Notorius

If you follow NoBoG at all on Facebook, then you cannot fail to have noticed something of a stir last week - and for those not on Facebook, there was some excitement going on at the prospect of the local press turning up to do a feature on all that is the Internationally Renowned extravaganza of Norwich Board Gamers. Sam noted he would have to get his hair done and Dean came over all starstruck and contemplated giving it all up in the face of "having made it".

If that wasn't exciting enough, Lewis also got wind that David Hasselhoff - he of the Knight Rider, Baywatch, German mega pop star, or tongue in cheek minor reality celebrity and panto performer depending on your vintage - had arrived in Norwich and was out about in the City. Extending the ever welcoming hand of International Gaming and Social Horse Assery via Werewolf Type Things that is NoBoG, Lewis quickly dropped the Hoff an invite to the evenings gaming via his Twitter feed.

Hey @DavidHasselhoff. I hear you're in Norwich. Why not come down to the @MashTunNorwich for drinks n' board games for @NoBoG?

— 'Weird' Lewis Walker (@WeirdFTW) February 2, 2016

Elliot added to the charm offensive.

NOW THAT IS A GREAT IDEA@DavidHasselhoff I reckon you'll stand up for Ticket to Ride as a great game @NoBoG https://t.co/DFfeTNQ1T1

— The Orctioneer (@Quirkative) February 2, 2016

So. Celebrities ! Press ! Oh my.

As it turned out the Hoff didn't turn up, but journalist Daniel did, and a little while later his photographer cohort appeared too, and a mountain of notes were taken and people spoken to.

For Daniels part he seemed interested in getting down some of the definitions used in gaming - the differences of Euros and Ameritrash, co-ops, social gaming and so on, as well as a good smattering of personal information about each person he bumped into - who are you, what do you do, how old are you, how many kids do you have and yada. You can kinda imagine the article writing itself at this point. He also took down a brief run through of the top 10 played NoBoG games of last year - so, you might expect that to see print too.

He ended up watching our game of Taj Mahal for sometime - although to be fair most of the time he was watching we weren't actually doing a whole lot, and you can expect to see some photographs of an almost empty Taj Mahal board on show - before drifting off to watch Lewis run a game of Secret Hitler. On learning that we had some game designers in our midst he then went and chatted to Elliot before floating back to me, and we chatted to anyone in close vicinity.

Overall Daniel stayed for more than 3 hours, chatted to, I am gonna say probably a dozen people to one extent or another, and by the end of it all it became very clear that he had way too much information to put into an article. Certainly he had the very informed groundings of just what modern gaming is about, but with so much information on a wide variety of things it will be interesting to see what he filters out and what is deemed pertinent given that he himself is not a gamer and just what kind of audience the piece is aimed at.

Secret Hitler getting playtime - and worse being actually watched by the local press - was the brainchild of Sam the Second ( yeah that's right Sam, I'm blaming you, yes m'lud, it was all Sam's idea m'lud, no m'lud I didn't play Secret Hitler at all ). You can imagine the Secret Fascist Society headlines that an article might leap to, but ignoring that, the idea of printing out this highly anticipated game was so blindingly obvious once stated that I had to do it. I had actually figured Daniel would be gone before Hitler made a showing and thus avoid any Third Reich overtones.

Secret Hitler - NoBoG Print & Play style

So onto the gaming. Secret Hitler. One of a veritable rash of social filler games that is going to pop up this year ( this could be the year everyone gets sick and tired of too many social games ), and something that has been highly anticipated by a good number of people tracking the kickstarter, as well as bizarrely getting some more mainstreamy type coverage via people like John Bain ( TotalBiscuit ) playing it online.

