In Which Chips Were Chomped

Yes mateys, I've only gone and done it, I've only gone and written another blog post! What a mad lad I am. Actually I'm cheating by writing this before everything else so I am technically, right now, lying. Please report me to your nearest priest. Festivities started early this Tuesday with a respectable cohort (I mean respectable in the sense of numbers; never has there been a shiftier looking bunch to grace Norwich's cobbled lanes) gathering outside the Grosvenor to consume fried delicacies. Like sausage. After a brief period of confusion in which David and Matt thought they were going to have to share their chips (Lady and the Tramp style, for every one, we are assured), everyone's food arrived and was consumed in short order. We then made our lardy way down St Gregory's Back Alley (what a shame the hill doesn't go the other way...) greasing the lean earth as we walked along. Drinks obtained, we arrayed ourselves around the pub and awaited what the evening had in store. And what an evening! Games I observed were Blood Bowl: Team Manager, Amyitis, Dead of Winter, Hamsterrolle, Lords of Waterdeep, Machi Koro, and World Championship Russian Roulette. I myself was involved in Lords of Vegas and Avalon.

So let's get cracking — cracking some skulls in Blood Bowl: Team Manager I expect, where Joe "the crap wood-elf" announces he's "gonna go there, gonna steal the ball." I'd have thought sneaky wood-elves would be stealthier than to announce such plans to everyone, but there we are. He is a crap wood-elf, so I guess it's OK. Sam's response (from whom I assume the ball was stolen) is "Arsehole." Short, and to the point, just as one would expect an ork to be. Though they'd probably say "Waaarghsehole" or something. "I'm gonna smack you again," he declares, which I imagine is exactly in keeping with how an ork would let someone know before socking them in the face. At this point the table devolves into racial epithets like "tree-hugging pointy-eared bastards" and maybe I imagined "green-skinned, unwashed, fetid-footed troglodytes." Before the in-game brawl spread to the real-life players, I gathered that the wood-elves have typical elfin skills oriented around evasion and non-contact, but when they get into a fight with orks they "get punched in the face repeatedly and they don't like it." I retreat before I suffer a similar fate.

Probably a Wood-Elf getting squashed.

Next on my rounds I come across the impossible-to-spell-or-pronounce Amyitis which sounds like a very uncharitable way of describing your friend Amy's weight gain. (Actually a trip to wikipedia reveals that the etymology of the name may come from Old Persian Umati- meaning "having good thought." Take that, Amy-haters!) Amyitis was the wife of one of the Nebuchadnezzars, whose name is also hard to spell, but not nearly as easy to make fun of. Enough about Babylonian royalty though, what of the game?! Right, yes. The designers were presumably too up themselves and/or French ("same thing!" I hear you louts cry, but well, you might very well think that, but I could not possibly comment. Thankfully with my French ancestry I can get away with such xenophobia.) to call it "Hanging Gardens of Babylon: The Game," but that is in fact what it is.

Temples are near the top, gardens in
the middle, Babylonian Wyevale at the bottom.

The players are gardeners doing various things to try and make the best contributions to the Wonder of the Ancient World, like planting plants, collecting caravans to buy plants, going to temples to pray to plants and so on. As I arrive, Martin is racking up the points, gaining six and some money all at once — sounds good to me. And he then kicked some people out of a temple! Rude! Apparently you get a bonus for having a majority in them and it operates on a "first-in, last-out" or "FILO" system. Or perhaps they were just eating lots of pastries, I remain unsure. The game looks to be a "Guillaume classic" — fairly complicated and with oodles of tokens, bits of wood and things to do. Martin, Tom and Nicky weren't objecting to being subjected to it, though, with Nicky's strategy of "trying not to be last" bagging her first place at least at that moment in time.

Next was a chilly Dead of Winter even though the weather is finally showing hints of getting warmer. Some people live in the past though, I myself having finally played the game last week. Upon my arrival, Colin the slob had forgotten to take the rubbish out, the lazy sod. Tabby complained that it was just like student living again, though confessed to not having taken it out herself — her excuse was that she'd been busy building barricades, which is just the kind of nonsense art project students use to get out of chores anyway.

Zombie Cheerleaders?

Following the rubbish incident, Sean's plan is to "make shit-tons of noise and run," which sounds like a lark and pays off in the form of assault rifles. At this point it all gets a bit tense as Tabby accuses Matt and Sean of being traitors due to "being too helpful," and all the while Colin is building up a tidy stash and being rather secretive about it. (I had a look though and it didn't contain anything particularly juicy, and also snooped on his loyalty card which placed him as a goodie. Boring.) David was keeping a suspiciously low profile, especially for a DJ (which is his character's profession, rather than his. As far as I know, David is not a DJ, but perhaps it's his alter-ego.) However, his ability is more like a ventriloquist than a DJ, being able to make noise in other locations than his current one. I checked back in at the end of the game, and everyone but the poor ventrilo-DJ had won. I immediately assumed he had been the traitor but no — his personal goal required him to have a fuel can and I hadn't found one in the whole game. Poor guy. I bet it was hard to get anyone to listen to his mixtape during the zombie apocalypse, as well.

I rolled back through the pub by way of my table and ended up where a bunch were playing Hamsterrolle which is absolutely ludicrous. It's definitely not a board game, but John was playing it so it must nevertheless have the official stamp of approval. (I should mention that I did see them playing a sensible game beforehand so do not fear for our glorious leader's soul.) Hamsterrolle is like Jenga with a big wheel: a set of rules govern how you have to place wooden blocks onto the wheel, which has internal teeth to make this a bit easier. They also force you to place them further and further along so that each turn the wheel rotates a little bit. If blocks fall out on your turn they are graciously given to you, but the goal is to get rid of all your pieces. When placing a block, you're not supposed to wiggle the others and "shenanigans are called if you fiddle too much" — "oo-err," as Sam rightfully pointed out.

Hamsterrolle!

I looked back a little later and Sam was being admonished, "that doesn't work, Sam, that doesn't fit!" — "I've heard that before!" The regrettable follow-up was "no licking it," which I fear needs no comment from me. However apparently someone in another game had actually tried licking one of the pieces to get it to stick a little onto the wheel. Some people just take their love of gaming too far. The game can be made harder by removing the table-cloth, which means the wheel turns and wobbles far more readily. Sam was so confident at this harder version of the game that he was banging the table to give himself more blocks, but I never did come back to see if it worked out for him.

