The Traveller

An artful eight this week, including David, a temporary visitor hailing from Chelmsford. Giving up his regular Chelmsford gaming group ( CheBoG ? ) for the week to visit family, NoBoG welcomed The Traveller by sitting down to a game of the new and shiny City of Remnants.

City of Remnants is an area control game, with a bit of deck building, a bit of dice rolling combat and a Euro style action list with a smattering of Euro mechanics to go around. Set in some dystopian future, mankind has been brought low by some unspeakable alien race, with the survivors living in city ghettoes, rubbing shoulders with a range of other conquered imported aliens all under the iron rule of the invaders. Life devolves into scrambles for petty power and criminality by rival gangs, and it is one of these gangs that a player finds himself leading.

Your aim is to be the bestest, most notorious gang in the city - building up your criminal empire, fighting off other gangs, and avoiding the patrols of the alien overlords to be crowned kingpin.

There are many elements to this game, and there are a few things that lie in its shadows that might not be entirely obvious at first glance - hinting at some deep replay possibilities. Probably the chief mechanic in importance is that of managing your deck ( and each factions starter deck is unique to them ). Your deck represents your gang, its equipment and capabilities - and in a very real sense is tied to how many figures you can place on the board and therefore how much area you can control and firepower you can bring. For each gang member card you recruit into your deck, another figure becomes available for you to place on the board and vie for control.

The City - Dean nowhere to be seen

 But this isn't a game of luxuriously large decks. Your deck is small. Tight. And it's used in both combat and turn actions. Central to this deck size is the fact that it doesn't automatically refresh. Once it's gone, it's gone. Add to this a single combat action that can devour your entire deck and it quickly becomes apparent that timing can be critical in this game where ordinarily your deck will only refresh every four actions ( turns ).

But there is hope - you can take an action to refresh your deck prematurely. But of course, burning this action to refresh your deck is possibly a waste of a better opportunity - moving your gang members to control areas and attack, producing items to sell, developing premises into lucrative businesses, recruiting new gang members, or buying items from the black market.

A pile of cash, some notoriety and a single gang member free

The game area is relatively small - and the gangers can move relatively quickly. All of these factors add up to a game that can be intense and where your actions have a heavy price. To make matters even worse - every combat you lose, you lose a ganger off the table... and you permanently lose a card from your deck. Combat losses *hurt*.

It's definitely possible in this game to make a series of bad decisions and end up in a place that is difficult to get out of.

In our game the learning process was very evident as we all lurched from one game mechanic to the next with each revelation that oh yeah, that was quite important / useful. Dean and Sam entered into a punishing war that saw Dean struggling to even enter the city, and Sam reduced to a skeleton crew of gang members - a hairs breadth away from being exterminated entirely.

Dean has a sad and threatens to play his DS instead, as Sam takes Dean's
new development and thwarts all his attempts at entering the game.

This left David and myself in a relatively stronger position and vying for more useful control of the city proper. However, despite me taking an early lead and developing useful enterprises, David utilised his gangs special powers very well, and collected bounty on every player in the game to end up triumphant.

A cool game - it does seem open to a bit of Analysis Paralysis as players may sit and ponder what they should be doing - and with a relatively high VP condition, the game can play longer than it says on the tin. The game is also fairly unforgiving - make a mistake and you can get punished for it - and there is little to no mechanic to haul in a powerful player down. However, the small deck size, and the timing of card use pretty much makes this a non event, as a concerted effort against a single player is sure to reap rewards. The game feels like it can swing back and forth, and control of the city is not an easy thing.

Also, I don't know whether it was me, but I got such a strong Mega City One vibe from this game - it could so easily have been set in a 2000AD Judge Dredd setting, replace the alien overlords with judges, but leave everything else just about as it is. Makes me wonder if that was a missed IP opportunity right there.


Whilst the future gang warfare was going on, the second table sat down to another stab at Elder Sign. Ewan, Moritz, Pete and Nicky ventured forth against the unspeakable Lovecraftian denizens, and once more the museum was beset with strange noises and desperate battles. The heroes managed to thwart the Elder Gods once more - perhaps reinforcing reports that this game is a tad too easy for players to conquer.

Flipping roles and taking on the guise of monstrous entities themselves, King of Tokyo was next up for a game or two, Ewans cyber bunny triumphantly destroying all comers to be crowned de facto King of Tokyo for lack of any surviving competitors. A raucous and noisy second helping of monstrous carnage was unleashed, this time Nicky hauling in the 20 points required for a win.

After the noise of Tokyo, the table fell silent and a deep thoughtful quiet settled on the players.

I had no clue what they were playing. I figured they had busted out some four player chess variant from the serious faces and quiet thinking. But no. It turned out to be Hey Thats My Fish - and everyone was brain burning how to lead their penguins to greedy fishy victory.


Cool stuff. I look forward to getting City of Remnants out on the table again, this time with the benefit of knowing whats important and what isn't - and also making sure the turns hussle along. Perhaps Toms iPad game turn timer app would come in useful. . . .

