You Win Second Place in a Beauty Contest...

... in a lineup of one. So goes the Monopoly inspired joke. More of that later.

Did you know ? The most popular day of the year for holiday
hunting is January 5th. Just after lunch. One can only assume
this is because everyone is miserable being back at work after
Xmas.

Since Christmas the NoBloG writing goblins have become slack. Weekly issues are failing to get out, news is being missed, and all the while the slacking goblins have been eating the last remnants of festive chocolate, complaining about having eaten too much, and using their office time to search the web for cheap winter holidays. What can you do ? I have sent them all off to a recuperative post christmas blues tropical beach, and been forced to do my own typing in their absence. Pfft.

The last couple of weeks have returned to a busy pub of gaming with 34 people turning up on both weeks ( with a huge variance of *who* actually turned up in the differing weeks... should everyone instead decide to turn up at once ... ), with Resistance having a resurgence in popularity and returning to its regular-ish slot of end of night play.

Stu and Tom were with us this week, both of whom like nothing more than the meta game of the Bargain Bin Rummage. I think they must have some competition going on as to who can find the cheapest or most obscure game. In the past this has brought us classics from Giants, a euro game about shifting giant heads around Easter Island... and putting hats on them.... to Felinia, a game about sea going medieval cat merchants. That is to say, cats, who are merchants. Stand up on their hind paws. And engage in conversations about... fish ? As opposed to merchants who deal in cats.

This week Stu ( or possibly Tom ) had managed to dig a bit of serious retro gaming out of one of his secret bargain bins. Waddingtons Formula 1. Which with an initial release date of 1962 is I am going to guess, older than every single NoBoGer currently in irregular attendance.

Formula 1, Tom roars into the lead with a bit of
judicious picture taking timing

At first glance the game looks suspiciously monopoly inspired. A dice. Two decks of cards bearing an uncanny resemblance to Chance and Community Chest - except of course, here they are Pit Cards and Tactics cards. And a carefully measured track with spaces to move your playing piece around. There are no second place beauty contest wins here however - but instead varying advantages of moving faster, accelerating to top speed, careening around a bend without incident, or the reverse, missing a turn because.. well.. you have been subject to poor pit work. Such are the advanced game design machinations of the 1960's family game. If it doesn't have a random number generator lurking in a deck of cards, you are doing something very wrong.

Five enjoyed this hark back to a more innocent gaming age, with Caroline roaring across the finish in first place. And despite its age, everyone really did seem to enjoy it.

Elsewhere Mr Bond brought along one of his Christmas presents - Imperial Settlers, a full table of four spending the evening standing up and poring over the wording on cards. No idea who won. But seemed fun.

Lewis, Tom, Lauren and Andrew had a go with Takenoko, followed by Get Bit and Love Letter. Lauren was on the warpath and taking no prisoners, bashing her fellow gamers with expletives, threats, yells and anything else. She ended up winning Takenoko and Get Bit, although whether this was due to great game play or just banter intimidation it's hard to say. She took her losses on Love Letter hard. I think she wanted a clean sweep victory.

Downstairs Caverna was given a whirl, with it has to be said a group that was probably thrown to the

A busy Wherry Room full of gamers

lions. Just about all new to Caverna, and in some instances new to gaming. A trial by fire. I'm not sure how this went down, but highly experienced Euro gamer Guillame wiped the floor with everyone apparently. Hmm. We might have scared off some new people there.

An epic six player game of Lords of Vegas was on the table over, and over from them - I think Room 25 got another bash.

Upstairs I got to take a couple of completely new gamers on a tour of what's what, starting with Colt Express, of which the programmed movement seemed to at times really mess with their heads, before moving onto Sechs Nimmt, which as I suspected, they really warmed to and took a picture of it at the end so they could go buy it themselves. Scratching my head for easy finishers we settled for Loot Letter, which almost earned a ban from Mr Bond because it had Munchkin in the title.

Last week Bondy threatened NoBoG legal action against the players of Munchkin on the grounds of Bad Taste Gaming. Despite having taken photographic evidence of the deplorable activity and posting it to the NoBoG twitter feed, the threatened Official Letters of Warning have yet to be actioned. A lucky escape perhaps for the transgressors.

