King of Tokyo

A feisty little game called King of Tokyo demanded our attention this week. Brought along by Andy, it served as an excellent way to end the evening after the main courses of Chaos in the Old World (a rare defeat for Khorne and victory for Slaanesh) and Olympos.

Serving up to six players, King of Tokyo is a dice game designed by Richard Garfield (of Magic the Gathering fame) about giant monsters ravaging Toyko and of course beating the crap out of each other. Each player is assigned one of the six monsters - ranging from the classic Gigazaur (Godzilla) and The King (Kong) to the more exotic Alienoid or the bizarre Cyber Bunny. Each turn, the player rolls the six custom dice up to three times, either keeping or discarding each die in turn. The outcome allows your monster to regain health, store energy, inflict destruction points, or whack the other monsters and possibly occupy Tokyo, allowing you to create more destruction. Once a player has inflicted 20 destruction points they win. Alternatively, a player can win if they are the last one standing having beaten all the other monster to death. Oh, and energy can be spent to buy extra powers/attributes for you monster, such as a spiked tail, regeneration, nova breath or the awesome extra head, which provides you with a seventh dice to roll.

The game is fast, fun and pretty silly. The push your luck element is nice, not just with the dice rolling, but also choosing when to occupy Tokyo - as the sole occupant of Tokyo bears the brunt of all damage inflicted and cannot heal, but also earns extra destruction points. We all had great fun. There was only one death - Tom's Child Friendly Alienoid got clobbered by my Kraken's spiked tail. Ultimately, Andy's Two-headed Meka Dragon won, by destroying the National Guard. Good times.

A brief mention for the new offering from Ystari: Olympos is another game from Jimmy's Essen haul. I didn't get a good look at it, but there were favourable murmurs from those that played it, especially Nicky who claimed victory.

Beer: After quaffing Naylor's Rudolph's Rocket Fuel, which was surprisingly light and pleasant, yet devoid of any seasonal merit (6/10), I had a pint of Elves Bells from the Wooden Hand Brewery. This was much more seasonal: a ruddy amber beer with toffee, biscuits, a hint of orange and spice. Tasted like Rolos. 8/10.

November

Quick update for the past three weeks.

We’ve been graced by another new member, Adam. He’s been twice. The first week he lost everything he played, but in the following session he had his revenge and won everything he participated in. An interesting fact about Adam is that he isn’t colour-blind.

We’ve played 7 wonders (three times), Sid Meier's Civilization: the Board Game (twice), Power Grid, Chaos in the Old World, Santiago, Caylus Magna Carta, Frank’s Zoo. As well as two offering from Jimmy’s recent trip to Essen; Trajan and Hawaii.

The festive season will soon be upon us. I’ll check with the pub as to whether they have any Christmas dinners/parties that will impact on our Tuesday meetings in December. I’ll post any clashes on here and on the NoBoG calendar.

The Lure of the Games

Halloween, and a weary traveller stumbles into the Ribs of Beef. He’s not sure why he’s here or how he even got here. He orders a beer, not really taking note of what the barmaid serves him. A twitchy faced man stares at him from his perch at the bar. So Jeff, for that is our traveller’s name, decides to take refuge downstairs, away from the prying eyes of the locals. “NO, don’t go down there!” shouts the barmaid. Alas Jeff doesn’t hear. He’s drawn down the stairs, into the bowels of the pub, as if some unearthly power had a hold of him. At the bottom of the stairs is a large red door from which he can hear howls of anguish. Still drawn, he cautiously opens the red door and peers inside. ARRRGGHHH! Unspeakable horror! He see’s Stu trying to wedge Tom’s Small World board under a table leg to keep the table straight. Oh my! Tom dances to and fro squealing at his tormenter. Next he sees Nicky placing her full to the brim drink perilously close to the edge of the Shogun board (the glass even leaves a ringmark). This is too much for Jeff. He turns to flee, but comes face to face with the hideous, shambling malformed shape of [insert NoBoGer of your choice here]...

OK, so it was November 1^st and Jeff was already there when I arrived, but you get the picture. Jeff’s first night at NoBoG - all the way from America, though he’s now living in Thetford. Welcome Jeff (or maybe Geoff or even Djeph).

Jeff said he liked Fantasy Flight games and so Chaos in the Old World was the obvious choice. He joined a game with myself, John and Pete. It was an embarrassingly quick win for Khorne, who double dial clicked every turn and had won before even a single region was ruined. It was so quick that we even had time for a three player game of Hansa Teutonica, which was a much more competitive affair as I only just nudged past John and then Pete in final scoring.

Jimmy had been to Essen and rolled off two games that none of us had seen before: Hawaii and Die Burgen von Burgund. The latter was chosen by Crocker, Tom and Stu. It seemed to be a hit with Luke and Stu and I’m sure Tom enjoyed it as he won.

Phil’s copy of Shogun had finally arrived and he settled down with Diane, Nicky and Moritz to battle for control of Japan. It ended with a win for Phil, who clawed his way back from a dodgy start by initiating a non-aggression pact with Diane.

Beer: Wolf’s Werewolf. This is a seasonal premium bitter. Chestnut in colour. Slightly malty, hint of biscuit and pretty quaffable. Nothing exciting, but very good. A bit like 7 Wonders – there’s nothing overly unusual or different about it, but it does the basics very well.