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.

Forlorn Frontiers

Another twenty six this week with six tables instead of five. A regular-ish number perhaps ?  The numbers might be somewhat stable but the player base is most definitely not - not in a raving bonkers kind of way, although we are bonkers accepting ( high fives to the bonkers people ), but in a turnover of people kind of way. Who knows, one day everyone will decide to turn up on the same day, veterans, veterans retired to lurkers, regulars and newbies, hold a popular referendum, and declare our independence from Scotland England Europe Cornwall Ukraine Norwich.

The peoples Republic of NoBoG. Or is that the Republic of the NoBoG peoples. Are we the peoples Republic of NoBoG ?? Fuck Off ! Peoples Republic of NoBoG ! Pfah !

This week Terra Mystica, Marvel Legendary, Alien Frontiers, Ticket to Ride Europe... and some others, possibly Alhambra... hit the tables.

Pete sallied forth with the Euro cruncher Terra Mystica and a mix of seasoned sharks and first time players. Pete took on a new race type for his play, the Giants, and ended up pleased with his handling of his oversized populace - probably helped on by the fact that he romped to a commanding lead, leaving Tom in second nearly twenty points in his dust. Everyone else limped along another twenty points behind Tom and thus concluded the odd shaped cube shuffler. The first timers looked a bit shell shocked, and Tom confided having fumbled his priorities in mid game, his minor slips costing him those precious game leading points.

Last week having embarassingly failed to do any good whatsoever whilst wearing skin tight lycra - it might be argued no good can ever come from wearing skin tight lycra at a board game night - Marvel Legendary got a second airing for another attempt at setting the world to rights. With a confident spangly boot forwards, the heroes took on... "The Training Mission". I am not sure if they randomly chose this, or picked it out of some desperate hope to succeed, but the plot involved was an easy trainer kind of plot.

Successfully seeing off this training day threat - the evil Professor Underpants Drops Litter in The Park - the team went on to tackle something a bit more serious... and failed. Again. I think the message is very clear here to our NoBoG Marvel players. Don't give up your dubiously disguised day jobs - Do give up wearing spangly cat suits.

Ticket to Ride Europe ( I think ) was played upstairs, a nail biting finish leaving a single point twixt winner and losers, which was then followed by Gloom.

Over on my table, Alien Frontiers had a blast, and proceeded quickly into an ill-mannered knife fight, attempting to screw everyone else over, break the game, or complain about choices made. You know things are going to be rough when before any dice are rolled, argumentative banter has broken out at length about the benefits of going last. Oh dear.

I'm not sure many enjoyed the game for the game - Owein in particular has sworn off the thing entirely in future - but the back biting knifery was enjoyed. And the game didn't break, despite being tested.

Skipping downstairs I got to watch a round of One Night - Ultimate Werewolf, which as you might suspect is another Werewolf variant, but played for a single round only.

Did you know ?

The original werewolf game was spawned out of a Russian University's Psychology department in 1986 as a game about Mafiosa with a heavy element of body language, psychology and social group dynamics. 

In recent years a slew of variants have been produced, including the NoBoG favourite Resistance, which all tinker with the original formula but keep the psych much the same.

Before its recent popular spate as a filler game, werewolf was - and is - a tool used by businesses and corporates on "team building days" to inspire teams, promote communication, and subtly check out employees personality strengths and weaknesses.

The main notable differences between game night variants and corp variants is the removal of the original game master non player role - gamers tend to be a better motivated and organised bunch than a group of employees wondering if they can go home yet.

After watching Med Ed get shot to pieces as a werewolf - and lose the game, I was invited in to play a few rounds myself.

The game plays much like many other werewolf variants, with a slew of character roles from precious Villagers, to sneaky troublemakers, dependable masons and evil werewolves adding spice to the original formula. Unlike other variants however One Night is played in a single titular round - of one night. After an initial setup of roles and players then performing their role actions largely in secret ( seers get to check out any other role on the table, troublemakers get to swap two roles and so on ), the group then gets to say who they actually are, and from their actions, logic and body language then argue about who is telling lies, and which player should be shot as a filthy werewolf. After a period of debate, everyone then simultaneously points at a player they are going to shoot / lynch / stone, with the player receiving the highest number of hits actually dying.

If no werewolves die, the werewolves win. Simple.

Cool game if you like your werewolf type games - the single round guarantees a real fast game resolution, on the other hand it does mean that in game information is limited and often comes down to a shot in the dark.

Managed to play a few rounds, ended up as the werewolf on the last round, and after seeing a slow claim of roles on the table - but the crucial suicidal Tanner being picked up very late ( the Tanner wins all if he gets killed ) and dubiously, I elected to play as if I were a not brilliant Tanner player and declare myself a Werewolf. Which I was. So I had just handed every good guy at the table a victory.

