Its Official Jack is A Retard

With Jack self confessing his personal retardation it was my pleasure to play Capitol and Tower of Babel with him and James. Jimmy, Ben, Rich and Pete played power grid all of whom where new to the game (obviously except Jimmy). I have no idea who won that encounter but I would expect Jimmys knowledge of the game stood him at somewhat of an advantage. When I left they where playing Race for the galaxy.

Im currently shedding a ton of games on ebay and wanted to play both Capitol and Tower of Babel again before they left me for good. Both games have merits. There is much to make either game enjoyable but not enough there to make you reach for it off the shelf over some of the other excellent games available.

Capitol is an area control game with a few mechanisms that limit your actions. It 'suffers' from players not being able to make their own choices rather having to play where cards dictate. If all things are equal this shouldnt be a problem but things arent equal and it was a problem last time I played and was again this time. I managed to draw only one card throughout the game of a particular colour and James was equally frustrated. Its a fine ballancing act in game design to allow players choices whilst at the same time having variable conditions or replayability.

Tower of babel is virtually over before its begun and has far to many elements out of my control for me to love it but when I want a 50 minute knizia auction game this was always an option. Players ask for help to build a wonder and rivals offer resources, the better the offer the less the player needs to contribute but in excepting the offer it advances the rivals board position. When offers are declined the rivals are awarded VPs based on the number of items offered. It can work well but in reality there are far too many variables out of a players control. Works best with four and can take five. We played with three which made offers rather pathetic and limited.

I also have to appologise as having not played these games for what amounts to at least three years, and having not pre-read the rules, the rules sessions where poor to say the least. This is probably why both James and I failed misserably and why Jack '(insult insult here)' Shannon was able to win both Capitol and Babel. Won done you retard.

Descent in the cellar of the ribs

After a somewhat successfull bank holiday weekend where I ran a descent game as the overlord I was itching to run my second game so took Descent to the ribs and challenged Tarn, Pete and James. Jimmy and Matt played Preußische Ostbahn (with Dan) while Jack played shogun with capt wesker. I dont remember who else played what (sorry Ben, where you there Tom?) but my guesses are in brackets.....

I loved Descent though. The first few times we played the overlord didn't have a chance and after the first round where Tarn crippled my spiders (if you'd pardon the phrase) I thought this might be a repeat but a few minor mistakes by the heroes and soon I'd turn the tables. You cant rush into rooms and you cant drag your feet, timing is everything and sensible combo players from the overlord can take those vital points away from you. I understand and can see how descent is RPG lite, but I love it at the moment, especially when i'm the overlord. Everyone gets to pick on you and you dont take it personaly, soak it up and mess with them all ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaa...... Well anyway im now planning the next time I can enjoy this dugeon crawl game and hopefully getting together a group willing to play it more often.

Who Knows I wasn't there

A rather short post to sum up the games played on April 28th as I didnt attend, I dont know???

I expect Matt took container and Taj and Jimmy objected to football being on....but i'm just guessing.

Cuba, San Marco, Wallenstein

It was a Bank holiday so we didn't expect to see Jimmy. Tom, Pete, Luke and Hal (I think) played Cuba as we watched all English champions league. Matt, Tarn, Dan and Ben played wallentsein. Ben won Wallenstein, Luke won Cuba and Chelsea won the football. Tom Pete and Luke had enough time to play San Marco which went down well. The balance of the game doesnt quite work but the mechanic of choosing cards is so much fun that we dont care.