Secret Hitler is pretty obviously a Resistance variant. With two werewolf type teams of good guys ( liberals ) and bad guys ( fascists ), each team is looking to get a number of articles committed into law before the other team - which despite the naming, is pretty much the whole Resistance mission completion race. One player in Secret Hitler as well as being Fascist is, as the title of the game suggests, Secret Hitler, and at a key point in the game, if the Fascists have done enough, getting the Secret Hitler elected as chancellor is an instant win for Team Third Reich. So far, so Resistance-ish. The main divergence for Secret Hitler however is the simplifying of the mission resolution stage - the committing of articles to the table. Only two people ever get a say in what article is put into play - The President and The Chancellor - and as the President has control over what card choice The Chancellor gets, you can see that the permutations of who is good and who is bad is far far simpler than Resistance. Indeed one of the tags for the game is a bluffing game for people who are bad at lying. Nevertheless, don't be fooled by it's simplifying the number of options going on - the question of just who put that crappy Fascist article into play and nudged the game further towards a win for the bad guys is not an easy one. Both President and Chancellor may have had no choice but to put a fascist policy into place given a not entirely uncommon bad pick up of available articles. Indeed the main excuse you will hear on something terrible happening is - I had no choice.


Despite its apparent simplicity the game is proving to be very popular - and Lewis ran the game at NoBoG - falling on his sword to be impromptu organiser rather than player - with a full table to great acclaim. In fact it was so popular the game got played for the rest of the evening, and I only managed to finally prise it out of the  hands of the final five playing it at just before midnight.

Keeping with Print and Play, James printed out the kickstarted Spirit Island - and he gave a writeup of that over on Facebook - which I'm going to copy in here...

Last night i got to play Spirit island at NoBoG. I had seen this recently on Rahdo's 'blog' and it looked like something i really needed to try. so i found the print and play version, which although rather bland should give much the same introductory experience.

for those unfamiliar with spirit island, it is a cooperative area control game, where, rather than playing the settlers come to live on a previously undiscovered island, you play the island itself. Rather, you play the spirits of the island, trying to purge the island of the plague of man.
Four of us sat down to play, and with the exception of Richard who specifically requested FIRE we all randomly picked spirits. I ended with EARTH (all the spirits have elaborate names in the game, but i was essentially earth); James took WATER and [new guy i cant remember name of] played WIND.

The 2nd Print and Play in the house - Spirit Island

The game ended up being a lot heavier than i anticipated, and the island quickly seemed to be overcome by filthy humans. Earth is a slow builder in this game, and struggles to spread influence far across the board. Early power card draws compounded this, as i gained a power where one of my used powers was not spent and remained available in subsequent rounds. as i capped out at being able to use two powers a turn i rarely had to take my spreading out action, which also (for earth) reclaims all spent powers.
Water on the other hand has no trouble spreading far and wide, but the starting powers did not seem up to that much. That said, being able to do one damage pretty much every turn did save us from a hell of a lot more invaders.

Air bolted out the gate. In contrast to other players air's powers nearly all kick off before the invaders get to do anything each round, this combined with being able to play more cards each turn meant that air could push back or kill a fair few invaders each time, and more cards played meant more powerful innate abilities. The same followed for fire, and although most of fire's powers ended up being slow, when fuelled by lightning (who in turn was often fed by water) fire could get these off fast.

Our early game started to look quite scary, with invaders rapidly spreading to nearly every part of the island. however the spirits did manage to push them back, and quite often managed to manipulate the tribal folk to finish off small pockets of resistance. We finally managed to destroy so many buildings that the fear levels rocketed, and victory conditions changed so that we needed only destroy all buildings. things seemed to go downhill for the invaders rather quickly after that. and we reached victory just before the invaders started escalating their actions.
All in all i enjoyed this game, even though it was a lot heavier than i expected. There was a fair bit of AP near the start of the game as we all figured out just what was going to happen, and how our powers interacted with each other, but this smoothed itself out as we got an idea of what we could do. If i had any criticism from a single play it would be about whether there is an optimal solution each round or not. The PnP version only has 4 spirits, these have elaborate names and could be ambiguous enough to allow different air or fire spirits. I understand that the full version has eight spirits, and the KS set an additional two. We also played with the first turn blight rule, but not the progressive powers, so slightly simpler than the main game, and with no additional scenarios.

either way i left the game exhausted in the same way that robinson crusoe leaves you exhausted, but enjoyed it enough to play it again some time

Taj Mahal. A gentle old school Euro.

