Et tu, Bingo ?

Once upon a time when I was but a whippersnapper, I would engage in an illicit ( too young to gamble ) game of Bingo all the while under the watchful shadow of my dual wielding, dozen card mashing, no prisoner taking Aunt. Its been something like 30 years since I have set foot inside a Bingo Hall, and whilst at the time it was entertaining, I haven't ever felt the need to return, sweaty dobber pen in hand.

But as scripture says, if You wont go to Bingo, then Bingo will come unto thee.

So it was this week that I got my turn at Augustus, a short game set in ancient Rome, with some fancy ancient Roman artwork, fancy ancient Roman characters and some vaguely ancient Roman symbology. But don't be fooled by the Roman thing. It's Bingo. But instead of calling Bingo, or possibly House, you call Ave Caesar ! Which to me is something a die hard actor luvvie might decide to shout out whilst playing Bingo - the word Bingo being far too pedestrian. Instead -  Avveeeeeee Caesarrrr ! *hand flourish*

The game has you completing cards by listening for your called out symbols which allow you to mark slots with the matching symbol. Complete all of them on a card and you get to stand theatrically and resonate Bingo Ave Caesar ! Sound familiar ?

There are however synergies of card scoring, sets to collect and a few risks to take - all overlaid with a weighted distribution of symbols to consider. But don't let those fancy words fool you. It's Bingo. With some Euro scoring to allow you to believe you are in fact playing something other than Bingo. With Togas.

A short game that won't tax you, a suitable title for filling in those warm up or wind down moments, pretty cool, even if it is fancy scored Bingo.

Nathan for his part was very chuffed with the game, declaring his win to be the first at NoBoG - a Bingo win. A mixed blessing.

Elsewhere this week, Agricola was played with a table of learners + Rich. But Rich failed to capitalise on his enormous experience and came in third of five, Martin instead clinching the win with some synergistic pastures and animals.

Kemet and Seasons were taken upstairs, with wily Med Ed claiming a decisive win in Kemet by stomping The Bond into the dry sands of the desert. Med Ed is rather keen on the game and always seem to do pretty well whenever he plays.

Some Tokyo Kingship and Resistance followed upstairs, with the Good guys chalking up a straight 3 mission victory win in Resistance, and the bad guys failing to spot Merlin for the follow up.

Back downstairs Manhattan project followed by Small World hit one table, and on our table Archipelago returned from the shadows.

A new expansion has just come out for Archipelago - War and Peace, which brings 40 new evolution cards to the islands.

On the face of it an expansion consisting of just 40 evolution cards is a bit weak. It perhaps would have been nice to have had a few more map tiles to increase exploration variation, and a few more victory point cards to change the scoring possibilities.

However the 40 cards still pack a punch and introduce a heretofore missing element to the azure waters - notably direct conflict and meeple death.

It's a fact in Archipelago that as you explore and expand you can never go backwards - once a meeple is on the map, it stays on the map. Buildings that you build in general stay with their owners. And by and large the colony only goes ever onwards and upwards.

Not so under War and Peace. The new cards bring in the capability to bully, steal and even outright kill meeples in an expansion that shakes up your expectations of what is possible, and sees players given the chance to be nastier than ever to each other whilst trying to maintain the semi-cooperative truce to keep the natives from rising up.

Iron is a key resource for all this warmongery and control shenanigans, and sees a welcome improvement on the strategic importance of this element - in the past it has been a bit of an also ran item.

We didn't get too far with our new and spikey game - the colony collapsed in two turns ( 8 actions ) as three very nasty crises hit in succession, emptied the market and ultimately doomed the fat and unwieldy colony before it had a chance to consolidate. Not a huge surprise given two of our players were new to the game, and of the three remaining, one was a separatist who had every reason to see the colony burn.

It was great to return to the Islands, and it should be fun to see the new cards get a proper stretch.