Decembrrrr - The End is Nigh

December is upon us, and only a few weeks of gaming are left before the world ends in the fiery cataclysm of the 21st. At just after half past 2 in the afternoon. It will be a cold and rainy Friday that at first glance will seem unremarkable, but the combustion of the planet will if nothing else spare us another dreary manufactured Christmas Number One from Simon Cowell, America's Top Singing Model, UKs Biggest Loser in Chelsea Essex, X Factor, Krappy Karaoke Kraziness Get Me Out of Here Live or some such other televisual excellence. Always look on the positive side eh ?

Ten players arrived this Tuesday to have it out over beer, tables and games, and including nine of the Usual Suspects, we had a new person - Grace turn up to uhh, grace us with her presence. Apparently Langleys the toy shop in the Royal Arcade tipped her off about our existence and a twitter search did the rest. NoBoG fame spreads throughout Norwich ! As far as a couple of streets over from The Ribs at least. As for the rest of the denizens, Sam, Matt, Pete, Rich, Bondy, Stu, Tom, Dean and myself were present.

Terra Mystica

Pete brought along his new and shiny Terra Mystica, a fairly weighty piece which as Pete likes to point out is a perfect information game. Dean and Tom challenged him to a duel of who could amass the most points by building villages, competing for cult dominance and generally fulfilling special powers, but around half way through Dean was flagging and admitted his brain had melted.

The game begins with a selection of a unique 'race' each of which have subtly different building costs and one or two very different powers that can get triggered by doing various things. A couple of settlements are placed on the board per player keyed to whichever land type you call home. The board is split up into various land types with each race having an affinity for a single type upon which it can freely build, but you also have a personal chart indicating the cost to terraform other incompatible land types into your own, thus hopefully spreading your dominion ( and lessening others ).

On top of these segments of land you can construct a settlement which through a number of improvement options can be upgraded into buildings of more import which lead to various other powers being triggered. Cities - that is to say a contiguous group of buildings of a certain size - are one of the keys to the game, each city earns you a bonus, and there are bonus points at the end for the player with the largest city. Getting more than one city is a nice trick - preferably that by game end joins up into one giant city, thus netting you all manner of bonuses.

Given however that you can usually only spread influence to areas you neighbour, its not quite so simple as just leaping all over the board building up any number of power bases. There are also minor bonuses to be had for building next to someone else, so whilst on the one hand marking out your territory is good, rubbing shoulders with someone else gives you advantages.

It's quite a nice Euro game, it has some mechanics that have definitely been seen before, nothing amazingly innovative - although the different player races put a nice spin on quite what your sweet spot is - but for me I'm not sure there's quite enough there to make it stellar. In some ways it reminds me of a cross between Tzolkin and Small World. But definitely worthy of a blast.

Vengeful Flames, Muddy Dwarves and Frightened Shrooms...

Speaking of Small World, Stu brought Small World Underground along, and Rich, Bondy and myself settled down for a whizz at this. Small World Underground is a variant of Small World - a different board from regular Small World with underground type themed areas ( mines, volcanoes, errr...mud, mushrooms, mountains and crystals ) and a whole new set of crazy races and traits to choose from. In addition to the usual Small World stuff, a number of 'monsters' lurk on the board, which in practice are defended areas you need to overcome. When beaten a monster is removed and in its place you get either a relic or a special place - both of which lend you special capabilities. As might be expected relics can tend to be picked up and hauled about, whilst places stay where they are - making certain areas on the board suddenly strategically important. Making most use of these items and places lends another edge to this game and provides in my opinion a not unwelcome new importance on gaining a particular territory.

Personally I find Small World a cool and fun diversion, but it's over simple for me to play it more than irregularly. I love the crazy traits and races, but beyond that... uh... I find the placement and positioning of races just... wacky and somewhat obvious. Perhaps it's the wargamer in me - where are my borders, my fortifications, my reinforcements. Nevertheless I would rate Underground as an improvement on the original. And you can mix and match the races from the sets too. Cool !

Despite Rich playing like a brick for the first half of the game he came on strong at the end with rampant abuse of a double scoring revealed special place, and was only thwarted in victory by my meddling in his grand plans. The game scored fairly close for all, although I was 12 points off of the lead, despite, or perhaps because of a strong early start.

Pandemic. Sam glares at me whilst Grace gives the board the finger.

Grace, Sam and Matt played Pandemic, with all the colds, coughs and sniffles going round at the moment a highly topical game, but alas I failed to note how the sneezing and disease spreading went. Keeping up with the happy positive theme, the three then embarked on a game of Gloom. Nothing like a game of world ending diseases followed by competing to be the most miserable player of all to cheer you up on a cold Winter evening.

