Spiel: Boardgaming in the UK

Nothing on the boardgame front on Esdevium’s list this week. Closest you get are a couple of CCG expansions:

Summoner Wars: Grungor’s Charge
‘Reinforcement pack’ for Summoner Wars, from Plaid Hat Games.

Summoner Wars: Rukar’s Power
‘Reinforcement pack’ for Summoner Wars, from Plaid Hat Games.

Twilight Beckons Asylum Pack
Expansion for Call of Cthulhu Living Card Game, from Fantasy Flight Games.

That said, Paul at Boardgameguru has Chocolatl, designed by Gunther Burkhardt and published by Huch & Friends coming in. Also, Nick at Shire Games expects to have a pleasant surprise for all Saboteur fans arriving this week.

Had to go to Hanley today to satisfy Jan and the girls’ retail therapy cravings, so took the opportunity to pop into Shire Games, as you would expect. Finally decided to take the plunge and buy a copy of  The Adventurers while I was there, a fun Indiana Jones style game that I played at Essen in 2009. It takes up to six players, which is good news for when the games club has that awkward number.

Nick also gave me two bits of news. Firstly, The Cast Are Dice games convention looks to be returning in 2011. He’s found a venue close to Stoke station and is anticipating it will be held the second or third weekend in August. Hope it doesn’t clash with when I’m on holiday like the previous events have done. And secondly, he is likely to have a pleasant surprise for fans of the Saboteur card game arriving in the shop early next week.

From the start of February, London on Board now meets on two week-nights.

They meet downstairs at the Red Herring Pub, 49 Gresham Street, EC2V 7ET. There is a wide range of games played from gateways to 18xx. Gamers both new to the hobby and grizzled veterans are all welcomed. 

They also meet on at least one Sunday a month, although this is at a different venue.

Full details of the meetings, including dates and registration can be found here.

Oh and did I mention it’s free?

January saw me play six new games to me and all were pretty good:

Die Saulen der Erde: Die Kartenspiel (Pillars of the Earth: The Card Game) was an interesting trick-taking game, where the cards you won allowed you to gain resources which could be converted to VPs. Wasn’t quite sure how much control you could have but the idea behind the game was pretty sound.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game was played twice during the month (both two-player) and was very involved with lots to explore, although the length of the game means it may not get played quite as often as it might. However, a very enjoyable game.

Famiglia is a very clever two player card game of hand management that plays in about half an hour, designed by Friedemann Friese. Working out how to manipulate the cards in your hand and those on the street (the table) was the key here and there seems not to be one set path to success.

Jamiaca is a good family game of pirating and trying to race round an island while holding onto your stash of treasure. The combat was fun, although our game took just a bit longer than the game warranted, although that really is down to how the players choose to play. A bit too cagey, our lot.

I finally got to play Navegador but just as a two-player and I suspect it would be more interesting with a greater number of players. However, it worked fairly well as a two-player and again there looks to be plenty of options to explore with this game.

However, my pick for Game of the Month ended up being 20th Century, the latest by Vladimir Suchy. The dual auction system worked well and judging how to control your garbage needed quite a bit of thought. Our winner took a gamble that paid off but I’m sure the rest of us will have more idea next time of how aggressive or conservative we need to be.

This week, there were six of us and I was keen to try out my Secret Santa gift, Jamaica. This is a sort-of race game with treasure and piracy thrown in, where your score is determined by how close to the finish line you are when somebody crosses the finish line, how many doubloons you have in your hold, and the value of treasure and curses you have amassed.

Now Mark W seemed to have great difficulty leaving port. As soon as he left, he kept finding he didn’t have the food to pay to stay at his destination so kept moving back. Once he did get going, I started to try moving backwards to keep out of the way of the others as my hold had been filled to the brim with doubloons. Plus I had some supposedly secret treasure – well it would have been if Mark K hadn’t faked a slip of the tongue and warned everyone of its value so they didn’t cross the line too early. Mark G ended up across the line first and had just enough in treasure and doubloons to overtake my total.

This was a pretty fun game and the combat kept things interesting, although my lagging back and others trying to wait for me added a bit to the game length. However, it was still a good game that would play well with the family.

