectively, with mixed results, and then got thoroughly ass kicked by the overlord aliens. Ed and Sam merely glowered from their power bases at each other but might as well have been playing on separate boards. Eh. Ugly things going on in this game, the mechanics were way too turtle friendly here, the random number generator was biting somewhat, and there wasn't a whole heap that could be done about it. I think perhaps the game requires more churn to make it viable - getting stronghold buildings as part of the building choice is an enormous disincentive to attack - you have a 66% chance of attackers simply dropping dead before you can even begin to attack ( and death penalties are not nice in CoR ).
This tendency to turtle as the best strategy is not exactly an unknown feature of some light wargames - and you'd have to compare it to something like Eclipse that has active anti-turtle mechanics in that fixes those old school issues to really see where City of Remnants has its weaknesses.
It's a cool game and has many interesting elements - I don't think they always gel quite right however, especially for the length of time it takes. Some flaws then in this game.
Lastly, Stu laid a number of smaller time games on the table, Ra and Bohnanza, with an evening finish of The Resistance - Avalon.
The good guys won The Resistance, only for the evil doers to figure out who merlin was and knife him in the back during the victory celebration. A win for the bad guys after all ( Richard and Paul ). Boo.
I had had such a bad day, playing a new game was always going to be a risk and after last week’s fiasco I decided I needed to play a game I knew well, a game I loved, a game I stood a chance of winning so I played Caylus.
Caylus is my favourite game, I absolutely love it. I cant put my finger on exactly what it is about it, but I think one of the highlights is that every turn you can do something, every go there is low hanging fruit and you can manipulate your own position playing solo whilst also competing and playing with others. I love games that have alternative paths to victory and we saw several strategies unfolding this time.
In last night’s game Student Luke* played a money strategy very well up until the last quarter where he missed a few opportunities and was surpassed by Richard (Mr. Big) who was hording goods to deliver to the castle. Rich could have acquired a slightly better position had he delivered more efficiently but it would have only made a dent in Crocker’s eventual victory. Punk Rich came forth with a building strategy and Lewis was fifth but was playing Caylus for the first time. Student Luke* and punk Rich had played before (was it 8 months back???) a classic game where Luke nearly won and punk Rich was dissed by a certain Jack ‘out of spite’ Shannon. Rich was not about to allow that to happen again so he vetoed Jacks participation this time.
Everyone announced this weeks gaming to be a success and joyfully compared the wonderful Caylus with the disaster that was ‘vampire: prince of the city’ (the new Kogge) We agreed that the game would play better if it got more regular outings.
We finished the evening with a game of Ra – a popular auction gateway game by Mr Knizia. This is one of big Rich’s favourite games, he led the rules and self confessed to not ever winning. He didn’t win tonight either narrowly losing to Crocker.
Both games attracted interest from pub dwellers (including feminine ones) eyes where turned both ways and our position upstairs raised our gaming profile and was necessary as 16 or so people had turned up and table space was at a premium.
Downstairs Dan won Confucius and other games were played that I know very little about. Me and Rich were mostly drinking blackcurrant and soda.
Anyway, each player uses their Sun Disks to bid in the upcoming auctions, but you only get to bid once in each auction! So if you really want those tiles for your collection of Monuments, Rivers, Civilizations, or Gods etc. then you had better pay up son!! The higher the number the higher the bid.