What we need is strong and stable
placement of wooden blocks on rotating wheels.

Rolling away again I accidentally rolled into the sea and washed up on the shore of Skullport to find the Lords of Waterdeep which was at an exciting moment in the game. Exciting maybe but not, I was disappointed to discover, sufficiently cutthroat. Elliot was gunning for the hat-trick, hoping to win three weeks in a row and, in spite of my encouragement to do so, his fellow players weren't really ganging up on him. Bad form. I wasn't overly upset though, because he wasn't winning. In fact, Hannah had just raced into the lead — bagging a 40-point quest to bring her from last to first with just two rounds left. Hannah, the charming little cherub, was completely free of corruption at a time when Victor was having to remove three — and after his betrayal of all of us in Dead of Winter last week I still suspect he's not entirely untainted. Elliot, perturbed by my call to arms, was pretending to be "no danger to anyone," but I wasn't buying it. He claimed that JD "just needs to build more buildings and he'll kick our arse," but it turned out than in the end he lost to Hannah by a mere two points (if I remember correctly.) So Elliot didn't win and we can all be happy. I should really be celebrating Hannah's victory rather than Elliot's loss, but I can't help that I'm a mean-spirited bastard.

Lords of Waterdeep, just as Hannah snags the lead

Final board state of Lords of Waterdeep

Over in Japan, Tom is about to win Machi Koro with just the harbour left to build. He puts it down to beginners luck and receiving a lot of help and advice — to which I'm sure you, like me, will react with gasps of shock and dismay. Beginners are to be crushed not counseled! Never mind, there are always other opportunities to send 'em running. David was also helping, not with advice but by giving him all his money, explaining his trailing position, with four objectives remaining. Tom's restaurants were just too good; "he just comes back again and again," apparently.

Machi Koro with expansions gets BIG!

After finishing Machi Koro, this bunch broke out the madness that is Dobble.

Card collision in Dobble!

I then sauntered over to a table where they were readying up to mutilate their minds in Cthulhu Realms, but hadn't started so I have nothing interesting to report. Instead I'll tell you a little bit about how their play of World Championship Russian Roulette had gone. You'll be pleased to hear that, miraculously, all four NoBoGlins who had taken part were still standing. Actually I was somewhat displeased to hear that there is absolutely no risk to the players at all, as they're not actually playing Russian Roulette and you don't even get any guns in the game box. No, it's more like the "Championship Manager" of Russian Roulette: you have to lead your team of hapless daredevils to either win the most points, or, naturally, be the last team to still have their skulls intact. The idea is to predict how many times you can pull the trigger without splattering your brains over the wall, with a push-your-luck and a bluffing element, since you can sneakily pocket your one bullet before the round begins, with other players able to call you out if they suspect you. Throughout the game you get extra abilities that retarget your shots to be aiming at the ceiling or other people and so on. All in all, the game sounds absolutely mindblowing. Ha ha. (Sorry, had to take a parting shot. (You weren't expecting so much punfire were you? (I hope this isn't triggering your disgust at puns (Please aim your ire elsewhere (OK I'll stop now)))))

So now it's time to sink into the ignominy of my own game of Lords of Vegas. This was the first time I'd played so here's a run-down of the rules in case you are similarly ignorant as I was. The aim is to obtain points by having casinos you control be activated by the cards which are drawn once per turn. Each card has a colour and activates the corresponding colour casinos. The trick is that each colour will come up a limited number of times, so you have to build the colours of the ones that will be most lucrative, and perhaps switch up once they run out. When your casino is activated you get money equal to the number of your die which is placed on it, and a point. Adjacent casino tiles of the same colour merge into a single casino worth points equal to the number of tiles, but the points are only given to whomever has the highest die value in that casino, with draws resolved by a roll-off. This means you can buy a casino next to someone else's which either starts off with a six or which you "reorganise" (re-roll the dice for) to get a higher number, gaining control of the whole operation, and all its points. (The money is still distributed to everyone.) This makes the game a constant fight for control whether by buying new tiles (which is not so easy, since you only get the purchasing rights randomly, and have to pay double the ordinary cost to buy otherwise and may then lose the spot next turn if someone gets the right card) or re-rolling the dice in an existing casino by paying one money per visible pip. This is made all the more important because after a few points, you have to actually gain points from a size-two to move up a single space, increasing the further you get.

Action shot of Laurie chucking a die

ZOOM AND ENHANCE

I found it reasonably fun but it was pretty difficult to have a decent amount of control over what happens to your empire. You rely very heavily on the card you draw on your turn giving you a decent spot to buy a casino on. Though you can buy casinos on plots adjacent to ones you've already built, it costs twice as much for effectively half the benefit (since on average you will lose it to someone else after half of the rest of the game.) Building casinos already costs a lot, so this seems like it's almost always a bad idea. There's also literally nothing you can do to prevent other players from trying to take over your stuff except re-rolling low dice and hoping for higher ones (a good idea anyway since it'll get you more money.) In a way it's nice to not have to worry about defending yourself, but it does just mean you will end up repeatedly losing control of your acquisitions and having to pay to try and get them back which is a bit frustrating. Still there's enough to think about on your turn to make it interesting, and not so much it takes ages. Though I did have the benefit of sloping off to gather blog material during the downtime.

Close-up of the hard-to-distinguish tiles

In the end it was a pretty close game. I can't even remember who won, but it wasn't me (I came joint second I think.) Oh and one parting thought: the colours are awful! Being what the politically correct call "chromatically challenged" games often have this problem for me, but most do pretty well. However, the casino tiles are not the typical bold hues that most games use for their pieces, and some of them are really easy to confuse. Gareth couldn't even tell the purple and brown ones apart, making him a special kind of hue-halfwit!

Final board state of Lords of Vegas

After rolling our final dice we skulked around watching various games end until it was time for a traditional episode of Avalon. I actually hadn't played it at at NoBoG ever, and hadn't played it at all for about a year, so I was very excited to once again be a... loyal servant of Arthur. YAWN! Lucky for me this is Avalon and not Werewolf so being the most boring role isn't that boring. In a controversial turn of events the first quest was immediately accepted and passed, with no opportunity to see more information from the voting. The next quest took two attempts but then it, too passed. Were the Minions of Mordred stealing a snooze, or just being superbly stealthy? Furious arguments took place over who would go on the second mission, and we'd agreed that we would take the two apparently-good guys from the first mission plus one other, and also agreed to switch it up for the third mission to ensure we had enough information at the end. But then, surprise! The third mission passed — had we just got lucky and avoided all the baddies, or had Oberon — the "mystery meat" of the game — forgotten which side he was on? It all rested on the Assassin to determine who Merlin was. But my forceful argumentation had convinced the evildoers that I had magical information, when in fact it was merely the searing power of pure logic that drove my debate. The Assassin targeted me, Merlin, the very man who picked the final mission, lived, and Good triumphed.

