Martha the Camel

Ah, the joys of Norwich traffic on a football day - NoBoG evening found me many miles from Norwich dahn sahf, battling to return against lane cutting coaches and roads that cannot handle the numbers. So I arrived this week without any preparation or organisation and without any clear game to play. I decided to watch the river go by from the Ribs balcony instead and enjoy not looking at the arse end of yet another football coach.

My peaceful reverie did not last long however, as a bunch of fresh faced first year UEA students turned up fashionably late looking for games to play. Given only one of them had any real kind of gaming experience, Agricola seemed positively cruel, Legendary Encounters probably... a bit too alien, so I started them off on the gentle crowd pleaser, King of Tokyo.

Which was a bit like Yahtzee I explained.

What's Yahtzee ?

An old family game from then 70's, 60's, 50's whatever.

But I'm only 19, I don't know Yahtzee.

Moments like this make you realise just how old you are. Or possibly how few people play Yahtzee anymore. I blame Angry Birds.

A couple of enjoyable games followed, Kaylee was determined to be a pacifist penguin and came second twice, or in her own words "a consistent failure". Camel Up was played next, with Kaylee again favouring odd tactics and encouraging the hopelessly behind yellow camel ( which she named Martha ) to ride forth and win. She did not however put her money where her mouth was, and refused to bet on the long term prospects of Martha.

We finished with a couple of games of Avalon Resistance, four new players in a six player game, followed by five new players in a seven player game. Uh huh. No monumental cockups, apart from a team of all good guys managing to fail a quest. Uhhh. And then Darren convinced I was a bad guy sending all the actual bad guys on a quest together. Oh dear.

Despite Darren being very keen to play Resistance with our group, he spent most of the play time stating how he hated playing Resistance with me. I took it as a compliment. Which sounds weird perhaps unless you've played Resistance. He dithered about me being Merlin. I told him I wasn't Merlin. Incredibly unlikely I was. He stabbed me on the offchance I was Merlin. I wasn't Merlin. I suspect this has not improved his liking of playing Resistance with me.

It was great to get to play Resistance again - it's been a while for me, and it was great to wind Darren up. Very enjoyable.

Elsewhere Stu rustled up some Burgundum for a group of five, followed possibly by some Love Letter. Downstairs the longest ever game of Betrayal at house on the Hill saw Lewis and his zombies eat everyones brains - including the two newcomers ( rather rude to eat newcomers brains before they learn the ropes ) and Elliot brought his Catan on steroids with the Catan Histories : Settlers of America : Trails to Rails.

Which left Sam on the last table showing off his new kickstarter package. I think at this point Sam needs to be called Kickstarter Sam as he seems intent on single handedly supporting board game kickstarter development by investing in one of every other release.

This week Sam had Xia, a game in which you get to fly your spaceship around, make money from salvage and cargo, shoot things, explore things and compete for titles and fame. Which in theory sounds like a more open ended Merchant of Venus - or if you like Elite - The Boardgame. Richard IV gave this game a big thumbs up and recommended I give it a try if I could. A pity I was so unprepared otherwise I would have had a nice picture of it.

28 this week.

Warning: Crocker Crunching Cube Crusher

If you were in the Ribs of Beef on Tuesday evening and know how many nautical gallons there are in a bakers dozen or the time it would take Geoffrey Boycott to mow a meadow, then you probably took part in Emily’s Quiz and Fish night. If not then you were probably downstairs playing board games.

Kev, Christine, Crocker, Luke and Lovely Rich played Hansa Teutonica; a euro style game, which has planted it’s flag firmly in the euro game camp. I can tell this as it has victory points, action points, worker placement, network building, a load of coloured wooden cubes and even a bearded man on the cover of the box. It should also have little picture of Luke Crocker in the corner with the words “Warning: Crocker Crunching Cube Crusher” as this is just the type of game that he loves and excels at. I can’t tell you much about it, but it looked nice and apparently needed 40 minutes of analysis after Crocker won. After the debate finished they whipped out China, which Crocker also won.

I re-visited Settlers of America: Trails to Rails with Punk Rich, Stu and Tom. I was pleased to get a second chance to play this while it was still fresh in my mind from last week, especially against Tom and Rich, who had played it before and therefore (possibly) came to the table with strategies in mind. We played a close fought game, but despite winning it’s gone down in my estimation. It’s still a good game, but the strategies are more transparent than I imagined and I am, therefore, more sensitive to the slow pace of the game and the relatively long playing time.

Trails to Rails doesn't Fail

I decided not to make a pun about tossing last week (pancake day) and will refrain again this week. Ten turned up last night, but Crocker stayed at home again…

As promised I got a seat at the table where Kev had set up Settlers of America: Trails to Rails. I can now tell you my remark about it being a cross between Settlers and Ticket to Ride is a bit off the mark. It certainly has a lot of the elements you’d expect to find in Settlers and it’s true it does now have trains, but the necessity of timing the track laying with goods delivery takes it up a level from Ticket to Ride. This is certainly a meatier affair; more strategic and with a longer playing time. I enjoyed my time playing Trails to Rails and went home thinking about strategies, which is always a good sign. Kev won, beating Christine, Steve and myself.

We then got an opportunity to play Innovation by designer Carl Chudyk, who also designed Glory to Rome. Innovation is a civilization based card game where players race to develop their civilisation by developing technologies, ideas, and cultural advancements, all represented by cards. Each of these cards has a unique power which allows further advancement, point scoring, or even attacking other civilizations. I mentioned race, and it is a bit like Race for the Galaxy, not necessarily in gameplay, but because it needs a tight group to play the hell out of it before it starts to shine. If you know the cards and how it all works then I can see that it could be very good, but if not then it feels a bit of a random card draw with arbitrary results. Unfortunately, I can’t see me playing this enough for it make it past the first stage. Your mileage may vary (obviously!) and I can see Punk Rich reading this with a crazy, yet delighted, grin on his face. Perhaps on a boat.

The rest of the group, which comprised of Phil, Stu, Tom and the three Riches played Bohnanza, the crazy bean trading game, which Lovely Rich won and 7 Wonders, which Phil won. They rounded off the evening with a game of Clans, which once again ended with victory for Phil.

Beer: I tried a pint of Rudgate’s Spring Elixir. A golden coloured ale with a citrus flavour and a floral nose. It was ever so slightly vinegary so I can't recommend it.