For myself, I was rather looking forward to getting the hardcore Euro Brew Crafters to table, but Bondy and Jen on hearing that the game was like a more unforgiving version of Agricola turned pale and bolted out of the gate decrying anything but that, so we settled on Mr Bonds self declared favourite game of Taj Mahal, where, by dint of what everyone agreed was a ridiculously cheaty princess that score him 2 points every turn just for sitting at the table, romped to a decent win, with myself beating out all the other Taj newbies, despite limping through half of the game with only a single card in my hand.

Ticket to Ride. When will they make Ticket to Ride Mars ?

Elliot returned to form by bringing Ticket to Ride along this week and was crushed, CRUSHED by compatriot and NoBoG irregular Caroline ( who to be fair when she plays a game pretty much tends to only play Ticket to Ride, so must be considered something of a Pro TtR player ). That'll teach you for slacking off on the Ticket to Ride training ( ah ha ha ! ) Elliot and playing Champions of Midgard instead.

As Elliot wasn't playing Champions of Midgard it fell to Ewan to keep up the back to back weekly play which probably adds up to around 7 plays for 2016 ( which given 2015's top played game of Ticket to Ride had 15 plays is rather astonishing ). Will CoM keep the pace ?

Codenames hit multiple tables again this week

Elsewise, apart from the Secret Hitlering, Codenames had another very strong week ( it seems to be something of the default go to large social game at the moment ), with some more dubious spymastering, and I am once again pleased to report, a perfect record for myself. *smug* . New to codenames Joe pronounced the game fairly easy, or something along those lines, which I took as a challenge and immediately nominated him for next rounds Spy Master. Joe looked "thrilled" at the prospect and began to backtrack, but despite his worry carried his task off well, and lead our team to a glorious victory.

Porta Nigra. Buy from the centre, build on the edges,
be careful about what actions you are taking where. Eurotastic

The rather spiffy looking and relatively new Porta Nigra was present at NoBoG this week and looked like a game that should definitely be checked out if you are into your Euros. A point salad Euro which revolves around you building buildings and working out just how to move your master builder around to pick up what he needs whilst also building what you need to score and gain bonuses, the game has a pedigree pair of designers and seems to be a pretty solid Euro affair - indeed Tom Vasel gave it a largely negative review for being too difficult to work out where to score what, which in general I take as a good sign - in my opinion Tom has a strange and often anti euro idea of what makes a good game. Horses for courses.

Tash Kalar

Tash-Kalar was also on table - this is something of a rare beast at NoBoG, by my measure this is only the second or third time it has shown up despite being fairly well liked and from the popular designer Vlaada Chvatil ( Galaxy Trucker, Space Alert, Dungeon Petz, Codenames amongst others ).

A bit of the ever marvellous Divinaire for me at the end of the evening ( if you haven't played this 2-4 player filler GO DO IT, it's very nice) , and after the travesty of actually losing a game of this last week - Pete : I've figured out how you play, and I can confuse you now and win - I returned to form and beat all other "psychics" at the table. The Universe has been restored to sanity. The game featured possibly the most inspired dick-ish move I've ever seen in a game when Sam handed me a card to utterly destroy my perfect guess and force me out of the competition on one of the tables. Premeditated, designed to spoil my game regardless of his own position, well played Sam !

The Gallery. Where Terra Mystica gets yet another play this week.

Porta Nigra, a rather smart looking Euro builder ( area influence ) with a good designer pedigree.