And thus ends the week! I hope you've enjoyed accompanying me on this adventure through time and space (well, from 6:30 to 10:30 on Tuesday, between the Grosvenor and the Mash Tun...) and will join me for another before too long. Adios! You thought you were safe from the gpuns? Well that's about to... backfire!

Prescience

Not much of a gaming blog this week. And few pictures. Disgusting. You just can't get the staff these days. I will say however that I got to play Onward to Venus, a somewhat sneered upon Martin Wallace game, and managed a triumphant win as the glorious Germans. My win was probably helped along in no small part due to avoiding looking like I was any kind of threat for the lead, entirely ignoring the largest source of victory points on offer, and slightly stirring the pot against those who seemed to be doing well.

Onward to Venus chaps !

As it turns out, no one was doing quite as well as I was. Who knew. Onward to venus occupies a somewhat uneasy place for some gamers stuck between a very mild Euro and a very mild Ameritrash style game. It's a fun game. Which for some starts heads shaking and tutting about frivolous "fun" games and the RNG inherent in dice, and delights others with its ridiculous rollercoaster ride of cursed rolls and luck. The theme is one of steampunk Victorian era space exploration, sending out your plucky soldiers and Jules Verne style spaceships in order to go conquer the planets of the solar system for the glory of your colonial power ( the British, Americans, French, Germans and Russians ). Veeps are earned by having the most "influence" on a planet ( the most income from mines and factories ) as well as a smattering of other small veep income opportunities ( bagging big game for instance ). The game is driven by what things crop up on what planets, and your flow of income and troop numbers. Troops are jetted around the solar system to go lay claim to things, which earns money to buy more troops to jet around the solar system. There is an art to managing your cards to screw others over, or helps yourself out, and the worst excesses of dice RNG can be mitigated if you're careful.

A nice game, a bit of wackily themed fun, something of a change of pace from your more cerebral titles.

Mice & Mystics was played along side me. I got to listen to one of the Ben's reading out the story of the brave mice. It was lovely. LOVELY. Like story time. I'm not sure if I made Ben slightly self conscious as I listened attentively to his telling. The mousey team of the two Bens, Sam and Joe managed once again to beat all the odds and centipedes with ease. Joe has become quite dismissively complacent about the whole thing and now scoffs at the game being at all hard. Quite the change of tune.

Over at site two... yeah... that happened.... over at site two, the Mash Tun, Brew Crafters got another play - David was so caught up thinking about what he did wrong and right the first play, he had to go out and buy the game to get some practice in. And then promptly brought it along to NoBoG. I get it. The game is very like that. If you like your Euros, this game will have you thinking about it the day after. And wanting to correct your first time brewing flaws. Pete managed to score an epic and intimidating 88 points on this being his second game. But afterwards admitted to having totally cheated to get that score and breaking the rules about farming and brewing timing.

Elliot pleased with his win at CoM. Voitek ignores his delight.

Elliot finally won a game of Champions of Midgard. He was chuffed. Look at his chuffed face. The official NoBoG Twitter Ghost in the Machine was however not so impressed, and commented that it was about time given how many times Elliot had played it. Burn.

Other things were played. Some Resistance. Some werewolf. Some Secret Hitler. Sam's best Secret Hitler insult of the evening was to accuse Alex of having a daterapey kind of face - which made him a fascist. He also insisted on having Wagners Ride of the Valkyries playing for the latter half of the game. Perhaps we should just have a regular piece on the best Sam insult of the evening.

That's it for directly gaming related stuff. Be off with you.

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Still here ?

So, something of an introspective this week about NoBoG. Just me talking about my experience. But maybe it's an interesting insight. Maybe it's not. If you're a regular member of NoBoG then you'll probably know some of this already. If you're an irregular, then you missed stuff. And if you're an interested lurker.. well.. this is probably all news to you.

Story time !

Call it coincidence. Prescience. Shrewd management. Or a sixth sense for impending doom. This week my unease over the last month about space at the Mash Tun, the NoBoG pub of choice, suddenly became a very real and immediate problem and the group was forced to split between the pub and Athena games just across the way.

Over the last 5 weeks -with the exception of last week - space has been on the edge of being a problem at the Tun. Just one of those things. A popular month of Tuesdays ? Were we attracting more people into the pub ? Did the news article or TV bit do anything ? Random ? Would it just go away ? Tricky. And not a little annoying because the Tun was so big, with plenty of space to grow into, and yet, a series of unfortunate things had conspired to take all that space away. No tables for you. No upstairs expansion room for you. Meh. A lovely initial setup that had slowly deteriorated to the point of being a problem.

As I got Easter out of the way and managed to regain the use of my hobbled foot, the first thing on my NoBoG agenda was to go have a chat with the Tun and see what was what. For one thing just the courtesy of asking them if they were happy with us ( which I think ended up inadvertently setting off a mini panic of paranoia in the NoBoG ranks ), could we do anything better, and for another thing, what was going on with the busier Tuesdays, could we start another day, reserve tables and blah.

Interjected suddenly into all of that the Tun announced late last week that they would be hosting a new caterer for evenings and lunches - and pretty much the whole week barring Mondays, food would now be available. The pub used to play host to Harbercue in the latter half of the week - Thursdays onwards ( and one of the main sticking points of having a second NoBoG day on a Thursday ) - but for whatever reason they shut up shop a good few weeks ago, and as far as NoBoG went, we never saw them on Tuesdays.

Reaction from the NoBoGers about food on Tuesdays ranged from doom to glee. There'll be no space now ! To. Not over my game components you don't ! To. I can stuff my face and game, wheee !

Realistically however, I knew food on a Tuesday would just exacerbate an already borderline space issue into possible outright craptopia. If  nothing else we would end up losing the kitchen end tables ( which for many weeks has been our get out of jail sure fire overflow seating areas ), and probably end up a table or two short.

But who knows. Maybe no one would come. Maybe they genuinely just wanted to target NoBoGers to serve food to ( as the dude who had approached me last week alluded to ). Think. Positive.