Stu has reminded me that this week and into next is the Norwich Gaming Festival, celebrating many things computer game related at the Forum. There will also however be a chance to play some board games - played on the Tuesday from 6pm onwards. Forum Cafe closes at 9.30pm so any session there would  be shorter and earlier than usual, but if anyone fancies popping along, they can see what's going on, computer game related or not. Otherwise it will be business as usual in the Ribs for next Tuesday.


If you are counting, we had 23 this week over five tables.

Super Hansa Dungeon

Nine this week, Sam - fast turning into a regular, Stu, Rich, Phil, Pete, Moritz, Matt, Nicky and myself.

The special levelling device attended but had a night off, viewing the action from a nearby table.

Phil returned after a hiatus of a few weeks to bring Super Dungeon Explore to the table, explaining that the missing weeks were partly down to a malady that had most of the symptoms of being hung over. But honestly, it wasn't actually being hungover.

Pete took on the role of dungeon master, or whatever the funky new age equivalent is - Subterranean Minority Manager-  and in what has to be said as something of a typical outing of this game, managed to cook, eat and hug the poor adventurers to death with the aid of a late arriving dragon and ogre.

Victory for Evil Pete. On a roll, Hansa Peteonica followed but turned out to be a close contest in which, unusually, Pete did not win. Deciding to feed Phil victory points from his camping of the Action Points the scoring was relatively modest, with both Rich and Pete getting to the golden five actions, but in their greed for more things to do let the win slip away.

Phil declared it good to be back with a win.

Meanwhile, the brand spanking new game, Archipelago, had its first run with five of us. The game is branded as 'semi co-operative' in that whilst you are all competing, you are also trying to not upset the delicate balance of the islands which results in a loss for all players. Unless of course you are the evil Separatist, in which case you are quite happy to see the islands ignite in rebellion.

After a rules session and a couple of turns, our initial colonisation attempts of the new archipelago ended in utter failure. Two turns in, and the islands were in revolt, no goods were in stock, the natives unhappy with their lot. Everyone loses. Except Stu, who turned out to be the separatist. The abrupt end of the game seemed to be quite a shock to all players, including Stu who had won.

Vowing that we now knew what we were doing, Game 2 kicked off with a whole different bunch of strategies. And once again in short order the islands were near revolting.

Tricky.

Turn 2 or 3 - and the game was all over, one of the random end game conditions triggering. A quick tot up of points and wily Moritz had won.

The game can be played as Short, Medium or Long - different cards for each game mean that the end game criteria change and so length of play is adjusted. The short game, advertised at anything between 30 minutes and 2 hours can be harshly short. Concentrate on what you are doing, time is shorter than you think !

The game has hidden VP scoring - each player gets a VP score card indicating what scores points for this game, which is then kept secret. At game end all players score from all cards, meaning what scores you points is largely unknown to a player.

A single face up VP score card is also placed on the table, giving everyone an obvious goal to hit, but with a five player game you are left with knowing only two of the possible 6 scoring cards that are in effect.

If that's not enough uncertainty just when the game ends is also secret, each player having a secret condition that will end the game.

Who's winning ? How long have I got ? Do I need to worry about an Evil Separatist making things more difficult ?

Tricky. A lot more tricky than it first looks. And it looks kinda tricky to start with. Cool stuff though and something different. There's definitely the usual Euro competitive who can manage resources, choose actions and place workers the best, but, crucially, that's not your biggest worry - keeping the islands ticking over is. Which can be tricky to get your head around, as keeping the islands running can mean making personal sacrifices that would otherwise help your own cause. It's easy to get caught up in your brilliant game winning empire expanding strategy only for the game to suddenly end because no one was keeping an eye on things.

Everyone agreed that a longer game should be played, so you can really sink your teeth into setting up your colony.

Finally after all the colony management we managed to get in a short game of Bonanza Dice, with Matt doing particularly well and scoring nothing at all. Huzzah.