Lastly downstairs they had an epic game of Avalon Resistance - they were frightened off of using the new chiefs and spy hunters malarkey and instead stuck to swords and sorcery. Pah. Luke performed the tricky game intro spiel with morgana, merlin, percival and the kitchen sink and did a good job getting it all right. However. You could hear his brain whirring as he paused at each step, thought about it, thought about it again and his voice steadily slipped into BBC English. Watching Resistance can be nearly as much fun as playing Resistance.

Upstairs I got to enjoy a quick filler of Port Royal with Hal and Mr Bond. Stealing the win right at the end away from the many be-pirated Hal, Mr Bond declared the game to be awesome. Because he had won. With a strategy of... doing everything not particularly well. Except possibly capitalising on everyones failures more than anyone else. I had personally gone card draw crazy - ignoring victory points to.. I don't know. Show off with how many cards I could take ( which helped me not at all ). Hal had a very solid heavy pirate strategy. But somehow. Pushing his luck just... never... worked. Greed ! Without it, he could probably have won the game a good few rounds earlier. Fun game. Funny banter. Always a laugh with Hal and The Bond.

Port Royal is a really nice little filler game, a push your luck, build up a simple tableau, earn victory points piratey card game. It's not long enough or deep enough to become some card memorising synergy monster like Race for the Galaxy, and its shorter and less prone to breaking than Glory to Rome, but shares a few elements with those games... in a piratey themed way. And let's face it. Pirate themes are the best themes. You can take your Race for the Galaxy Uplifting species and.... uplift them. I'll stick to pirates.

Last week Mission Red Planet showed up for its quarterly airing. Newbies all. And for once I managed to capitalise on my experience, and romped to a 3 point hoarding win. We then had some Frank's Zoo. Which I totally failed at. Although it has to be said this was more to do with my partners than myself - both of whom flopped out in last place for zero points, and despite me finishing first in the last round, I had the worst score. Bah.

Suburbia was also on show. Resistance. And err. Other things. Like Munchkin. And Seven Wonders ( which James had never played before... ! ). And Tragedy Looper. And more stuff. Which I forget. And the goblins are all away at the beach. So who knows.

Sad looking doodahs

Varied games on offer this week at the Ribs, one table indulging in nothing but fillers all evening ( those games that are typically lighter and can be played in 30 minutes or less ), with many of the  tables busting out at least three slightly longer but still pretty quick games.

A couple of longer games did take place - both card games, Blood Bowl Team Manager, which surprisingly lasted all evening, and Arctic Scavengers. I am unsure how they made Blood Bowl Team Manager last 3 hours plus - I actually thought they had played it twice.

As for everyone else, we got to see Quantum, Race for the Galaxy, Havana, Royal Palace, Coup, Regenwormen/Pickomino, Istanbul, One Night Ultimate Werewolf ( multi tables ), Avalon : Resistance, Get Bit and Frank's Zoo. I might have missed one or two.

From top left clockwise
Dave, Nicky, Stu and Nate play Royal Palace

After beating everyone at Quantum, Pete then managed to slip Race for the Galaxy onto the table, and proceeded to beat the entirely newbie players into bloody submission over the course of a few rounds, all the while intoning in monastic chant that Race, is the best game ever. It's good to be the King.

On our table we welcomed two newcomers, Mark and Kat, recently moved from Glasgow and looking for something game related to do on a Tuesday.

Istanbul was first up, a nominee for the 2014 Kennerspiel des Jahres, which is a quick playing Euro that has you travelling around the city in pursuit of gems. The city is made up of 16 tiles, each of which allows you to perform an action - picking up resources, selling resources, buying gems, improving your cart and so on. The key mechanics to the game are that you are limited to only moving one or two tiles from your current location a turn - and that everytime you visit a location you leave an assistant to actually carry out the action. Once you have run out of assistants you can't do anything else.

Thus the game challenges you to make best use of your moves - you can't move everywhere - and to backtrack efficiently to pick up those assistants. Other merchants encountered on a space require you to give them cash for the privilege, whilst run ins with their criminal accomplices will give a reward, which adds another layer into the calculation of just what the most efficient route through the city is.