Legendary Villains

Terra Mystica, showing no signs of popularity drop

Epic spell wars wizards thingie

To quote Ewan : The obligatory weekly shot of Champions of Midgard

All mouth and no trousers

Not much to report this week - we'll call it the All Mouth and No Trousers edition. Not because there wasn't anything going on, but more because I had One of Those Days on Tuesday, where things conspired subtly against me. The upshot of which is that a) I don't have any fancy pictures of what went on, and that b) I couldn't really tell you a lot of what went on either.

Which makes for a fascinating weekly blog post that is usually concerned with a) fancy pictures and b) what went on.

Oh dear. I partly blame Pete. And IT things. And the outrageous solar storm that hit the planet that day.

This week we had some 32 ish in the house, spread upstairs and downstairs, with some particularly virulent outbreaks of game choice apathy ( where gamers stand around wanting to play something, but entirely unable to actually pick something to play and instead stand waiting, endlessly waiting, for inspiration on high ). Caroline noted that the pre-game organisation was indeed like herding cats. I could only agree.

Dixit

Not being anything like resembling cat herding, a decisive group went upstairs and Dixit made a show - which to my memory despite being something of a bit of a classic, hasn't actually made it to the Ribs before. Half a dozen enjoyed the impromptu matching words to drawings malarkey, made all the better because of the game being very generously donated to Lewis by the G Man. We shall call him the G Man from now on. You know. Alternate names being given for hotel check ins and all that. My name ? Why yes, it's Barney Rubble. Room 1042. Or if you're Johnny Depp then you like to use Mr. Drip Noodle, Mr. Stench, and Mr. Oddpong. No, I didn't make that up. Google it. Then you can waste the next 30 minutes of your day finding out other celebrity names. Wasting time not doing the things you should be doing - You're welcome.

Bondy challenged a group to some Taj Mahal. Taj Mahal is, or was, or at one time for a short period, was one of Mr Bonds favourite games. A bit of a classic. Ticket to Ride also got a showing followed up by Betrayal at House on the hill, whilst downstairs NoBoG veteran Chaos in the Old World was fought over with some Mad King Ludwigging next door. I still want to give Mad King a go.

The last table. I have no idea what they were playing. Strip Poker Carcasonne for all I know. Shameful.

My table played a disastrous game of Dead of Winter where everyone died due to zombies overrunning the camp, which was more of a logistics error than anything else, and then we managed to squeeze in a game of Arcadia Quest which quickly devolved from beating up the bad guys, to beating up each other. At one point my team was surrounded by the other three players all of which were trying to smash my brains out. At some point this turned into a 2 on 2 fight, but it was all a bit of a blur. I scored an epic 4 gold coins. Pathetic. Top score was something like 16 gold coins. Very reasonable. A pity we had no time to level up our teams and go on another run.

A gorgeous pimped out Arcadia Quest. Image courtesy of BGG

So what is Arcadia Quest ? Arcadia Quest is a very simple dungeon romp, not very far away from the likes of the old school Heroquest, where you move around a small randomified map, killing monsters and picking up Stuff. Each scenario will have a number of quests to achieve - kill the troll, rescue the leaders and so on, as well as player versus player quests of kill a member of another players team. Quests are scored 1 point for each done, plus an extra point if you were the first to achieve it. Optionally some quest completions may give you a title which will allow you to do something special in game.

In a four player game there can be as many if not more player kill quests than there are goals on board quests. Inevitably this means that knifing your buddy on your right is going to feature in your future.

The interesting schtick to this game is that each player gets to choose three characters to form their team - the roster of which vary greatly in capabilities. Balancing capabilities, play styles and tactics is quite an enjoyable process, and a large part of this is that the game is designed to be run as a campaign where your team get to spend their loot on ever better equipment and thus effectively level up.

Arcadia Quest. Nice Minis. The player characters are amazing

It's incredibly simple, almost too simple, and yet, the gameplay is fun. Having the other players mixed in as possible frenemies adds a certain zing to the game, but with death being only an inconvenience ( and a penalty for the next scenario ) , there isn't an overly dramatic source of hurt feelings and kicked over tables for even the most sensitive of players.