Uh huh.

As it turned out, on the Tuesday evening, the Kitchen area tables became entirely off limits. We've paid rental for this, these are our tables, was the reply to a couple of NoBoGer requests to see if the tables were free. Mmm k. And the long tables at the front of the pub were also off limits. Reserved. You can't use them this evening I was told as I got to the bar.

That didn't stop Lewis putting his games down and throwing a gaming cloth down. Ah. Lewis. We've been told we can't have those tables. No one told me he says somewhat put out. I know. We only just found out.

So tables.

All told the table space at the Tun available for games reduces by half.

Charlotte had suggested I could talk to her on the evening we were gaming there. I felt it was far from ideal. The pub would probably be busy. I'd probably be busy. And no chat would happen. But I took it. Let's have a chat. On Tuesday. And as it happened. The pub was busy. And I managed to get a few sentences exchanged, and that was that. The pub overtook any kind of sensible conversation. And I got busy. Uh huh. I'll come find you later said Charlotte, and we can chat. I left the bar.

Are you alright, said Eliza in passing to me. You have a stressy face on.

Issues I replied.

Shit.

I can see exactly what's going to happen here.

I'm going to have 40 odd people buying a drink and then wondering why they can't fit on a table. Some will game. And some will just quietly fade into the woodwork to not be a bother. And shit.

I know this tune. It's called too many people at the Ribs. And it's shit. And people don't have a good time. I'm now flitting around like a blue ass fly. Thinking. Counting. Athena. Courtesy. Do it now.

I left the pub and headed to Athena. Hopefully Jamie was about and I could have a quick chat with him, and see if it was ok to overflow some games and gamers to his place. I felt it was the courteous thing to do. And Jamie, ever the nice guy said of course we could game at Athena. It was always good to have people gaming at the store.

Back to the pub. Counting heads. Counting tables. Five people per table. Now six people per table.

Of all the times I've been here said someone to me. This is the first time I haven't felt welcome here. Like the pub isn't welcoming.

I know. It's like a car crash in slow motion.

Now Seven people per table. Right. I told some people we would be splitting to Athena this evening. Joe immediately headed off with his Mice and Mystics group. Initially unbeknownst to me. Shit. Where's Joe. Where's Ben. Where's James. Am I counting them. Am I not counting them. Have they got the arse and gone home ? I got Pete to text James. They were off shopping for Athena supplies. Ok.

Everyones here. Game roll call is chaotic. Because I don't know who the hell will be gaming where. Screw it. Everyone call their games. Then decide where to play. In the midst of this, an older guy looking a bit lost, a newbie. I went to talk to him whilst game organising chaos ensued. Rescue him from being new. He had a new game prototype he wanted people to look at. And could I look at it. A train game. I chatted to him for a bit. Duncan from the Games room had sent him our way.

Of all the nights.

I got Pete to talk to him - tell him about the end of month game designer play testing malarkey. And left them to it. I had to bail. Priorities. I needed to sort out people that had no tables.

Pete helped me sort out the stragglers, but that left a group of five or so without a game, without a table. They were a bit dejected. No space they said. Pete is doing his best, points out the craptastic totally mis-matched tables pushed together, at different heights ( like 10cm height difference.. you'd need a whole army of NoBoG Levelling devices for this craptasm ) , different everything, with a cloth thrown over them like some ramshackle half assed excuse. You can game there he says. - No -. He doesn't want to game there says Pete half mockingly - Don't make me out to be a Prima Donna, that table is bullshit. - I should get a T-Shirt with that on he says.

After some negotiation with Pete - he wanted to play Archipelago.. or even Brew Crafters, I took the group off to Athena to play Onward to Venus.

And Athena was great. And relaxed. And we had a good time playing. And why don't we always game here came the question. Better light. No hassle - Because people like the atmosphere of a pub. Because they like a beer. - I'd rather game than beer - But some people would like to do both and hit gaming nirvana. We talked a bit about space. And searching for venues. And how venues quickly become scarce when you are talking about sitting 50 people. We talked about Athena and it's still off limits bar. And whether there ever would be a bar. Probably not demographics considerations wise.

You can't please everyone is the comment said to me. That's a comment that's been said more than once over the last few weeks. But that's it isn't it. You aim for the impossible of pleasing everyone is my reply. I think we achieved it with the move to the Tun. And now... aim for the impossible again.

Back in the Tun after we had finished up at Athena, various people chatted to me. Not very welcoming is it, said one person. And echoes of that from others. I mentioned to Pete how relaxed it was at Athena and the question came up why we don't game there. Because it closes at 10.30pm and we can't play longer games said Pete. Fair point. Issues. Issues. Issues.

I think some NoBoGers managed to just about entirely miss any hassle or drama. Which was good. And some didn't. I guess it depends where you were standing. Hopefully. We didn't seriously turn any people off. Hopefully. There are some that would say so what in mercenary fashion. Not the attitude. Friendly and welcoming is what NoBoG should be about.

I checked to see if Charlotte was still at the pub. No. Gone home. Shift over.

I realised that next week would be pretty much the same shit show. Particularly if our numbers picked up from the relatively light weight barely 40 we had this week. 40 these days is quiet.

I asked if Charlotte was in on Wednesday and if she was indeed the right person to speak to. I needed to sort shit out, and sort it out asap. If the Tun was no longer capable of catering to us all, then some fix would need to be arrived at. A move. A permanent split. A different day. Whatever. I found out that the upstairs room was being used at no cost by the Salsa group - and they weren't buying drinks either. Luke one of the bar staff at the Tun said that if it was up to him, it would be crazy to lose us as a group because of space being taken up by people that earned the pub nothing. But it wasn't up to him.

After the evening there were some comments amongst NoBoGers doubting whether we were a good thing for the pub. Did we drink enough. Did some people take the piss and bring their own drinks. The pub was a business. They had to do what was right for them. Perhaps some said, it was a not so subtle message for us to get lost.

Wednesday.

I am loaded for bear. My thinking has come round to the point that the Tun is a lost cause, barring some less than likely fix. Or some weird half and half, early hours gaming at Athena, late hours gaming at the Tun. Meh. So. A chat. Which is now, given the evening before, a good deal more pointy than it was. Diplomacy. Clout. And the art of employing it. Or not. But really. This shit doesn't work anymore. And the Tun did not do well.

The last time this shit happened and I was this peeved, we ended up moving venue.

Deja vu. But different circumstances. The Ribs was an inevitable thing coming.