Add to this multiple paths to gem victory and you have a nice Euro with very little down time that plays nicely up to five. Definitely a nice game to ease people into more complicated games, there is strategy there for the most hardcore of gamers, and speed and ease of play for the most casual.

South Atlantic Seal
The Sad Looking Doodah

A few rounds of One Night Ultimate Werewolf followed, where Mark challenged Rich for the position of Worst Liar in NoBoG. When confronted about why he hadn't chosen a role and whether he was in fact the werewolf, Mark couldn't answer. Frozen, like a rabbit in headlights. Outright accusal of being the werewolf and a terrible liar, Mark still couldn't answer, not even to erect a hastily assembled defence. At the very last minute before everyone agreed to lynch him, he chose to declare himself a villager, but it was all too late. And he was lynched. To add insult to injury even Kat his fellow werewolf player voted to lynch him.

Frank's Zoo followed and Kat turned out to have her own very particular way of playing. Announcing cards as she played, we got treated to "Sad Looking Doodah", the "White Towelie Thing", and the "Spikey". I can only guess that Kat is a trained Zoologist and was informing us of the animals scientific classifications.

Keeping with an animal theme we then got to try out Get Bit - a game about "robots" swimming away from a ravenous shark. I'm going to take a guess here that the robots bit was inserted in order to sell an otherwise brutally bloody game to all ages and sensibilities. A bit like the computer game Carmageddon patching the red blood of people you run over to green blood of "zombies" and thus avoiding some of the more aggressive censorship regimes ( Germany seems to be particularly squeamish, not even allowing innocent zombies to be run over - robots being dis-membered is A OK however. On the face of it I would think it more likely in future that there was a Robot/AI equal rights movement as opposed to a Zombie equal rights movement. I think Germany might have some explaining to do when the Robots rise... )

Get Bit ! Myself, Kat and Rich IV have already been eaten...
The shark is savouring the remains of my leg here.

Get Bit is a very simple game - each player gets a hand of cards with numbers from 1 - 7 ( or less depending on player numbers ) and a robot playing piece that has detachable limbs. The robot closest to the shark at the end of a turn will get bit and lose a limb. A robot with no limbs has been completely eaten and is eliminated from the game.

Each turn a player chooses a card from their hand, places it face down at which point everyone reveals their cards. In numerical order from lowest to highest, each player than gets to move their robot to the head of the line - furthest from the shark. Players that selected a value that someone also selected do not move at all. Cards played stay discarded, reducing choice for the next round - unless you are bit or have a single card left, in which case you take back all your discards. The game then is a question of trying to play a card that no one else will play, trying to stay away from the shark, and in certain key moments trying to guess what card the person behind you will play so that they stay right behind you. After all, in terms of being devoured by a shark, it's not about winning, but just about staying ahead of the person behind you.

Great little filler, fun with the lego dudes.

Oh and 28 people for those who are counting.

Thirty is the new Twenty

This week was another busy affair, I turned up to a packed Wherry Room where chief head counter and useful person Ewan informed me 28 , no now 29 had arrived for gaming.

After the chaos and confusion of sorting out who was playing what had subsided, another two turned up ( hello Max and Emma), pushing NoBoG numbers over the thirty mark for the second week running.

Thirty is the new Twenty apparently ( remember when we breathlessly trumpeted that we had twenty people turning up... ). Mr Bond scoffed at the news that 31 NoBoG souls were in the house, intimating that the numbers were disappointing given last weeks 33.

New people ? Yes, Max, Emma and Sam... and that was just on the table I was playing at.

Defectors. Yes. Darren from IpBoG. Ssshh. Mum's the word.

Tables - Six. Bondy actually managed to misplace one of them entirely, missing an entire game of Pillars of the Earth going on in the corner of the pub upstairs.

Games - Senji, Arctic Scavengers, Kemet, Castle Panic, Pillars of the Earth, Frank's Zoo, Avalon : Resistance, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Dobble, Bohnanza ( I think ).

Senji. The Egg Timer dictates how long you can trade for.

