Have you seen this gamer?

We were all concerned at the games club, where was Ollie? He had travelled to London on the Hogwarts express with the intention of participating in a magic tournament. Having thrashed everyone in the preliminary rounds in Norwich it was time for Ollie to face the greasy 11 year olds of old London town. But what had happened? Had he vanquished all his foes? or was he lying in a ditch one of Voldemorts victims? Nobody knew. No doubt we would find out as he walked through the door……

But wait Ollie didn’t appear. Now at Norwich games club this isn’t that big a deal, people don’t turn up ALL THE TIME. But since his first appearance Ollie has been an ever present, notching up more appearances than Jimmy, Matt or Luke. Ollie was even at NBG on new years day! So what had happened? Had the dementors taken him? Was he in Azkaban? No just staying in London for a few extra days that’s all. In his absence Jimmy, Kat, Matt and Luke played Tinners trail a Martin Wallace outing that plays with no money and no cards, just wooden counters placed on the board. The game was very close with Matt edging it in the end though any player could have won.

Tinners Trail see us mining for tin or copper in Cornwall but wait there is a third resource of water booo. Water adds to the cost of the mining and it seems that all the game mechanics have a thematic point which is one of the great things about playing a Wallace game. You start with a small amount of money and need to ration it as payday comes only at the end of the round after all the auctions that may occur and after all the mining you may attempt. What’s more you can’t retain cubes for selling later which means that if the market prices your resources low money may be very short.

There are a list of actions written on the board including the cost in action points and you can use up to 15 AP in one round. There is a neat mechanism where the person who has used fewest action points so far is the active player and as points are spent you might find yourself not playing for a while then having a string of goes like proverbial London buses. If you instigate an auction the winner pays the cost in money and action points so you are not penalised for not winning auctions, what’s more this can form an interesting tactical choice. Force auctions for less desirable locations to clean up the better ones later.

There are various improvements you can take which have costs linked to their power. Each are limited and missing out in one round means waiting till further rounds to get your hands on that vital improvement. Workers allow you to mine 3 cubes from a pit head rather than the standard 2, ships reduce the water cubes present by one (used to produce steam power apparently). There is a shaft link thingy that connects two regions and reduces water by one in both regions + adds one of copper and one tin to both regions, it kicks ass but costs the most action points and there is only one available per round. There is a train which enters the game for rounds three and four which reduces the water cubes by one in the region its placed + all adjacent regions. There is also a pump which becomes more powerful and more common as the rounds progress which is excellent value. The big problem is having a turn earlier enough to take these bonuses.

The player who passes first gets to go first in the next round, so the earlier you pass the more chance you have of getting something good next round, but in a four round game time is very limited and passing too early is also very costly.

The last options available are selling pasties which earn you £1 handy if you are caught short of funds and last but not least, mining, the main route to success.

At the start of the game dice are rolled to decide the additional placements of resources. At the start of a new round the first two players may discover resources in two new regions, any player can then auction that region knowing what resources are available. You could choose to auction an unknown area but hey, that’s your risk, you might end up with a lemon. Also at the start of each round dice are rolled to work out the current market price for tin and copper. At the end of the round you have to sell all your cubes for those fixed prices. Mining costs a single action point and can only be done in one region at a time. You may mine whatever resources you like / are available in that region for cost of £1 per water cube for each resource you take. So if there were 3 water cubes present and you where mining to cubes of tin that would cost £6. What’s more after you have mined, an additional water cube is placed in the region making it more expensive to mine on subsequent turns.

After selling all your cubes there are victory points available to buy, but be warned, cash is carried over and if you spend too much on VP that will cripple you for the remainder of the game. Obviously VP is cheaper earlier on and going first is crucial at this stage as there are limited VPs available to buy as Kat found out to her cost.

I enjoyed this game and inspired a classic Wallace Vs Knizia debate. Long live the euro.

ONE, TWO, THREE!

Tuesday 20th May 2008.