It crosses my mind that at times NoBoG is like a bloody job. A man management stress job.

I time my appearance at the Tun to coincide with what is hopefully a short lull.

Charlotte is in good spirits. And we have a great chat. I explain to her that space has been tight, why are Tuesdays so busy. She doesn't know, but she agrees Tuesdays have become more busy. With food on for Tuesdays, space is now a problem. We just don't fit. Not good. The problems of whether you have people buy a drink - and then have nowhere to sit. Doesn't work. I came looking for you in the evening she says, but you weren't here. Yeah I say, I left, I went to Athena - some of us were gaming over there. Do you know Athena and Jamie ? Jamie is a good guy. We can game there. The point hangs meaningfully for a second.

We discuss the Salsa group. She echoes what I heard yesterday. Pretty much word for word. Makes me think if it hasn't already been discussed. The Salsa group make the pub no money. Bring their own drinks. Happy to have them, but, push comes to shove, they've been told they'd have to leave. She says they don't want to lose us. We're regulars now. And it's good to have us in the pub.

I don't have to say much more. We agree that expanding upstairs would be a good idea, keep the tables on the upper levels, and if more space required, we can go upstairs. But there are no tables - just some shitty ones ( her words ). Theres no music. And no bar.

I'm kinda surprised by the result. It's pretty damn good. From my perspective. Perfect. No more space hassles.

I ask if they have any issues with us. No issues ! The number of people that have asked me that recently ! You're all paranoid. Should we have issues ? You guys are no trouble.

We talk about other days. Because. Fuck it. I'm here. And I know (most) people are keen on a second NoBoG day. What would be your ideal solution she asks. Thursdays ! We talk about different days, Mondays are ideal for the pub, Wednesdays are ok. Thursdays are probably bad.

We chat about other stuff. Chit chat. I leave and go hit Athena up. Buy some games, Jamie is there which is good, I chat to him for a bit. I am conscious of trying to keep everyone happy.

I realise we need to organise some tables and chairs and the chaos of all that crap. In a week. Less than a week. I post up a summary of the outcomes of everything to the NoBoG Facebook group.

Charlotte pings me. The Salsa group have been told. You're ok for Tuesday. And let us know which extra day you want.
Cool.

Exhausted. Weirdly.

Like a job I think. But no pay. Mad. For the umpteenth time I consider retiring from NoBoG. Eh. Maybe tomorrow.

Total Eclipse of the heart

For the third week in a row, this week at NoBoG saw a record turnout of gamers with 53 of them turning up at the Tuna to spread their wares over 13 tables. And what a splendiferous evening of gaming was on offer, even if poor Fletch had to squeeze onto one of the iffy tables.

Voyages of Marco Polo. Looks like a solid Euro.

I'll keep it short this week, as Pete and James have both posted a submission about their weeks experiences.

 Darren brought along the new and sexy Voyages of Marco Polo, a euro game with a mild point salad based around completing Marco Polo's journey and travelling from Venice to Beijing. Looks very pretty, and also looks like a pretty solid Euro game too !

One to get a play of I think.

XCOM. aka It's OK to be Xenophobic. Shoot to kill.

Rhea brought along the alien fighting earth defending X-COM - not its first visit to NoBoG, you can read that here - and the guys playing that managed to barely scrape a win in the most Hollywood of endings, coming down to the very last turn, make or break. Nice.

Caverna, Takenoko, Marvel Legendary and Dominions also made a return to the Ribs, and

Deviant animal antics - Animal upon Animal.

Fletch, Rowan and Andy also got into some weird if not downright deviant animal behaviour in the dexterity challenging Animal upon Animal.

I got to play the new and recently professionally produced Dark Moon, which had been doing the rounds before hand as the print and play game called BSG Express. As no surprise given its name, the game is based on a trimmed down Battlestar Galactica, the game of betrayal and pushing people out of the airlock ( if you have that expansion ). BSG Express cut all the extraneous fluff and fuzzy design elements ( it's an FFG game, of COURSE it's
bloated, if FFG produced Chess it would come with 652 pieces, 12 decks of cards, 10 dice, 100 money tokens and three boards and have rules that made you shuffle 3 random decks of cards between each move  ) out of the original to - hopefully - leave just the raw elements of keeping on top of problems in an atmosphere of justified paranoia.

Dark Moon, the game formerly known as BSG Express.

Long story short it works well, is brutally hard - although having played it since, it shouldn't be quite as brutal as we were playing it on Tuesday - and can indeed be finished off in an hour or so. In fact we played it twice. With room to spare for other games. Inconceivable !

If you want a dose of paranoid betrayal with a bit more structure than Resistance, and way less faffing than BSG, then Dark Moon could be for you.

Hal and Pete both got their prototypes played - Galaxy M101 and Unfeeling Creatures, and there was also room for some enjoyable and funny Avalon Resistancing, where we are still introducing a new wave of people into the basics of the game. ( There was a funny image post on our sister site IpBoG facebook page about Resistance... https://www.facebook.com/groups/ipbog/permalink/469141896601741/ )

Onto Pete...

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Eclipse. No one seems keen on meeting anyone else.

We've all done it. Sometimes it's not or fault, we've just picked it up from somewhere or someone. We might have misread or misunderstood or just made an assumption. 

Rulebooks can be bloated and hard to follow and some of us are not suited to reading and understanding rules as written. Most of us learn a game by being taught in person by someone who knows it. Maybe they didn't know the game quite as well as they thought or maybe they didn't explain things that well.

Sometimes we get one or two rules a little bit wrong. That's ok. It can mean that you play a bit of a different game than how it was designed and it might consequently be a bit imbalanced but it's an honest mistake.

I've got a bit of a reputation for posting about rules errors in games. That's because, if we weren't sure about something, I like to read the rules and faqs to understand how to play correctly; and I like to share what I find out with the people I played the game with. I don't mean to shame anyone, but sometimes it can come across that way. Sorry.

I prefer not to learn a game from the rulebook by myself and I prefer not to teach a game to anyone else unless I'm really confident that I know the game really well. So, when I run a rules session, you can be fairly sure that I know the rules; with the obvious caveat that I might have fallen foul of one of the above issues and maybe I've got something a bit wrong ;-) .

Anyway. When I've done a rules session, you might think that I've got one or two things wrong and you might want to query them. A quick check of the rulebook can usually clear things up...