The game is also miniature heavy, a miniature for everything, and all of them are a work of art. The quality of the mini's is phenomenal and they really do cry out for some TLC painting and presentation.

Lastly our thoughts go out to Stu who has been adventuring in the name of business career corporate monotony down South amongst the wilds somewhere around Swindon. He had vowed to give the Swindon Board Gamers a call - who's web page seems to be dead. Perhaps it's all a front for a sophisticated human trafficking ring who trade gamer dudes into slavery to work on such things as optimising your banana republics logistics, or getting the most out of your worker placement slaves in your gulag.

Beta Site Protocol - Activated !

An important message first up this week.

Next Tuesday, that being 25th February 2014, the usual gaming at the Ribs is going to take a slightly different format. The pub is hosting a quiz night on the 25th and given our current numbers this is going to cause us a critical clash where there is simply not enough of the right kind of room to partake of the usual cube pushing delights.

It has therefore been proposed that whilst we meet at the Ribs as per usual, depending on numbers the group will then split into two - one group will remain downstairs in the Ribs, whilst the second group decamps to Site B - Take 5.

Take 5 is some 50 yards up the road from the Ribs and is a cafe pub type establishment that has potentially more room to accommodate us. Mr Bond has had a preliminary scope out and quick word with them, but nothing concrete has been agreed.

It could be in future that Take 5 may become a better venue for NoBoG, and thus next week may provide a good trial of what people think of the place, beer, welcoming atmosphere etc, but this also may depend on what they think of us, and whether they appreciate people coming in and drinking and eating. You wouldn't think so, but. . . .

If you are keen on seeing what Take 5 is like then make sure you get yourself into the B Group - and you probably want to hold off on buying your first beer at the Ribs.

If anyone has any opinions, solid suggestions or other commentary on the matter then speak forth, and also have a word with either myself - John, or Matt  ( Bondy ).


Back to this week. This week saw 24 attendees split over five tables and two floors. Luna got a blast of a play downstairs - a slightly bizarre but cool game about throwing religious novices into the sea. Although it's your usual worker placement Euro, it's wacky enough that it feels quite different to the usual meeple fest - and there is certainly plenty of scope for competition and screw overs, something that some Euros lack.

Mid downstairs table had an in depth outing of Kingsburg - another cool game where the worker placement mechanic is scrambled by a dice assignment - but whether it was the clash of mighty intellects or the four out of five new players at the table, they took most of the evening to get through it. It should play shorter than this, but there seemed to be enjoyment of the experience, so, that's all that matters. I believe they then had a mad half game of Cthulu Fluxx.

Lastly for downstairs Sam managed to get Level 7 Omega Protocol to table once again, challenging myself, Rich, Ewan and Fletch to meet the threat of his unspeakable aliens.

The Marines approach the final room with its objective...

Sam had a pretty torrid time of it playing the Aliens, as the Marines did a great job in eliminating alien scum and then pacing themselves to get to the mission objective in good time. 

Last ditch assault against the Marine position...
but it proves to be too little too late.

Sam struggled to even scratch the Marines, let alone cause them problems, and by the end the Good Guys stood amidst a pile of alien corpses with barely a mark on their shiny armour. Full props to Sam who took it all in his stride, and played a very good natured game right to the very end, even allowing the Marines to back a played turn order up to get a better flow of actions out. Sam - the nicest of unspeakable alien overlords that are trying to kill you.

In hindsight I think the alien placement in the rooms could have been handled a bit better - avoiding Marines rather than engaging them to slow them down and bring the crises points closer - and also the placement of vent spawn points, whilst at first glance reasonable, meant that Sam couldn't build his forces up out of sight to then overwhelm the Marines in a wave.

As it was the aliens engaged in piecemeal fashion, playing right into the strengths of the elite forces, and wittling away abominations for no gain.

Upstairs Bondy gave everyone a thorough lesson in Taj Mahal, teaching everyone that yes, Bondy likes this game, and yes is experienced enough to give you a drubbing. A bit like playing Pete at Race for the Galaxy.