We were half way through a game of Pit when there was an almighty crash from upstairs. Now Pit is a loud and raucous affair, yet the sound of destruction from the bar could easily be heard over the shouts of "TWO, TWO, TWO. TWO? THREE. ONE, ONE, ONE, ONE. TWO? FOUR..."
"Oh no" said Luke "Do you think that's Jimmy?"
We stopped and listened a while, fearing that Jimmy had arrived, ten minutes late, and that Luke's little prank had gone horribly wrong. I imagined a wrecked pub, dead barmaids in a pool of beer and the diminutive Scottish man (although apparently he's not Scottish) standing astride the carnage. However, we needn't have feared such calamity - the bar staff were being unusually clumsy that night and had dropped heavy stuff on the floor (I don't think we enquired what it was in the end) . Luke discovered a text message on his phone saying that Jimmy wasn't coming and we finished the remaining rounds of Pit safe in the knowledge that the bar staff would not be able to launch Operation Jimbo, and that there would only be five in attendance that evening. We moved onto the main event...

The League of Six! In a world where crime an injustice rule, six superheroes come together to vanquish... actually it's about tax collecting in 15th century Europe. No superheroes in sight. We'd played this before and I'd done really badly as I'd miscalculated the need for guards (actually, I didn't think I had done that badly, but Ollie assured me that I'd probably lost). This time I over compensated and ended up with a hand full of guards instead of none, but it did allow me to actually compete for regions and points. James flew out into the lead, but at the expense of collecting 'people cards' which would earn points at the end of the game, Luke, Tarn and myself made up the pack, whilst Ollie languished at the back, but had a big grin, a handful of 'people cards' and a plan which he was hoping would earn him the full 27 bonus at the end of the game. You'll be pleased/dismayed to hear that his plan didn't quite come to fruition and he fell short of the eventual winner. A one sentence review (just for Ollie) : Nice mechanisms which make a competitive and confrontational, yet somewhat frustrating game.

As the evening started to draw to a close, Luke pulled out Felix: The Cat in the Sack, and talk moved to the dumbing down of GCSE exams and relative merits of prostitutes in Russia and Brazil. James fervently argued that the Brazilian girls were the way forward whilst Luke stuck up for his wife's homeland and said the whores in Russia were second to none. And that was that. We cleared up, agreed it was good to see James and Tarn down the Ribs again, and predicted a loss for Chelsea in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

Oh, and I won all three games. Cue the victory dance.

Beer: I was mostly drinking Adnams May Day. An excellent pale ale with hint of fruit. ABV 5%. Seasonal April & May. 8/10

Rock Solid

What difference a week makes, eight last night saw us splitting up into two fours, Rachel, Adam, Chris and Jimmy played Taj mahal followed by Tichu. Ollie, Tom, Luke and Jack BS Shannon played Stone age and then Pandemic.

As usual the pandemic took control and despite a valiant attempt to cure diseases, the game kicked our arses. I don’t have a clue what happened on the other table though I got the impression Rachel may have won one of the games this could be entirely false? Maybe someone could comment with an accurate report.

The real revelation was Stone age which I enjoyed immensely. It is not an amazing game or a game full of interesting or new mechanics, it just does this style of game very well. In the beginning I was wondering if there was anything a player could do that wouldn’t give victory points, this list seemed to be endless. And as is typical the elegance of the game is only richly appreciated once you are playing.

Stone age is a game where strategy (or is it tactics – I forget) takes a back seat, there is very little long term planning (some…but little) on your turn you just choose the most rewarding thing on offer and hope that next turn you will be left with your second or third choice without someone else taking it. An ability to roll with the punches and change horses in midstream is a must, but there are enough rounds for you to do what you want, even in a bad situation there is always something worthwhile taking. Stone age takes many features from ‘pillars of the earth’ but is a completely different game, the placement of workers on features has a Caylus vibe but far less long term planning is needed and this game is a lot more far and evenly balanced between experienced and newbie gamers. This is completely my type of game (even with the dice rolling), rudimentary analysis, placement timing, resource management, brilliant. I need to play this again ASAP. I regularly enjoy games but this ranks highly for me. I look forward to playing it again, and with a bit of luck, on its second play it should play much faster.

Toodle pip