Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2012

[Zarniwoop]

1st Aug 2012

Started the evening off with Space Mission, an excellent quality little game that plays in under an hour with oodles of fun and replayability. To help prevent the end of everything, as this was my game, I did not win this. Players move around the planets scanning for resources and ultimately building space stations in order to plunder these resources. Essentially a set collection game where you are competing to get the best combinations in order to score highly whilst not tipping your hand too early to your opponents. The end game is triggered when a number of space tiles are revealed and this can cause an abrupt end, so whilst you can try and plan what you need, you have to keep an eye on the Space as things get near the end you need to maximise your turn to get the most you can. Really good fun, the components are fantastic quality, large planet tiles with high quality artwork on them, Plastic Spaceships on flying mounts, good quality cards and the resource tokens of the same quality as the large planet tiles. There is a really excellent game here, with the quality of components you would expect from a larger more expensive game. All in all for the money it is well worth it and I have played this a lot since I got it and enjoyed every game. Final Scores: Caz:17, Chris:21, Eric:28, Paul:30 and Andy:32

We moved onto Barons an interesting card game where the cards have multiple uses and you always need them for more than one! It took a while to get your head around the gameplay but after a few rounds it became more intuitive to play. It is another of those games where you need another round or two to achieve your goal only to be thwarted or thrown a better option by the cards. We did manage to a few rules wrong, which is normal, but on the whole it was very enjoyable and certainly worthy of another play. Andy ended up the winner of this!

Finally we played Pergamon an excellent game where players bid for funds to dig for artefact's to display in the museum for points. Whilst there is a certain amount of luck there is a lot of strategy here in where to place your man, going for money, more dig choices or better turn order. In the end the scores were quite close with people having taken different approaches to their collections. I always enjoy playing this game and we had a good group of players tonight which helped the enjoyment further. Final Scores: Eric:15, Paul:20, Chris:21 and Caz:23

Well the end of another report from me, as always I await in (probably in vein), reports from the other tables. It was not the busiest of Wed nights but the shop was quite full with gamers enjoying their favourite Hobby...

Until next time......

[EvilGinger]

19th of September

Went along to deliver a fresh supply of flyers for Beer & lard & for a game of Privateer Presses new game LEVEL 7 which Zarni had succumbed to the lure of needless to say in the traditional way the plan fell apart after I arrived at Spirit & off loaded the Flyers. it Was however fun & I got into a splendid game of RED OCTOBER one of may favourites but not the quick game which it had been touted as. We however played it with definite intent to win & you know what got within the regulation gnats whisker of doing so when the pressure gauge maxed with 12 game minutes to go. We would have won had our dice rolling been better I am certain.

Didn't really have time or the mental strength for a second game but had a chat with the regulars before walking the delivery trolley home great fun I just wished that I did not have to do the 4am start the following day

 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

26th of September
Went to have another try at playing LEVEL 7 & though I would be in luck as the local Privateer support chap or press ganger was due to be making an appearance & Zarni had played it in the shop the previous Saturday whilst I was playing Cardfight Vanguard as I was booked to do. Indeed they just finished this when I finished Cardfight, & we went on to play Starship Merchants

until we had a bit of a communal senior moment in the last round & messed up the turn order & could not for the life of any of us work out how I was enjoying the game but would like to play it again before I come to any sort of conclusion, but I digress back to Level 7

Well our press gangerer did not show up & neither did the the other person who was eager to have another go at it apparently his washing machine(s) where getting out of hand or something likely story so I once again failed to play level 7 I will try again next week of I get the chance. Instead I was inveigled & bribed into play testing the new Milestones

which I rather liked a good fast game with some novel mechanics & some rather familiar ones the road & market building was very Catan in its feel. Unfortunately as it was the first run through the games normal zipping pace was disrupted but quite a bit of rules referencing & even more by the fact that the Roebuck was doing one of the players favourite beers as a guest ale  so it ran really long & I was forced to abandon it  due to a lack of   before it finished. I would like tom play it again under different circumstances & may be will at Raiders if I am not utterly knackered by the Magic Pre Release which is on the same day, & I get a go at Level 7!!!.

 Ginger

[CrazyFrog]

Wednesday Night – 29/08/2012

Tonight was my first Wednesday night this year and it was great to be back.

First game of the evening was ‘Glory to Rome’ the players were me, Zarniwoop, Oskar, Chris and Andy.  I amazingly won this game and did think about quitting the evening while ahead lol.  I won the game by completing the forum and collecting 1 of each type of advisor, Zarniwoop was a close second needing 2 more rounds to end the game.

Second game was ‘Lifeboats’ in which the crew and passengers are trying to survive in a lifeboat while heading for dry land and as normal gamers band together in factions and it all gets back staby very quickly for great fun.
Scores: Chris 23, Caz/Sally/Frog 18, Andy 15, Zarni 11.