Caverna might also have been played ? If I haven't got my wires crossed then this game saw Pete stumbling across a horrific scoring opportunity / broken game aspect. Which is not an uncommon thing for Pete to do. If you want to see if a game has a broken scoring mechanic, give it to Pete.

[insert title here]

In a vague attempt to get posts on the blog more quickly (before John) I have devised a template to use. Yes, I know it’s Thursday already, but at least I’ve posted something. So here goes with the new template...

[intro]
[number of people]  Ten
[new people?] Two new people. Dan and Mike. Welcome chaps!

[mention current event/holiday] So, the new iphone, eh?

[insert joke about John being nasty/Tom being old/Pete having a silver-tongue]

Tom wasn’t at the club as he had a Korean War veterans’ reunion.

[games I played - did I win?  
no =  mention it briefly and say it’s a poor game that requires little or no strategy.
yes = go into detail about how it’s a great game which requires great strategy.]

It was Taj Mahal! Matt won. Er, it’s a poor game that requires... No, it’s great. I refuse to tell lies about this awesome game, despite not winning.

[games on other table  - pick one for each game played
Taj Mahal = this a great game
Race for the Galaxy / Le Havre = this is a terrible game
Other game =  vague description and mention who won]

Power Grid Baden-Wurttemberg hit the other table. This is the sixth and newest board expansion for Power Grid. Pete won, but only because Nicky and Jimmy conspired to make Rich lose - the fiends.

[insert thinly veiled insult about Phil losing/Tom cheating/Pete having a silver-tongue]

Phil didn’t come last in any games! But that’s only because he stayed at home.

[say what a great time we had]

We had a great time.

beer - [try to recall the name of the guest beer and pick 3 of the following to describe it, amber, golden, dark, citrusy, floral, fruity, nutty, bitter, light, grassy, caramel, burnt, malty, biscuity, hoppy, chocolatey, vinegary, fishy, penguiny, sweaty. Compare it to a random game]

Beer: I drank Everards Sunchaser. Citrusy, golden and penguiny. 6/10 it’s like Felix: The Cat in the Sack.

Write on!

Image: imagerymajestic 

John cheekily mentioned that he thought the blog was updated quarterly. The nerve of the man! I’d like to see him do better. Actually I would. It would be nice to have someone else ramble on about how they lost to Pete at Eclipse or how much they can’t stand Le Havre or how Taj Mahal is an inspired design. And maybe the writing or at least the grammar might improve around here. So if you’re reading this and fancy picking up a pen (obviously a metaphorical pen - you’d have to use a keyboard – or maybe you have one of those strange stylus things and a computer made from coral and moss...) then let me know and we’ll go about getting you a writer's spot on this very blog. 

Last night Dean trawled the streets for unsuspecting souls who could be lured into the Ribs and forced to play board games. He did a sterling job and found four victims. We took pity on the heavily pregnant Zoey and released her back into the wild (because Agricola has a health warning much akin to camembert or Silk Cut). The three lads – Ollie, Jeremy and Martin were not so lucky and forced to play Agricola, Taj Mahal and Tichu. They all gave a good account of themselves, but it wasn’t enough to stop Rich winning Agricola and Jimmy claiming a narrow victory in the superb Taj Mahal. Who knows if they enjoyed the experience – I think they did, but even if they didn’t at least they didn’t have to play Le Havre, so there is hopefully an chance they will be back.

On the other table we had the now almost obligatory Eclipse. Pete trampled his way to victory against a sullen Dean and Phil – though Phil was actually pretty chipper, as for once he wasn’t eliminated from the game.

Beer: Nothing of note this week. Though the other day I had a bottle of Little Creatures Pale Ale, which is a fantastic beer all the way from Australia. It is awesome and if I had to compare it to a game I’d compare it to Reiner Kniza’s masterpiece, Taj Mahal.

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…