Definition of Co-operation

A mild and slightly misty night found nine NoBoGers gathering in the Ribs this Tuesday.

Jimmy was fresh back from Essen where he had bought 'a suitcase full of games', and turned up with one of the new shiny games in his hands - Aeroplanes.

I say old chap, are the engines supposed to sputter like that ?

Four players grabbed their tickets and boarded the antique aircraft,  Phil, Tim and Stu joining Jimmy in learning how to be a better commercial aviation pioneer.

The board looked rather minimalist and plain to me - surely a missed opportunity to do something nice art wise, perhaps it's trying to grab that art deco style. On the other hand the aircraft illustrations were rather spiffy and brought back memories to me of countless years (!) spent playing WW1 aerial wargames.

Everyone seemed to enjoy trying their hand at being the Easyjet of the 1920's, and a triumphant Phil romped to a dominating win, lapping the scoreboard and shaming all others present with his business nous.

Archipelago was revisited again on table 2, Tom, Pete, Ed, Matt and myself tackling the management of our new colony. Everyone but Pete had played before and there seemed to be a definite improvement in knowing what to do - and everyone pitched in with rules help too to get Pete up to speed quickly. Despite this, an hour had passed before even the first turn had elapsed - quite a bit of arguing, planning and cajoling going on in the opening phases.

There followed a wholly fantastic game that stretched out for the entire evening. Mean economics saw the rise of the completely theoretical 'half coin' to be paid every other transaction as a single coin, and Ed bankrupting himself rushed for the rebel inducing pyramid earning him the suspicion of all the other players. Towns were the face up victory condition this game, and this saw a spate of them being built to control the areas they were placed into. Pete in typical Pete fashion declared that the first person to build a town would obviously be the Separatist - and then went onto build the first town, with a raft of diplomatic language to avoid being hoisted on his own petard.

As time wore on, infamy started to work its way into the colony, and Tom having temporarily left his town to build a church found himself outbid by a crafty Pete, who then promptly marched into Tom's area and declared ownership of Tom's town for himself.

The uneasy co-operation of the would be powers was shattered as Tom decried such underhanded activity. Pete was adamant however that he had spent vital resources on securing the play, and perhaps could be bribed to undo his move, but otherwise was unconcerned at Tom's complaints. Tom vowed to send the colony down and ignite the islands in uprising if Pete stuck to his ways, and Pete thought better of his move - only to steal Tom's market instead.

With discord well and truly sown Ed - who then openly declared himself as the separatist, finished Pete's work for him and marched into Tom's town, sealing the deal.

Time ran out on us as the game had gone on for longer than it should have - probably due to the volume of discussions, and dodgy grudging deals going on, and so the game ended in something of a draw. An early calculation of victory points saw Ed - the separatist taking top slot with 11, Matt and Pete on 10, myself on a pitiful 4, and Tom declaring nothing but vengeance for wrongs done !

A thoroughly excellent game all in all, a shame we couldn't quite finish it before time ran out.

Beer. Pete drank Gunner's Daughter, which after downing a pint and a half in a matter of minutes declared it to be very good indeed.

"Gunner's Daughter hits the spot.". A thoughtful smacking of lips as to how to describe it.

"Gunner's Daughter hits the spot. And the beer is pretty good too !"

Always finish with a joke.