The evening was wrapped up with ‘Citadels’ which as normal saw the poor architect getting assassinated most rounds with Phil spending lots of time as the Warlord and I was moonlighting as the thief/king/assassin.
Scores: Zarniwoop 29, Caz/Frog 24, Chris 22, Phil 21, Sally 18, Andy 17.

[Zarniwoop]

31 Oct 2012

Tonight we got in early enough to actually bag a table in the shop, the Wed nights are proving quite popular lately so often we are having to pop over to the pub to find a table to play on.

Whilst we waited for more people to turn up we kicked off with a quick game of Martian Dice which is an excellent little game, always fun to play and provides for a great little filler

We then had a game of Furstenfeld essentially this is an economics game where you sell hops, barley, and spring water to local breweries in order to make money to complete your palace. If a brewer receives more than he wants then the prices get less but if receives less then he needs the price goes up which makes it possible for players to manipulate prices for future turns. In order to help achieve this you can build improved fields or additional buildings to aid you along the way. Eventually you start to build your Palace, but in order to do this you have to sacrifice one of your buildings or fields. This leads to a shortage of areas earning you money, so planning how and when to start your Palace is crucial. I managed to start an early and cheap build of my Palace but then left myself short of income. This left the way for the more efficient players to beat me to completion of their Palaces. A really fun game that IO always enjoy playing. Still need to get round to playing the advanced rules but there is always B&P

[EvilGinger]

Indeed a splendid game though the decision as to when to cover ones lovely production base with a palace is always fraught and quite often painful if as Zarni mentions not done at quite the right time. Not that its at all possible to see that without hindsight....

 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

Just had some fun running through the new Karrrag Zarni got form Essen. Not quite sure what to make of it yet. I defiantly feel I, indeed we, missed something when playing it as there is a lot to do & a rather complex & variable action sequence of actions which I think demands some effort to learn.

I will admit the game did not leap up and enthuse me but I think that's because its a bit difrent form many games I have played before.


 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

Played two games & was suitably sorry in the morning after three & a half hours sleep thoroughly enjoyed them both

Batavia



Which I won by a country mile despite getting stuck in the endgame for several turns & convincing myself thereby that I had not. Plays well & fluidly & can be picked up quite quickly without great & length rules exposition and or breaking the flow by having to dive into the rules for clarification.

Love to play this one again.

Thurn and Taxis



Splendid game which I had not had a chance to try before again deceptively simple in concept but quite fiendish to play as getting your game objectives - assembling increasingly long postal routes gets rather hairy & yet still fun. I can now see quite why this game is a classic. All this despite being beaten horribly.

defiantly want to play this one again as well


 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

Sadly I will not be able to make it tonight but trust me I am getting prepared for Thursday night

 Ginger

[Zarniwoop]

28th November 2012

Arrived to find the usual suspects already engaged in gaming and a group at the back table about to start a game of Coup

Which in the end, I believe, ended being several games but as it is a quick game that is not surprising. I did get invited to play but another two late arrivals meant I deferred my place to them and began setting up for a game of Batavia


This being a Queen game the components are top notch with wooden pieces, great artwork and really well designed board.
Each player is a merchant trying to visit different trading posts to collect commodities a gain gold (victory points) with the richest merchant at the end of the game is the winner.
All players start with 15 promissory notes, a hand of 10 cards depicting one of the five East India companies and a number of crates, at the start of the round the first player rolls a dice and this is the number of cards dealt from the draw pile to be put up for auction along with first player. The person to the left of the start player bids for the cards and then everyone else ups the bis or passes. The winner of the bod gets the cards and first player then pays his bid as evenly as possible to all the other players.

On your turn you either draw 2 cards or you can play cards, in order to play cards you need to be able to lay enough cards to create a majority in one of the 5 East India companies, if you already have a majority then you can just play any card. When you have played as many cards as you want you then choose one of majorities you have and move your merchant to the nearest Trading post of that company on the track. You collect the trading post and put one of your crates on the match commodity space. If this trading post is from an East India company you have not previously collected from then you can opt to cash in a set of different trading posts for Gold. Each of the commodities has a slot for each of the 5 east India companies and vary in value, at the end of the game the person with the most crates for that commodity scores a number of gold (10-16 depending on which one) if two people tie then they both get a much smaller amount of gold each.

As more cards get laid out a Cannon is moved along a track to keep a count of the total, plus markers for each East India company keep track of how many cards of each company are out. When the Cannon reaches 21+ or 25+, depending on the number of players, the Pirates attack at the end of that players turn. When they attack the cards belonging to the East India Company with the most cards out are sunk and put in a discard pile, if one or more Companies tie for the most then all the cards for tied companies are removed. The markers are returned to zero and the Cannon moved back to reflect the current number of cards.