Our next game was my Game of the Month for December but it was the first time we had played it at the club. The Resistance is a social deduction game where, with six players, the four resistance operatives are trying to successfully complete three out of five missions while two spies are trying to sabotage those missions. Each mission starts with someone proposing who should be on the mission team and then everyone voting whether or not to agree to that team. If the team gets voted down, the next person gets to propose a team until a majority of players votes in favour of a particular team. Once the team has been established, each team member secretly plays a card for the mission to succeed or fail, with a single fail card meaning the mission is unsuccessful. Once three missions have succeeded or three failed, the game ends with a win for either all resistance players or for all spies.Our next game was my Game of the Month for December but it was the first time we had played it at the club. The Resistance is a social deduction game where, with six players, the four resistance operatives are trying to successfully complete three out of five missions while two spies are trying to sabotage those missions. Each mission starts with someone proposing who should be on the mission team and then everyone voting whether or not to agree to that team. If the team gets voted down, the next person gets to propose a team until a majority of players votes in favour of a particular team. Once the team has been established, each team member secretly plays a card for the mission to succeed or fail, with a single fail card meaning the mission is unsuccessful. Once three missions have succeeded or three failed, the game ends with a win for either all resistance players or for all spies.

The game came down to the very last mission and after a couple of mission teams had been proposed and declined, it was down to me to choose a team. Now, it has to be said that Mark W had appeared to be somewhat confused all the way through the game and had voted against the successful mission team in the fourth round. So when I proposed a dream team of myself and the three Marks, Nige was quick to point this out to me. However, after careful reflection, I explained that a strong team not only needed brains, quick wits and brawn but also the token bone-head and continued with my original proposal – mainly because I was confident of having worked out that Nige was a spy on the third round. And so it was that the mission was successful and the resistance triumphed.

I really like this game and Nige seemed equally impressed. It plays with between five and ten players and I’m sure the game will work differently with different numbers of players. However, it won’t suit everyone and Guy rated it quite low as it wasn’t his kind of game.

With about half an hour left, we decided to finish off with another game of The Resistance – unusual for us to play a game twice in a row. However, this time, it didn’t turn out quite as well for the good guys. The first mission team of Mark W and Mark G came through with flying colours, although Mark G had been rather too hesitant in picking his Succeed/Fail card and suspicion immediately fell on him. After the spies had managed to sabotage both missions two and three, it suddenly became very tense. Again a couple of mission teams got voted down and I was again the proposer. Now, I was pretty sure that the spies were Mark G and Nige but I wasn’t discounting Guy so even though I put forward Mark K, Mark W, Guy and myself, I did have a slight doubt. The mission team got approved and off they went….and it failed! Disaster but even moreso as Mark W turned out to be the second spy. Mark K and I had assumed it was Nige and Nige had assumed it was me. It was very well played by the spies especially with proposing themselves on the first mission and both voting it to succeed. So, Mark W turned out not to be such a bone-head second time around. Excellent stuff.

Only one boardgame title on Esdevium’s list this week and that’s a new version of a 2006 game:

Factory Fun
Board game for 2-4 players, ages 10+, approx playing time 45 minutes.
Published by Z-Man Games, designed by Corne van Moorsel.

However, it sounds as though stock will be very limited as most of the allocation to the UK was covered in mold. Oops!

Paul Allwood emailed me yesterday to let me know about his UK game group. Newcastle Gamers are an established group playing Euro games, Board games, Wargames and Card games across the North East of England. According to their website blurb, they are a very friendly club of mixed ages, mixed experience and mixed interests but they come together twice a month to share their common passion for gaming. A large selection of games is always on offer, but people are also welcome to bring their own.

They have just, as of 29th January 2011, changed venue and  now meet at Joseph Cowan House [NE2 1QQ], 21 Portland Terrace in Jesmond, Newcastle. Portland Terrace connects Sandyford Road and Jesmond Road and is very close to Newcastle city centre.

All the details about the club are here.

 

I suppose this should be subtitled “..but they probably always were!”

Now that Boardgamenews has been assimilated by the Borg that is Boardgamegeek, some of the former contributors have got together under resistance leader, Dale Yu, to launch a new blog covering game reviews and columns about gaming i.e. the non-news bits of Boardgamenews. They comprise a veritable “slew” of talented writers and I’m sure there’s going to be some great reading to digest there …. and the odd Ted Alspach comic strip as well!!!!

I’m looking forward to seeing how this develops and you can following along here.

Merchants & Marauders
Board game for 2-4 players, ages 13+, approx playing time 180 minutes.
Published by White Goblin Games/Z-Man Games, designed by Kasper Aagaard and Christian Marcussen.

Van Helsing
Board game for 2-5 players, ages 10+, approx playing time 45 minutes.
Published by Sirius Games/Mayfair Games, designed by Frederic Moyersoen.

Liberte
Board game for 3-6 players ages 12+, approx playing time 120 mins.
Published by Valley Games, designed by Martin Wallace.

Crows
Tile laying game for 2-4 players ages 10+, approx playing time 45 mins.
Published by Valley Games, designed by Tyler Sigman.

Gareth Davies has just launched a new blog called Rook and Roll: Board Gaming in the UK – I like the subtitle, although if it were me, I might alter it slightly 🙂

Only a handful of articles so far but some interesting stuff. You can view the site here.