Rich brought along recently acquired Senji this week which played to a packed table of six. Despite playing to its maximum six, the game played out in nice time and received nods of approval from those I grabbed for an opinion. It's quite a nice find to get a heavier kind of game that plays to large numbers without getting too bogged down or stuck in some never ending downtime hell.

As far as I can tell the game involves a lot of horse trading involving cards - obtaining sets, obtaining others cards - all in the name of getting end game victory points and or immediate help in battles - yep, there's also some direct, in your face, dice rolling combat interaction when fighting for control of a territory.When I looked in towards the end of the game, Pete was particularly high on the score track, but despite this ended up being trampled over by Jeff who took the Senji Crown.

Arctic Scavengers. Colourful drink not included.

Next table over had deck builder Arctic Scavengers - another one new to me. The game is set in some post apocalyptic frozen Earth, which finds up to four players trying to lead their merry band of dubious morality survivors onto success.

Success is determined at game end by how many warm bodies you have in your frozen tribe - and you do that by scavenging for items in the junk of civilisation long past and also by fighting and screwing your neighbours over for precious supplies. In terms of game mechanics you can pull blind from a "junk" deck when digging for items in the detritus of the apocalypse, send people out hunting to gather food with which to entice mercenaries to your cause, or lastly, compete against everyone else for contested resources by sending a bunch of ( possibly useless bluff cards ) into the scrum of melee.

No clue who won this, and the only facts I gleaned was I think Sam had succumbed to the joys of cannibalism, Tim was a butcher ( unclear just what was being butchered... Delicatessen ? ) and the two allegedly had some very shady synergistic things going on.

Castle Panic was played at a table of five complete with expansion. The castle survived with a single burning tower. Less of a castle. More of a housing estate impromptu junk fire. But survival is survival. Perhaps the survivors went off to form the tribes in Arctic Survivor.

Pillars of the Earth

Pillars of the Earth got another round of play - Nicky professed to having enjoyed the game and denied it being linked in any way whatsoever with her triumphant win.

Kemet also got a look in downstairs, Luke once more opting for this, and defector Darren trying his hand at the fighty desert shenanigans.

For myself I got to play a whole evening of filler types, with Frank's zoo and a gaggle of Resistance rounds ( with no less than two different groups ) making an enjoyable blast.

Several chaotic rounds of One Night Ultimate Werewolf were played, with some serious clangers being dropped on more than one round - players forgetting who they were, what they had done, and even what the winning conditions were. A gleeful Luke was excited about snatching the werewolf win, only to be suddenly downcast when he realised the role he had been swapped with - the Robber - was not actually part of Team Wolf. Oops.

Frank's Alien Frontier Zoo

This week saw an almost but not quite record breaking crowd of 27 turn up to the Ribs ;  having just checked the dusty NoBoG tome of facts 28 is the number to beat. NoBoG ranks were deflated by missing regulars but much bolstered by a gaggle of new people, Lauren, Chris, Martin, Davey, Zen and Cal , and we had some irregulars turn up - Cross Atlantic Pete ( because we can never have enough Riches or Petes ) who likes to come along once in a blue moon.

On offer this week was a fine collection of gaming spread across six tables. Lords of Waterdeep entertained five - a game now so often played at NoBoG that it might be an idea just to glue it and perspex it permanently to one of the tables. The non gaming visitors to The Ribs can then puzzle about the strange table design over their pub lunch. Kemet also returned to once more tromp across the sandy desert with its weird bunch of mythological creatures - no Med Ed this week so he didn't get to face plant ( in the nicest possible way ) everyone else. Dean made the huge mistake of taking an early lead, only to then get stamped on hard. If there's one common rule to playing more meaty 4+  player games with other experienced gamers then it's this - never ever take an early lead unless you're a masochist who likes bringing people together in order to beat you senseless.

Archipelago made a repeated showing for the third time in a week, with Pete actually being the separatist instead of just play acting the separatist, but singularly failing to upset the colonists past the level of General Moaning About The Weather. Tsk. Island Rebellion Level = British. Instead of moving to a more rebellious French based level of unrest with cake eating, guillotines and general unhelpful unions, the resplendent Mr Bond romped his way to a glorious colonial power victory with a supply of pineapples and single church. A sure fire recipe for island bliss.