The end game is triggered when someone takes the Target Trading Post from the board, which scores the owner 4 Gold, this is taken when a trading post of the East India company the active player wants to move to is not available. That round is completed, players who find they are unable to move to a trading post have to take cards. The game is then scored, each player lays out all of their cards that remain in their hands and the majorities are then reassessed for each majority a player has they score 2 gold. The commodities are scored and finally the player with the most promissory noted gets 5 gold.

This game is quick to play, easy to teach but has plenty of strategy and depth. I find this a really fun game to play and will always be willing to get this to the table, there is certainly a amount of luck to this game but it does not detract from the enjoyment.


After this we went on to play Through the Desert which is a classic German game but still a lot of fun. Each player has the same set of coloured camels and the board is laid out with Oasis and scoring tiles. In turn players lay out their starting camels (which have a rider on of their player colour) one at a time, once they are all out play commences. Each turn players add 2 camels  to one of their camel trains, if they land on a scoring marker they take that, if they move next to an oasis they score 5pts and take a marker of that value from the pool, if they manage to surround an area with their camel train they can take the counters within and will score the spaces at the end. There are points for the largest Camel train in each of the colours and the end game is triggered when all of the camels of one colour have been used.

This game is quite fun but the pastel colours of the camels plus the fact there will be several players trains of the same colour means sometimes the board looks very busy and it is easy to get confused.
Nonetheless it is an enjoyable game.

[Zarniwoop]

12 Dec 2012

We started the evening off with Ginkgopolis this is a really fun game where players compete to build areas in a new type of city. Using a hand of cards players choose an action either to build at the edge of the city or build up on an existing building or play a card which either activates a building or is used to gain a resource or tile. Each player has a set of cards at the start that provide bonuses to taking certain actions, then as the game progresses they can accumulate more of these bonuses. Some scoring it made during the game but ultimately scoring regions of the same colour of buildings is the goal. The pieces are very colourful and the quality of components very high and it does provide a very quick fun game. There is a lot to explain here and it does take a turn or so to get your head into how to play it but it is certainly worth the effort and I have found it leaves you wanting to play it again which is always a good sign. Final Scores: Andy:51, Chris:45, Sally/Phil:36, Martin:36 and Paul:32

We then went on to play Coup, Your family lives in a small medieval city. Your goal is to force every rival out through manipulation, bluff or force. Only one family can survive. This is a quick game where players try to knock out the opposition to be the last person standing, each turn players take one of several actions, some of these are roles which they can claim to be (bluffing or really being it) every other player has the right to challenge this but if they get it wrong they have to reveal one of their 2 cards if you lose both cards  you are out. Players can accumulate money to perform certain actions and this continues until one person is left. this was quite fun, very quick so lends itself to multiple plays for revenge! Whilst it was fun to play, it not one I would rush to play again it can punish bad play and once you are eliminated aside from barracking the survivors there is nothing to do but wait. Thankfully it does play quickly so this is not necessarily that arduous. Phil won the first game with Martin scoring a hard fought win in the second game

Finally we played Kingdom Builderthis is always a favourite and is always great fun to play. This game had mostly Nomads expansions pieces in which was good. Having an instant scoring card (Ambassadors), the Miners and Farms it was going to be fun to try and score everything. We all managed to get Farms and the scoring on Ambassadors remained fairly even and balanced throughout the game. In the end after scoring all of the cards the eventual win was by a mere 3 points and down to one player having a Castle and the other not! Final Scores: Paul:57, Chris:54 and Martin:32

[EvilGinger]

Just had a cracking game of Core Worlds which I lost quite badly but I am afraid I underestimated the game thinking it like Eminent domain its not at all like it except in theme & I much prefer it of the two more to make you think & force you to chose when you very much want to do all the things you are forced to chose between.




more on this latter as I need to be up silly early in the morning again.

 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

Having woken up & had some   I can now add something semi comprehensible to yesterdays report.

I did not intend to stay to be honest but got lured into a game of Tsuro by a Oskar who was waiting of  an Raiders command meeting, as an aside this was the original one & I need to have a go at Tsuro of the seas to see quite how it differs, & that rather put me in the mood for gaming hence stopping on to Play Core Worlds as reported above.

The game we played probably took longer than it should with it being the first time for most of us and the first time in quite a while for those that had played before but the game did not feel that it dragged at all indeed I was left rather wanting a couple more turns to finish my master plan of galactic conquest and wanting to get a copy of my own as I very nearly did when it first came out. We played with the expansion so I can not report on what the base game plays like. The only thing I am sure it changes or rather adds is the Galactic orders which took little part in the game but raised the  victory point totals in the final turn.

 Ginger