Of course few believed my tale of really being a werewolf and thus I was spared the gun. So for my part, mission accomplished. I then went onto spread doubt amongst some of the good guys.

Luke was my accomplice werewolf, and in a massive tactical cock up grabbed a role after everyone had debated about it, managed to draw the suspicion of most of the table and was promptly shot.

Where it turned out the Robber had switched his role with Luke, and the werewolves had been missed entirely.

Huzzah.

Dinner, is on you. Correction. Dinner is you.

Frank's Alien Frontier Zoo

This week saw an almost but not quite record breaking crowd of 27 turn up to the Ribs ;  having just checked the dusty NoBoG tome of facts 28 is the number to beat. NoBoG ranks were deflated by missing regulars but much bolstered by a gaggle of new people, Lauren, Chris, Martin, Davey, Zen and Cal , and we had some irregulars turn up - Cross Atlantic Pete ( because we can never have enough Riches or Petes ) who likes to come along once in a blue moon.

On offer this week was a fine collection of gaming spread across six tables. Lords of Waterdeep entertained five - a game now so often played at NoBoG that it might be an idea just to glue it and perspex it permanently to one of the tables. The non gaming visitors to The Ribs can then puzzle about the strange table design over their pub lunch. Kemet also returned to once more tromp across the sandy desert with its weird bunch of mythological creatures - no Med Ed this week so he didn't get to face plant ( in the nicest possible way ) everyone else. Dean made the huge mistake of taking an early lead, only to then get stamped on hard. If there's one common rule to playing more meaty 4+  player games with other experienced gamers then it's this - never ever take an early lead unless you're a masochist who likes bringing people together in order to beat you senseless.

Archipelago made a repeated showing for the third time in a week, with Pete actually being the separatist instead of just play acting the separatist, but singularly failing to upset the colonists past the level of General Moaning About The Weather. Tsk. Island Rebellion Level = British. Instead of moving to a more rebellious French based level of unrest with cake eating, guillotines and general unhelpful unions, the resplendent Mr Bond romped his way to a glorious colonial power victory with a supply of pineapples and single church. A sure fire recipe for island bliss.

The snazzy 4th ed. Alien Frontiers

Meanwhile upstairs four took on the freshly reprinted and updated Alien Frontier plus faction expansion, with Matt coming on strong at the final push for colonist domination,
but I suspect he may have been pipped at the post.

The dodgy chaos faction was in play - my favourite - which allows all sorts of shenanigans to be had moving colonies around willy nilly, as everyone except yourself suddenly has a dire urge to settle in a single miserable overcrowded part of the planet for absolutely no gain whatsoever. Assuming of course you can keep up with the heavy ore expense to keep pushing everyone else around.

The quirky Steam Park got another show too, this being followed by Survive, with one greedy sea monster eating every Atlantean it could, whilst his mate, Cant Be Arsed Charlie simply waving all the swimmers by as he took a leisurely float around the blue waters. Apocalyptic Top Tip - Always check to make sure you are swimming to safety past the vegetarian sea monster in the event your island sinks and leaves you heading for more stable shores.

Castle Panic was up on the last table, where for once the green tide of trolls, orcs and goblins was resisted and sent packing back off into the forest, the castle only a couple of towers worse for wear. Lauren made a great effort to switch sides half way through the game by loading enemies onto the table - a shame as the game has no separatist / traitor / filthy spy - but rallied to be the top killer of the day. An inside job ? I think so.

A smattering of fillers rounded out the evening, Resistance, Love Letter, King of Tokyo and Frank's Zoo all getting a go, with Lewis winning King of Tokyo as a Penguin Princess ( your secret is safe-ish with us Lewis ), and then added insult to injury by also winning his first ever go at Frank's Zoo. He then declared the week to be all round amazing - either for winning games, or coming out as a Penguin Princess - I am not sure which.

I feel like we should probably bust out Saboteur again at some point - there are plenty of people down the pub who have never seen it or experienced its untrustworthy gnomes before.

My Hovercraft is Full Of Eels.

Another month has almost slipped out of sight. October 2011 will be remembered for the unseasonal weather, the death of Steve Jobs and Muammar Gaddafi and here, at NoBoG, Andy Malcolm’s most unlikely win at Power Grid. But that was last week and this is this week...

We had only one confirmed casualty from the Norwich Beer Festival. Jimmy had fallen in the line of duty; taken down by the relentless ale. Rich and Crocker are both MIA. And no one has seen Lovely Rich for a long, long time. Offically he’s been sent on a classified mission, but rumour is that he’s ‘gone native’. If you see the lad, send him back our way. We miss him dearly. But never fear! We have new recruits. John has been with us four weeks and coped admirably with everything that has been thrown at him. And then last night saw the arrival of reinforcements from Germany; Heike and Maren. Welcome.