...so, you might be fairly adamant that I am wrong about something and you might express that in a slightly strong way, perhaps saying something like "this is bulls#*t" or similar. However, that doesn't make for a pleasant gaming experience, and it might make you feel a bit awkward if, in fact, whadayaknow I was right after all...

...so, it's the 10th time in the game that you've called me out on a glaring rules error, but it's the 10th time that it turns out that the rule wasn't entirely as you thought it was. Maybe you might consider that you don't quite know the rules as well as you thought. Maybe you might be a little more courteous when questioning what the correct rule is. We all make mistakes, but it's never nice to be called a dick.

___

Three of us sat down for a game of eclipse. I've played it quite a few times, one player had played it at least once before and, for another, it was their first game.

Eclipse is one of my favourite games: a streamlined economic/combat hybrid game with an extremely elegant system for tracking income and expenditure combined with a good old-fashioned dicefest. If you like sci-fi 4x games, this is the smoothest.

After some decent early exploration into the level 3 hexes, uncovering a supernova and a few discovery tiles, I was able to do some tactical bankruptcy to take a few extra actions and get into some fights with the ancients. I had missed out on the improved hull tech and settled for some shields which I added to my dreadnought and intetceptor blueprints. I was able to build one of each and sent them, along with my start interceptor, into the level 1 hex. Who needs upgrades or dreadnoughts though when you can just roll a double 6 with the first dice roll? I could have won that fight with just two vanilla interceptors.

Next turn I bought another dreadnought and interceptor and went after another ancient and then, with the help of some computers and an ancient power source, the galactic centre on the following turn. I resisted the temptation to attack my undefended and inexperienced neighbour, instead opting for some diplomacy.

Unfortunately, I had blocked off the only pathway between my two opponents. It might be a bit socially questionable (I do have some narcissistic tendencies), but I successfully arranged to step out of the way to allow one neighbour to attack the other. Surely this is the best-case-scenario in a 3 player game? Sadly the attack came to nothing as the missiles were all absorbed by the hull laden tanks of dreadnoughts that lay waiting. 

After one or two rules clarifications and the sad demise of my supernova at the end of round 6 we moved into the endgame and the inevitable final conflict. I uesd the artifact key to top up my science and quietly acquired the wormhole generators before moving into the undefended backyard of my turtling neighbour. He had a rather populous home sector with an orbital and all the advanced spaces filled but, after brushing aside the hull-only dreadnought moved in as a reaction, the neutron bombs made light work of them.

Sadly, the attack proved too much and brought on an effective rage-quit which was slightly toned down to an instant pass and non-participation in the final round, save a couple of reactions late on. 

Prompted by some less than peaceful comments from my previously benign neighbour, I made a preemptive move into his territory to avoid having my ships pinned in my own sectors. It turns out that I do (occasionally) break an agreement. I was able to lay down 4 starbases and fill them with hulls to defend against the flood of missle-clad interceptors and ended up winning all the battles.

I had won. A hollow victory against a new player and another who didn't know the rules very well. It's a great game though and I'm sure revenge will be had.

Phew. And then James.

Martin was rather keen for me to bring Scotland yard along this week. So I dug it out of deep storage and bought it along.  At first it seemed like we were the only two up for playing it but a

James hides under his hat for Scotland Yard. He still lost.

new guy turned up just as everyone was sitting down.  Apologies that I can't remember your name new guy, it is not my forte.  Either way we sat and chatted about NoBoG for a little as Martin did a rule session on some other game before joining us.  Luckily the rules for SYard are very simple and quick so we got off (mostly) without a hitch.  For those that don't know SYard is essentially the original ‘letters from whitechapel’.  Its very basic and the detectives simply more around london using taxis, buses and the tube. Bad guy tries to evade them with the same tactic..

anyway the first few rounds went fine for Mr X (me) as the detectives utterly failed to be able to pin me down.  Until I checked the rules and noticed that there is a 3-player variant rather than it being a 3-6 player game.  when it’s 3 players the good guys both have TWO detectives each.  so with some additional pawns making their way onto the board Mr X got utterly thrashed, and I'm still not sure how it happened.

anyway, ive not played it for a while but its simplicity is the biggest factor of the game.. very simple rule set, very tactical gameplay.. all three of us seemed to enjoy it anyway.  Now i haven't played letters from W, but i hear it does smooth out some of the issues that SYard throws at you if you play it a few times.. but i think i still prefer SYard to Specter Ops (sic) which seems to overcomplicate things which also making it reasonably obvious where the bad guy is if you just watch his pencil movements when he marks the map..

Next we played Alien Frontiers which hasn't hit the table in yonks (not for me anyway). i dice roll based game where there are not really any bad rolls.  the results on your dice simply dictate what you can do on your turn, and if you like a certain tactic then you can easily get cards that help you ‘bend’ your dice results to that end.  whilst in theory it is an area control game, i find that in a 3 player game there isn't much needed for control until the end game.. and with three evenly matched players (which the dice seem to do for you) the scoring can end up very very close at the end.. a good entry level game though i think.. maybe something that should hit the table more when we get new guys..  the new guy won..

As a final point - and I'll post this up on Facebook as well for those who are into that kinda thing - I know it's not everyones Cup Of Tea - I doubled checked this weekend that the Mash Tun were ok with us storing tables and chairs at the pub, as we used every game capable table in the house this week. Charlie has kindly offered us the use of the store room next to the kitchen where there is some space up the back. I will probably drop off a table this Tuesday - if anyone else wants to donate some suitable gaming tables or chairs, then please do so, and we can squirrel them away in the storage room.

Pics this week are mine, Monika has shirked her photographic duties and gone on holiday. Pfft.

As ever, I shall leave you with the Gallery.

Hungry panda, hungry panda, hungry panda ooh ! Takenoko.

Dominion with Beer. The best Dominion expansion ?

Sam. Legendary. Am I referring to Sam, his pose, the t-shirt or the game ?
All of the above of course.

Classic gateway game, Ticket to Ride

Another classic gateway, this one pimped up Egypt style, Settlers of Catan

A neatly ordered Caverna.

Animal upon Animal gets epic.

Hot Stuff

This week was all change for NoBoG as we gave up our usual venue of the Ribs of Beef and instead descended on the Friendly Local Gaming Store of Athena.

This marked the start of the NoBoG on tour season - where we get to trial a bunch of different venues until we find one we like, all in the hopes of finding somewhere with more space to accommodate the growing numbers and also welcome back some old friends that have given up attending due to the general crush.

