After last years successful event
Spirit Games went ahead and booked the
Three Queens Hotel again for this year. In anticipation of large attendance based on feedback from the previous event this one was made Pre-Book Only.
Whilst the event seemed to be well attended over the weekend, there was not the same crushed feeling of the year before. I suspect the numbers were not as big overall compared to last year, which may in some respect due to the clashes with Essen Spiel 2014 and the aforementioned pre-book only which does put some people off.
Popular games played throughout the weekend were
Kingsburg,
7-Wonders and
Lords of Waterdeep along with a good mix of other games thrown in.
That said the
Three Queens Hotel is quite a pleasant venue with some good gaming spaces and the Staff were very helpful. The same comment as last year about the gaming areas were spread out throughout the hotel which made it a bit more difficult to find players or games but on the plus side did provide some out of the way places for larger or more noisy games.
They had some decent beer on tap, courtesy of
Burton Bridge Brewery which was excellent, though a tad more expensive than getting it from the Bridge pub itself but heh!..
 | So the Saturday started lightly with a game of Mamma Mia! a light fun little game about making pizzas. It's been a long time since I last played it and I had forgotten how fun it was. Players put down ingredient cards on their turn (any # of one type) or place one of their pizza recipe cards, if they think the right number and type of ingredients have been placed down already. When the round ends and the pizzas are scored players can add additional cards from their hands to complete their recipe to score or just return that card to the bottom of their recipe deck. |
 | Next up was Bloody Legacy another excellent fun little game. Played over a series of rounds which end with the last man standing the winner is the one who survives till the end with some life intact  You have a hand of cards which can consist of traps, tricks or defence cards you play one of the first two types in front of another player to hurt them or reduce their hand size, though the defence cards can negate or pass those cards onto other players or back onto you. As son as someone has no cards left or takes 5 skulls of damage they lose a life and are out of the round. Play continues until there is one survivor and is repeated in subsequent rounds until one person has eliminated all the others.... The artwork is superb and it plays really quickly so serves as a good filler game. |
 | Moved onto Yunnan next which I have managed to play a fair bit since I nabbed a copy, I really like this game there is some real strategy and tactics to be put into play here in order to maximise your earnings/point scoring options. I played this game with some people I had not played before, which is always nice to have a different experience. They had not played before so the game was longer than normal due to rules explanations and some questions during the game which is fine I'm happy to teach games I know to new people. There are choices to be made during this game which can impact what can be done later in the turn, though these are few and not really that hard, unfortunately one of the players was prone to a little excessive Analysis Paralysis which made the game play a lot longer than I would expect even with new players. Still it was tough battle for the win, with one of my opponents winning with some excellent moves in the final rounds |
 | With the same players we started setting up a 7 wonders which then attracted some others from games that had just finished. We played the basic game, as we had some new players, to avoid introducing too many rules to explain. Though it is not a game I own I helped out with the rules explanation whilst the setting up was completed. This is always a good fun game that scales really well without significantly altering the time taken to play. Great game producing some reasonably close final scores, with everyone once again taking varied paths to glory. |
The Sunday was a little quieter but none the less a good turnout, I was amongst the early starters so grabbed myself some table space.
 | Started off with a two-player game of Istanbul which is a great little game that scales well across its #player range. Careful and efficient planning of moves can reap great rewards but you have to keep an eye on your opponents to ensure you are not taking too long to accumulate just the right combo to get your next crystal. No game ever goes the same way and there is plenty of variety and choice to be made here. |
 | Next was a two-player Infinite City another older game but no less fun or inteteresting to play. Really like this one as it is so simple to teach but has a lot of hidden depth to it and always provides a good game. |
 | Then we tried a new game to me Scripts and Scribes: The Dice Game the players roll a set of dice which are mostly resources then some special dice which determine a action you can take and the type of turn you will have (gold auction, standard or resource auction). The idea is ti build up certain resources during the game, if you have the most of one resource at the end you will score 3x the ending value. During the turns players may increase or decrease values using the action die instead of taking resources. It was interesting and certainly worth trying, there was a strange mechanic with making change that at first seemed wrong but kind of made sense after the first round. I probably wouldn't choose to play this again, it did not really set my gaming world on fire but I didn't hate it just there would be other games I would prefer to play over this one. Great experience to try other games it helps you to know what you like and what you do not. |
 | Then we had a three player game of Edo which is a game about developing the city of Edo which becomes Tokyo. This is a fun game where players choose their actions using an innovative tile system that works really quite well, despite it also being frustrating at times as you can not do all that you want. You all start with a similar set of action options but can obtain extra action cards during the game to provide more variety. In a turn players choose 3 actions from their hand of tiles (start with 3 tiles) and place them on a holder in the order they want to take them. Each starting tile has 4 actions on it, to select the action you place the tile with intended action on the bottom in the slot. Actions are taken in turn order starting with the leftmost tile for each player and then the next etc. etc. There is a lot going in this game and it has that nice level of frustration where you want to do everything each turn but have to make tough choices. The starting actions tiles have key actions on the same tiles so by getting different action tiles you extend the choices you can make. Excellent game.
The two ending conditions are if at the end of the turn one player has 12 power points or the trade card deck is exhausted. This provides the game with a definite end point which helps but I would say that the 60min playing time is a bit optimistic especially for the first few games or if you have a lot of indecisive players. The main board has sides for 2-3 or 4 players.
The mechanics of the game are relatively easy to pick up but the strategy on how to plan you turns in the most optimum way is definitely a steep learning curve and may take several games. There is an expansion which adds a 5th player as well as additional gaming options, which will help keep the game fresh. |
 | So we attempted to learn/play AutoKrator sadly I think this was too late in the day, especially after several nice pints of Bridge, to attempt this. The rules for this game are truly awful to follow, though there seems to be a game in there desperately trying to get out. I'm sure with a clearer head and with someone who had gotten their heads around the rules to be able to teach it we would have gotten off to a much better start. As it was there was much glazing over and breaks as the rulebooke was repeatedly consulted to try and find the rules for the current action. Sadly this was abandoned and though I feel there is something in there to play, I'm not convinced it will be my kind of game to make it worth a second stab |
 | To round of the evening we played Guildhall This is a fun little card game where you try to complete sets of cards made up of particular roles (Assassin, Historian, Dancer etc etc) in different colours. As you add cards to your guilds they convey special actions to aid you in your task and/or scupper your opponents. Completed guilds can be used to purchase VP cards that also can provide bonus actions. The winner is the first to gain 20points or more worth of these cards. This is a lovely game that plays well and is quite easy to teach/learn. |
Overall it was a fantastic weekend of gaming and a good chance to catch up with old and new friends. The venue was light and airy, the food was reasonably priced and of a fairly decent standard.
A big thankyou to
Spirit Games for putting this event together and at such a good price. I hope to see you all at the normal Beer & Pretzels in 2015, and hopefully at other events in between.
Links & Slideshows:Saturdays Event Page (Where you can add your pictures)
Sundays Event Page (Where you can add your pictures)