So, three tables last night. Pete ambitiously brought down the latest incarnation of Sid Meier’s Civilisation (or simply ‘Civ’), it’s far better than the poor effort from Eagle Games and thankfully much shorter than the Avalon Hill version from 1980. Diane and Tom signed up to this one and were still playing when I left a few minutes before time. I think it can certainly be played at the club, but with a rules session it will always be a rush to finish.

On the middle table I fumbled my way through the rules for Hansa Teutonica - Young Pete, Heike and Maren were the bewildered pupils. In the end it came down to the wire as I beat Pete by 1 point, who managed to connect the red banner cities. We also played Monty Python Fluxx, which is a tedious game if it wasn't for the outragous accents and the fact it provided the title for this weeks post.

The other table slapped Alien Frontiers down on the baize. Diane won, though Moritz came close to overhauling her lead at the end. And then they succumbed to Phil’s whim and agreed to play the ridiculous cooperative game Red November – all about gnomes trying to save an ailing submarine. From the sound of it they had fun trying, but ultimately failed; with most of the gnomes burning to death before sinking to the bottom the ocean and a watery grave. Harrowing.

Beer: Woodforde’s Admiral’s Reserve. They’d pulled out all the stops to bring this fine ale to the Ribs. Chestnut coloured beer with almonds, sultanas, a deep sweetness, but still light enough to be quaffable. Like drinking a delicious fruit cake. 9/10.

Kicked into Orbit

Another Tuesday night in the Ribs and another night of gaming. This week were lucky enough to be joined by Steve, Sharon and Aaron, who read about NoBoG on BoardGameGeek, and decided to check out what we had to offer.

Apart from new people to insult, the main point of interest was a new game called Alien Frontiers. Kevin had bought it from direct from the small publisher, Clever Mojo Games, during the Kickstarter scheme. For those of you not familiar with Kickstarter.com, it’s an online pledge system for funding creative projects and ideas. Projects such as films, music, books, inventions, art or any other creative endeavour can be listed on the website, which facilitates the gathering of funds from the general public. The project coordinator sets a deadline and a minimum funding total. If the total is not reached by the deadline then the contributions are not collected. However, if the funding total is reached or surpassed then the project goes ahead and the donors’ money is collected. The donors then receive the rewards listed by the projects. In the case of Clever Mojo Games, the reward was a copy of and Alien Frontiers for a pledge of $50 or more. It’s a good system to get a game published if you don’t have the starting capital and can generate enough hype.

So what is Alien Frontiers about? It’s primarily a dice-rolling game in a similar vein to Roll through the Ages, but with a full board, which is used to incorporate worker placement and area majority mechanisms. It’s also, as the name may allude to, set in the exciting environment known as SPACE! It’s nicely produced and has a very retro space theme and feel. Players are racing to colonise an unnamed planetoid. To do this, players roll dice which represent their space fleet and allocate them to various board positions in order to gather resources, alien artifacts, spaceships; land colonies, and steal from other players. Colonies placed on the alien planet gain victory points for the players, as well as special territory bonuses which bend the game rules. The game ends when a player lands their sixth and final colony.

Alien Frontiers is a decent, lightweight dice-roller. It’s pretty quick and the luck of the dice shouldn’t put people off – as rolling high isn’t necessarily good (though not rolling any doubles throughout the game could be a problem). There is a fair bit of tit for tat in the game and plenty of opportunity to have a pop at your fellow players, either though stealing or outright attacking them with the plasma cannon or other nefarious alien tech. All good… however, I felt the gap between winning and losing was rather too slender and that the mixture of area majority and ‘take that’ meant the outcome could be a little arbitrary. You only get to place a maximum of six colonies throughout the game, so the territories don’t change hands very often. When they do it’s a two point swing. With an average winning score of 8, deciding who to knobble can quickly lead to bash the leader (I’m OK with that) or king making (not so much). Still, I’ve only played it once and my worries may not be as prevalent as I imagine. So enjoy a quick, easy game of Alien Frontiers next time Kevin brings it along.

The game was played twice and everyone will be pleased to know that the green players prevailed both times. Punk Rich beat Kevin, Phil and Aaron in the first outing and I squeezed out a victory against Kevin, Christine and Steve.

Other games that hit the table were: Jaipur, Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers, Dominion, Stone Age and the lovely, lovely Taj Mahal.

Beer: Another brew from Newmans Brewery based in Wales. I had something by them the other week which I seem to remember being OK. Tonight’s draft was Red Castle Cream. A soft, bronze coloured beer with a slight head. Tasted of strawberry malted milkshake, slightly sour with some grainy bitterness, not as creamy or as red as the name suggests. I’ll give it an 8 and compare it Caylus, as they both have castles…