A quick game of Hey Thats My Fish was squeezed in post Terra Mystica on Pete's table, and Libertalia was brought forth cannons blazing after Small World for another round of piratical loot grabbing, which I am pleased to note included the cursed item ditching Monkey. It's not about whether you win or lose, it's about how much evil your monkey can get up to by dumping all your cursed relics on the player to the left. Rich in my case. Huzzah.

Finally, an epic ten handed game of Saboteur ended the evening, with Rich and Matt tying for lead. Ten players is bonkers - I suspect Saboteur 2 is actually better suited to 10 - as the tunnels can either very quickly develop or quickly fall apart if there is a line of one type of player or the other, but nevertheless it's still a blast to play.

The new rebooted Merchant of Venus also stuck its nose in, walked about the place, but left without being played - it having better things to do than associate with the oiks in the Wherry Room. Perhaps next week we can entice it to stay.


In other news, it may or may not have come to your attention, but we have a new spanky Joining In page next to the usual Home page for the blog. This page has the lowdown on Tuesday gaming and should hopefully provide a good resource for newcomers or lurkers to peruse. If someone you know is interested - point them at the Joining In page and all will be explained ! If you feel something is missing from that page, speak up, and we can add it in.

Lastly, one of our regulars - Dean - does a bit of contribution work over on the Ready Up gaming site. He has recently started reviewing board games over there and has kicked off with a report on the new City of Horror zombie game. You can head on over to his review to see what he made of it and also spy some pretty pictures of a game or two in progress. I would like to add that the Steve Jobs character in the game managed to stand out in the open in the most dangerous part of the city for the entire game - boring his companion - the old man - to death with his reports on just how good his iPad was. So potent was his presentation that no Zombie could get near the pair to bite them. Blessed be the Cult of Jobs, for lo all his corners are rounded and his prices be reassuringly expensive.

Beer. The Nog was favoured apparently. Malty. Dark ? For Pete it was too burnt. He prefers something more toffee like. Stu corrected him on his poor taste. Personally I have no idea what they were talking about, the coke was as ever far too sweet, with too much caffeine, but that's why we like it.

Bondy steals the camera and gets an awful shot of me...

... and a blurry drunken shot of Rich !

Gaming Galore

 T he dark and the cold have arrived in Norwich, and the weather minions at NoBoG HQ inform me that snow may be here by the end of October. However, I am dubious of the divinations of the weather lackeys on their crystal balls. We shall see.

Eleven souls sought comfort from the Autumn chill in the cosy confines of The Ribs of Beef, with more games on offer than a professional stick shaker could shake a stick at. Sheepland, Endeavour, Hansa Teutonica, Hey that's my fish, Archipelago and Saboteur 2 were played, in some instances more than once, for a total of ten plays, not including the multi rounds of Saboteur 2.

Pete's hair - a wondrous thing that is an almost honourary NoBoG member in its own right - was for the first time in quite a while not present. It seems that it had finally gained sentience after observing one too many games of Race for the Galaxy and had made a break for freedom and a new life in South America. Whether it was escaping Pete or Race for the Galaxy is hard to say. Pete on the other hand arrived somewhat diminished and sporting a new streamlined look, with a good deal less hair.

But on with the games !

Bondy brought Endeavour to the table, which in his own words is "a game about doing things". A surefire marketing tagline if ever I heard one. Stu, Matt and Moritz challenged Bondy in the battle of vying European powers, with Stu triumphing in building the most glorious Empire of them all. Next up on their table was Stu's Sheepland with which Bondy repaired his bruised Endeavour reputation by becoming the most sheep herding Shepherd.

Meanwhile myself, Ed, Tom and Alina tackled the deceptively tricky Archipelago which almost predictably saw the colony explode in rebellion during the first game causing everyone to lose. Vowing that everyone knew what was going on, the second game kicked off with suspiciously similar strategies in place. The ugly practice of Slavery quickly wormed its way into the colony which I snapped up to add to my capabilities - much to the disgust of everyone else. Enduring slurs about being an evil slaver during following negotiations it was somewhat ironic to then find both Ed and Alina indulging in the use of Slavery themselves.

 Hypocrisy of the highest order ! Unbeknownst to all however, I was the evil Separatist and was secretly happy people where employing the powerful slavery at the cost of increasing levels of rebellion.

Co-operation warred with blind self interest amongst the players, and given the number of times Ed disappeared under his hood with a pained expression, a certain amount of nail biting and worry was also involved. As time ran out on the evening levels of rebellion drew critically close to sending the whole colony down once more. The game finished with a probable win for the Separatist, but unfortunately we couldn't quite finish to find out.

Pete, Rich and Phil sat down with Hansa Teutonica - which once again is getting a hammering of plays - and interspersed the merchant shenanigans with brutal penguin fish gobbling.

 Rich and Pete took wins in Hansa, and as for the penguins. . . who knows. Hey That's my Fish seems to be slowly spreading its influence in the group as people get introduced to it or replay it.

Saboteur 2 finished the evening with a 7 handed set of rounds, the shifty Saboteurish Phil always a suspicious player.