If you're out of the loop on this, suffice to say, a whole lot of talking got done, places were visited and votes taken. If you fancy reading several hundred thread posts - go check out the NoBoG facebook page. But you probably had to be there.

So this week Athena got a trial. Athena is a local gaming store that have been in Norwich for a couple of years and very recently have moved to a new huge premises - a former social club with three floors of hall space. With plenty of table and chair space and catering to gamers, Athena offers a no brainer fit for NoBoG gaming. On the other hand, NoBoGians like a nice pub - for the beer or the atmosphere or the eclectic mix of benches, stools and chairs, or perhaps at the end of it all, just for the fun of it.


At the start of the evening, with only a few people in attendance, the place definitely lacked a bit of buzz. No landlord or landlady to talk to. No other patrons at the bar. A mostly empty room with some seriously concentrating Netrunner players sandwiched along the far wall.

NoBoG @ Athena

But as more people turned up and the noise built up, the familiar NoBoG buzz sprang into life and all was good. With so much space there was no real need to count numbers ( and work out how many tables to people and therefore what games could be played ) and game arranging was completed in record time. It turns out it makes a huge difference when everyone can fit in the same space as to how quickly things get sorted.

A handful of new people turned up to join in the evening - as per usual - and by my rough count I think we hit 34 - ironically the lowest turnout in 3 weeks.

Six player Lords of Waterdeep

Elliot had six at his table for Lords of Waterdeep, whilst further down an intrepid three took on Pete's Galaxy M101 - without Pete playing, and finally Rich IV had his lugging of several tonnes of complete Dominion back and forth for the last month pay off, as he got it to table and challenged Hazel and the ultra seasoned Pete and Punk Rich to a crazy card synergy off.

Pete has taken to removing himself as a player / teacher from his prototype Galaxy M101 game in a bid to test how well new people can learn the rules and pick up the game without the author sitting in. As he puts it, the alternative to not doing this would be to clone and miniaturise himself to be included in all published copies of the game. I got to chat with Ben after he played it and he gave the playthrough and rules learning a big thumbs up, whilst also saying that the game was good - reminded him of Race for the Galaxy... no surprises there - and would be a cracking game once it was published.

Lords of Vegas with 5 hit the tables and Nicky got Waggle dance out again for the second week running - not a game about gamers ( or indeed Nicky ) shaking their asses at each other, but a game about bees making honey. Of course !

Chris also had Red Dragon Inn playing, which seemed to be going down really well, a card game about drinking and keeping your gold - fantasy adventurer style. I couldn't be sure but I think they were playing with five... as Chris has two copies of the game, it should only play four.

Blurry NoBoG @ Athena.. just before Lewis waves at the camera

As for myself, I played Lifeboats with Jamie, Chloe and David, the social game about voting people out of sinking boats to die, and I managed to pip a win with my social engineering shenanigans - without this time actually turning everyone against me because of my social engineering shenanigans. We played guillotine afterwards - where I shared a three way tie having been unscrupulously picked on, and finished up with late arrival Jack joining us and a table hopping Pete to get Avalon Resistance back to play. Things it seems have started to go full circle, and again there are a number of people who haven't experienced Resistance a bazillion times and are keen to give it a go...

The evil Pete and Chloe won, with poor newcomer Jack bamboozled by his role of Merlin, and Chloe offering a complete stonewall of lack of tells. She's well trained or a sociopath. I am not sure which.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves at Athena, and the snacks seemed to go down well - Martin pulled up a chair next to me with a fistful of Milky bars fresh from the Athena till. Jamie - who owns Athena - was gracious enough to allow us to bring our own beer with us, and quite a few NoBoGians turned up with their often weird and wonderful beers. It makes me wonder that if we do further nights at Athena, whether we couldn't do one of those whole beer swap evening malarkeys, where people bring in their favourite beers and then swap them with others to get an impromptu beer sharing evening.

I didn't hear a bad word said about gaming at Athena - people appreciated the good light levels, the tables, and Jamie got a lot of thanks from people for hosting us and putting up with our last minute arrangements. It was on the whole a great experience.

Personally speaking, despite grabbing my fair share of snacks and coke, I felt that if Athena had the facilities to offer more, I would definitely buy into it, and it seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity. Of course Athena and Jamie have a huge task ahead of them with refurbishing and plans for a cafe and all sorts - so I am sure in time things will change.

That was this week. Last week we were at the Ribs - and even without the darts it was a squeeze as 39 turned up.

Scoville - Hot Stuff

I got to play Scoville, a kickstarter that Ewan has brought along in the past which sees everyone competing to get the most victory points out of chilli farming. Ewan already wrote up an explanation of the game back here.

The game is solid and plays really nicely, and I think on reflection is probably the most solid kickstarter game I have played to date. Of course this has nothing to do with the fact that I won - which was quite surprising, I figured I had got scalped on making funky recipes with my chillis but as it turned out I did pretty well AND had just about all the bonuses from planting. Ewan came a super close second.... everyone else... well.. their chillis were just not up to snuff.

I'd highly recommend giving scoville a go if you are into light to medium Euros.

Nicky also brought along Waggle dance for the first time last week - this is a game by the same indie stable that released Cornish Smuggler ( Grublin Games ). I like their first title Cornish Smuggler - but the game does have some critical issues, you can break it relatively easily by some early super efficient moves, and all in all the game is something of a flawed gem.

Waggle Dance however seems to be a better designed affair - their second game - and Elliott gave it a thumbs up after also being aware of Cornish Smuggler and its flaws.

Sky Traders

Talking of possibly flawed games we also saw the first visit to NoBoG of Sky Traders a game published by FFG which sees players piloting their airships around for trade and nefarious doings. Owein who wasn't playing the game noted a possible fatal flaw that he had exploited - crippling another players ship without actually finishing them off leaves them out of the game. I don't think the session at NoBoG stumbled onto this tactical evil, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Elsewise a bunch of people new to Agricola tried their hand at the unforgiving farming classic - and I'm guessing got their assed kicked and Smash up and a bunch of other things got a whizz through.

Many thanks to Jamie for giving us the opportunity to try out Athena as a venue, and many thanks to Monika for the photos, as well as Elliott for Athena photos.

The Gallery

 

More Sky Traders

Agricola

Sam brings along Sons of Anarchy

Smash Up !

Pleasure Pants - Get Them Whilst They're Hot

Another busy week last week with 39 people getting in for some gaming action. Any other time that would have been a record, had we not already pushed the bar up to 44 from the previous week.

