It's all in the Seating...

A grand nineteen at the Ribs this week, and in what will be slightly upsetting news for those regulars who were last week pressing for Resistance and were notably missing this week, Resistance got played twice.

Skip a week of NoBoG and miss all the fun !

Lords of Vegas made its debut at NoBoG, with myself, Ed#1, Rich and Lewis sitting down to determine who was the greatest pit boss of Vegas. The Tabletop channel recently posted a playthrough of this, so rather than me explain what it's about - take it away Wil Wheaton....

Our game was closely fought at first, before my crappy positioning and an inability to roll much higher than a 3 left me trailing in the arid dust of Nevada. I satisfied myself with opening what I imagined to be a small hotdog stand next to the glittering lights of one of the palaces of gambling.

Lords of Vegas. Or in our case, Three Lords
and one hot dog seller of Vegas

Rich, Ed and Lewis however continued to compete closely, with a series of decent Casinos being built right on the strip with a few sneaky takeovers being attempted.

But all proved to be in vain as an excited Lewis ( clearly being a Pit Boss is something of a life goal for him - he was so excited at one point that his capability for counting money earned in a round left him in a confusion of enthusiasm and shaky hands ) managed to dominate the strip and haul in a good score to grab the grubby title of Lord of Vegas.

A cool game all in all, a fair bit different to your usual Euro Cube Shuffler, a dose of luck involved - of course it is Vegas after all... but nice. And some good interplay available between players. Taunting others to go large or go home is just a bonus.

Whilst our dubious efforts were squeezing money out of profligate rich and desperate poor alike, over on table two the venerable Puerto Rico was dusted off to three newbies and two seasoned hands.

Now, if you've ever played Puerto Rico, or heard about Puerto Rico, you might recall there's something about where you sit when there are newbies at the table. Sit to the left of the newbie, the wisdom goes, and you are in for an easy game. 

All three Puerto Rico beginners sat together. And Rich - noted Puerto Rico veteran - sat to the left of them. I observed out loud that he had picked the winning seat.

There are many who say that Puerto Rico is one of the finest Euro games to be had. I personally however am no fan of it, I find it to be an overhyped game that has long since shown its age. It has some cool mechanics, a bunch of 'flaws' that can make a game miserable for a player in the wrong seat, and a tendency to have a problem with seating bias overall. I'd play Agricola instead.

In any case, a fine evening of slave exploitation (!) and new world colony building was had...... and Rich won.

Bah ha ha.

 In a splendiferous evening of Riches, Richard the Fourth, or is that lovely Rich, I can't keep tabs on the Society of Riches, tromped forth to a stunning win in Lords of Waterdeep, piling on the points to humiliate all others at the table. This provides us with some rock solid 'take it to the bank' statistics that if your name is Richard, you have at least a 50% chance of winning the game you are playing.

Hmm. Did that sound Gambly ? I think Lords of Vegas has done something to me...

Meanwhile upstairs, Lost Legends was being played, a fantasy deck builder which sees your hero gearing up to defeat monsters and win Legen - wait for it - d Points. 

Ed does his best 1970's family game cover art pose,
gleeful of his upcoming win that never happened.

I managed to take a snap of an eager Ed looking forward to his "first NoBoG win" ever.

Everyone at the table fancied him to be in the lead and the probable winner by game end, which of course absolutely guaranteed that Ed would in fact not be the winner.

The wily Dean beat him to it.

Never count your Dwarven Hero Adventurers before they have hatched.

Finally, everyone jumbled up and joined in a game of Resistance and Libertalia. Much piratical thunking was going on over Libertalia and unfortunately we didn't come to a proper finish. Our short finish revealed me to be the Pirate King. It's rough, but I'll take it.

As for Resistance, it seems in the weeks of non appearance, the good guys have left their posts, stepped down from their watchful vigilance, and generally skulked off for a pint, as the Bad Guys put everyone to the sword ... twice.