The snazzy 4th ed. Alien Frontiers

Meanwhile upstairs four took on the freshly reprinted and updated Alien Frontier plus faction expansion, with Matt coming on strong at the final push for colonist domination,
but I suspect he may have been pipped at the post.

The dodgy chaos faction was in play - my favourite - which allows all sorts of shenanigans to be had moving colonies around willy nilly, as everyone except yourself suddenly has a dire urge to settle in a single miserable overcrowded part of the planet for absolutely no gain whatsoever. Assuming of course you can keep up with the heavy ore expense to keep pushing everyone else around.

The quirky Steam Park got another show too, this being followed by Survive, with one greedy sea monster eating every Atlantean it could, whilst his mate, Cant Be Arsed Charlie simply waving all the swimmers by as he took a leisurely float around the blue waters. Apocalyptic Top Tip - Always check to make sure you are swimming to safety past the vegetarian sea monster in the event your island sinks and leaves you heading for more stable shores.

Castle Panic was up on the last table, where for once the green tide of trolls, orcs and goblins was resisted and sent packing back off into the forest, the castle only a couple of towers worse for wear. Lauren made a great effort to switch sides half way through the game by loading enemies onto the table - a shame as the game has no separatist / traitor / filthy spy - but rallied to be the top killer of the day. An inside job ? I think so.

A smattering of fillers rounded out the evening, Resistance, Love Letter, King of Tokyo and Frank's Zoo all getting a go, with Lewis winning King of Tokyo as a Penguin Princess ( your secret is safe-ish with us Lewis ), and then added insult to injury by also winning his first ever go at Frank's Zoo. He then declared the week to be all round amazing - either for winning games, or coming out as a Penguin Princess - I am not sure which.

I feel like we should probably bust out Saboteur again at some point - there are plenty of people down the pub who have never seen it or experienced its untrustworthy gnomes before.

Peter's Folly

A super 24 turned up last week for games. So what was played and who won?

Descent. Help I'm being attacked by a dog. Save me!

The second delve into our Descent campaign saw the three Riches and their Advisor Pete clash against me (as the very misunderstood overlord. I’m not evil, you see...). This week we played the second half of the Cardinal’s Plight. In the first half the plucky adventurers had done an excellent job and toasted all my minions to a crisp - giving them a nice advantage going into the second half. An advantage which they threw away. All because they listened to Pete. Foolish Riches. Sage advice included: Don’t search for the Runestone. Save me from the dogs. Don’t kill the Zombies. Block the corridor. Move the altar to the middle of the room where it looks more aesthetically pleasing despite the fact it makes it harder for us to use. In the end, they were too slow and Cardinal Koth was feasted upon by my zombies - the very thing they needed to avoid in order to win. Serves them right for killing the two dragons visiting the Library to research their ancestry. Not evil Dragons, you see.

The Village. I'll punch you all in the face if you don't let me win.

On the end table there was the longest game of the Village, ever. This may have been due to the expansion, Village Inn, slowing things up with new delights. The new expansion adds two new buildings. The first is the Brewery where you can acquire beer. The second is the Inn where you can meet influential people (in the form of cards), and you can acquire these villager cards by spending beer/coins and time. Each villager card has a unique ability that can be used once per game, giving either points and advantages during the game or additional points at the end of the game for certain achievements. There were rumours of a third building - the Nightclub, where you could have sex in the toilets without being judged, but alas, this was just Ed II’s furtive imagination. And we judged him all the same. The Village Inn also allows for a fifth player to play, which is probably why it all took so long (often the way - eye those expansions with suspicion. No extra fun to be found within, only extra long games). I have no idea who won as I have waited too long to write this. We’ll assume Tom cheated and threatened his way to victory.

There was indeed betrayal in Betrayal on House on the Hill this week. Which was comforting, as a game of Betrayal on House on the Hill without a betrayal leaves you feeling rather betrayed. WeirdFTW won this (he has a real name, but I can only remember his Twitter name at time of writing). Well, maybe he didn't, but  I know he betrayed everyone, and he looked happy it about it as well. We’ll say he won.

The Betrayer and the Betrayees.