James had a mini pre-game game for us all this week, with game mention Bingo. He's been threatening to do it for months, and so everyone was treated to a small bingo card with a list of games to cross off when they were called out. I think this is largely a reaction to somethings always being present in the game roll call session and James having a James like sense of humour. Elliot called out a bingo half way through the roll call, and won the prize of nothing whatsoever. Congratulations. Perhaps we should get a special hat in future. The winners hat. Design suggestions welcome.

Snake Oil ! Can I interest you in some pleasure pants ? Um. No.

Lewis had a new thing to try out with an intriguing name - Snake Oil, one of those card games that can expand to fit a whole gaggle of players, although, it did seem to run awful long. Lewis kindly forwarded on a report of the session for it, so we can hear what he has to say and find out what it's all about.

Right by the entrance to the Ribs, I (Weird) had somehow managed to gather a group of eight fellow players to try out the card game Snake Oil. This party game has players each getting an opportunity to assume the role of a customer, their role determined from a card from the customer deck - politician, newly-wed, caveman, hostage, and so on. How we're managing to sell things to these people I dare not ask.

Once the player decides on a customer role, all other players must try to combine two words out of the six cards in their hand to create a product, catering to the role in question, then attempt to pitch said product once prompted by the customer. In my instance of being the customer, I happened to draw the 'nerd' customer card, which led to the kind of mix of products you'd expect from any round, from practical combo's (a shower fan), to video game DLC (energy key), to the really rather creepy suggestions from the far side of the table (kiss monkey). Ech!

With a difficulty level on par with Cards Against Humanity, and given the entertainment value of watching someone try to sell a banana beard to... well, any kind of customer, I reckon any group can find quite a lot of enjoyment out of this game. It's not a game to focus on scoring, given how unlike Cards Against Humanity you know exactly who's suggestions are who's, but rather a game to see people try to sell pleasure pants to an insomniac.

I would personally recommend this game as a 4-player filler rather than an all-evening 9- or 10-player session. Should've known that before, but at least we know that now. Great fun all the same, and gg to Andi for claiming 4 out of a possible 8 points to win. Quite an inventor amongst us!

Their group then split into two tables for some Colt Expressing and Sushi Go-ing - and Lewis recommends that if you haven't played Sushi Go you really should, the food has faces. Which apparently makes it more appetising  / fun. Hmm. Note to self. Don't accept dinner invitations from Lewis.


Over on our table we cobbled together a game of Alchemists, where despite me forgetting to play the first half round, we did a fairly decent job of piecing together what was what. James somehow blasted away to a significant lead in this and ended up winning, despite only mixing 3 potions for the entire game. What ?! I had mixed a good half dozen, got master of the green potions at game end, but due to some early game spurious theory gambits could only limp in joint last with Pete.

There was much spluttering around the table of I Am Right, and You Are Wrong, and in what could be an early pattern, various Euro gamers believing they are infallible only to find out they have ballsed up their notes. James swore that the app had given him a wrong result, but on checking at the end, the app seemed to be bang on point. A glitch ? Or user error ? Sad to say, in my decades of imprisonment within the IT industry, in 99.9% of cases it's user error. A PEBKAC. Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair. Somewhat out of date these days given the swishy touchy mobile slatey kind of devices that are prevalent. But who knows. The potion app was struggling with the dingy pub lighting.

Concordia - NOT a game about cruise ship piloting

A short peanut flick away from us Hal got the much fancied 2014 game Concordia to table. I am beginning to think that Hal has very good taste in games, as most of what he turns up with looks interesting. Well. Except that drab blockade runner game. Concordia was nominated for a bunch of awards in 2014 ( but failed to actually win anything ), and is a game I have had half an eye on, wanting to see it in action. Despite Pete's humorous summary of the game being about piloting cruise ships as close to the coast as you dare ( which went straight over my head for 5 minutes until I realised what he was talking about ), the game is actually about commerce in the Mediterranean in the era of ancient Rome - short on rules, long on scoring opportunities.

Players get to wander around a simple board, building houses, collecting resources and trying to build some lovely scoring combination for game end - of which there is something of a point salad, depending on what you are concentrating on. The main thrust of the game is around your hand of cards, each of which is an action allowing you to perform something or other - producing goods, building houses,  buying more cards and so on. Hand management is a part of this game, as once a card is played it stays down, but, playing a certain card allows you to pick them all up again ( although crucially here it also triggers a scoring round for yourself the first time you play it, meaning that you have to be particularly efficient in how you play this ), and some cards allow you to copy other players cards.

It looks like a cool euro economic builder to me, but I failed to get a proper response from Hal's table as to what it was like. A general thumbs up was offered.

The table behind us started off the evening with a bit of Resistance Avalon, where I assume the evil doers took the game as after a while someone at the table put on their best theatrical voice and cackled loudly into the pub that the other players were all their unwitting slaves. Or words to those effect. It was all very Macbeth.

Downstairs the ultra classic Agricola was dusted off, and David has a brief write up of that for us.

Myself, chloe, owein, Richard and ewan played agricola on Tuesday.

It was a suprisingly close game with just 5 points between first and fourth place. Owein came out on top with a solid cover all bases strategy.

Ewan managed to make a mega pasture which used all but two of his fence pieces, which was pretty impressive.

I think it was the first time I've played a game at the club in which everyone knew the rules, which was refreshing. Especially as agricola isn't kind to new players.

Agric - things are serious when you have to stand up
to take your turn

Uh huh. Agric is one of those nice perennials that never gets old. Whisper it - I prefer it very slightly to Caverna. But I live in hope of some Caverna expansions coming along to mix things up a bit.

Elsewhere downstairs another Euro classic got spanked onto a table - Powergrid, or more correctly Funkenschlaaaaaaag, this time with the American map - which I couldn't remember ever seeing before. It actually took me a minute to realise what I was looking when I took a picture of an upside down Powergrid America map. Looks cool. Although six players with Powergrid is for me... gah. Too many.

Powergrid America

Another table was playing something else. Which. I cannot remember at all. It wasn't new, otherwise I would have taken a picture of it. A mystery game.

Fillers rounded off the evening for some. I got to play Artificium and like Sam the week before went from a lacklustre score all the way to a trouncing lead by way of chaining wizards. Other things were played. But I didn't check in on them. And people don't write to tell me of their sessions either. Hint. Hint.