Upstairs, Lord of Vegas was given another spin of the wheel. This time Ed’s lucky number came up. But only just, beating John on the money tiebreaker, who must have learned from his dismal display last week. Again it was claimed to be great. And even greater as they were now playing with the correct rules.

Kingdom Builder was played and won by Stu. I’m almost certain it wasn’t won by Stu, but I am almost certain it was played.

And then there was some shuffling and Frank’s Zoo got an outing. After rounds of animal matching and trumping and confusion over whose partner was whose and whether they were big or little and, I hope, a badly translated German joke about mosquitoes, and the obligatory mention that a single lion has no pride, Nicky was the very best and won.

The Resistance: Avalon got started, but was aborted. Which was a shame, as I was doing an amazing job (in my mind) of fooling the good guys into thinking I was Merlin, when I was actually Morgana. Drat.

Winter Is Coming

And the Others stalk the lands...

Freezing fog descends upon the Ribs

The land of ice and snow is upon us and Norwich doth suffer under its harsh Led hand.

Whoever the Local Council player was clearly forgot to activate their Grit Trucks action this turn, as most of the main roads of Norwich were pretty diabolical - I passed a truck on the way to the Ribs, but had seen no evidence prior to this that anything useful had been going on. Dreadful turn optimisation, no victory points for you ! Snowbound ! A game of random weather, gritting trucks, icy roads and irate citizens. Coming to you soon !

And so with such a grim clime and hap hazard council player gripping the County only five hardy souls managed to make it down the pub to play some games. A heroic hardy huzzah to the fearless five - Jimmy, Sam, Moritz, Matt and myself. A berating blasting boo to the mollycoddled who sat at home.

But five as any gamer will know is a good number to have, and Jimmy had brought something new to entertain us with. Snowdonia - a game about building a railway up the side of the Welsh mountain, complete with weather the likes of which only Wales can bring. Rain. Fog. More Rain. And if you are lucky a brief spell of sunshine.

A worker placement game, players vie for a number of actions from resource collection to building. The game is more Caylus than Agricola - everyone working competitively on the same single track up the mountain and there is a certain jostling to lay that next piece of track, open up that station or improve a station - miss out and the opportunity with its victory points are gone. A series of cards adds flavour to the stock resource/build action mechanic, giving special one off capabilities that allow you to improve your turn ( better trading ratios, special actions ) whilst also giving bonus victory points for sets of achievements. These cards allow the canny player to get a bigger bang for their buck by adding extra victory points for things they already completed - getting a synergy of what you are doing combined with the right kind of achievement can be crucial to winning.

Some whimsical spins on the theme also add interest - given the game is set in not so balmy Wales, the weather affects how much work can be achieved, and in the worst case, all digging and building of track or stations grinds to a halt.

A pub features, where one of your possible workers can be perpetually found. Sod the railway, lets have a pint. By spending a precious coal resource on many of the trains ( of which you can only own one ), you can entice the worker from his well worn seat ( presumably by giving the lazy git a lift up the mountain ) and into giving you an extra action for the turn.

For those of you of a certain age you might be pleased to note that Ivor the Engine, yes, *that* Ivor the Engine features as one of the trains you can buy, giving you the nice capability to actually be able to work in the worst weather unlike everyone else.

A neat game, none too heavy, theme fits nicely, worthy of a game or three.

Jimmy won convincingly, despite my subtle points that Evil Jimmy was the one to watch for. I managed to avoid last. Just about. Huzzah.

Franks Zoo followed, Jimmy perhaps in punishment for his Welsh Railway Win was spanked into last place for the first round ( Quote -"bastards, yer all bastards !" ), but quickly made up ground to be within striking distance of a win as the pub closed - but Matt ended up the winner, a good haul of points only slightly marred by my very weak finish as his partner in the final round.


Table cloths ! The table cloths have a new airtight plastic bag in which to live - this is so that they can endure the somewhat dubious environment of the understairs cupboard without succumbing to suspiciously musty smells. I have also taken another two home to wash, so that with a bit of luck, all will be clean and well in the new lands of Plastic Bag.

Anyone putting the cloths away please remember to stick them in the new funky plastic bag - and seal it.

Half a bonus point for anyone that gets the two winter themed references at the start of the blog.