Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2012

[Zarniwoop]

Regular Burton Board Gaming at Spirit Games on Wednesday nights

We play a selection of new releases and old favourites, starting at 8.00pm and going on up to midnight. All are welcome, click on the articles link to get an idea of what we have been playing over the past year or two.

Contact Details:
salnphil@spiritgames.com

[Zarniwoop]

4th Jan 2012
Tonight we played Kingdom Builder twice!! . This is a really lovely looking game with  8 board pieces (From which you choose 4) you then use one of the unused boards as the scoring track(marked on the back of all the boards). You deal 3 Kingdom Builder Cards (Out of 10) which determine how the game will be scored this time and the boards will have 4 types of Special Location Tiles (out of a possible which give players extra actions/abilities. This game is just quick and fun to play, the basic mechanic is you have a terrain card which show you where you need to place 3 settlements, adjacent if possible, on the boards. If you place a settlement next to a special location tile you can take one (but only one from that stack). On your next turn you will be able to use it's additional action before or after the mandatory action. As soon as someone places their last settlement that current round finishes and then the scoring is carried out, the winner is the person with the most gold.

Really good little game that will see a lot of plays as no two games will be exactly the same, meaning players can not really come at it with preconceived strategies on how to win.

[carldjcross]

Wednesday 11th January.

It was with some trepidation that I sat down to play Antike since it was the game that was singlehandedly responsible for my latest ever exit from the shop (12:45 nosey fact fans). But reassured that there were only four of us and to had played before I took the plunge.

Phil and myself found ourselves at opposite ends of the board with Martin and Cooper squished together in the middle. All of that meant that while Martin fended off Cooper Phil and myself were free to earn our cards by the altogether more peaceful means of building temples and fleets and pursuing scientific research.

With Phil and I both grasping at victory it eventually went to me when Martin left a temple unguarded leaving me with with only a simple territory grab to get my 15 territory VP and final winning point.

[Zarniwoop]

11th Jan 2012
We started the evening of with a game of Igels which I have had for quite a while but never really played fully. The artwork is humorous and excellent although some of it is a little risque 

It took a while to get my head around the rules but once it got going the turns were quite easy, the only thing for me though is the game felt like it went on too long. I can only imagine this getting worse if there was four of us instead of 3, I think if I get this out again I will have to work on some variant to shorten the game. It was fun but it just went on longer than it ought to to keep the fun element.
Paul: 25, Caz: 19 and Sal: 17

We finished off the evening with a game of Bloody Legacy which is always immense fun. The artwork on the cards for this game is very funny cartoon style and each card has funny descriptive text.
It is a very quick game to play and is ideal to fill in time between other games or to round off a games evening.

Each player has 3 lives and the basic mechanic is to play a card and pick up a card. You place a Trap card (Deadly, Slippery or Ordinary)in front of another player who gets the chance to play a Trick card to avoid it (if they have one). Deadly traps are 5 skull cards so if you can not avoid them you lose a life straight away!

A player loses a life when they accumulate 5 skulls worth of traps in front of them. They then sit out the rest of the turn until there is only one player left. The last player standing then starts the next round and this continues until there is only one person left alive who wins.

After a lot of fairly well balanced killing spree over the course of the game, Sal became the eventual Winner (Me, Caz, Sal and Cooper played)

[Zarniwoop]

18 Jan 2012
Tonight we kicked off with a game of Kingdom Builder which has to come down as one of my best purchases of last year, I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this and every game is different. Looking forward to the expansion planned for this year as it will be a must-have. Paul: 53, Caz: 57 and Sal: 51

We then tried out Little Dead Riding Hood potentially an awesome fun little game but I have to say the rules are not well written and seem to be born out of being playtested with a group that already knew how to play. We had so many questions as we worked through the rules and had to house rule in order to even get started. The problem is that it appears to be huge gaps in the rules but having read a bit on Boardgamegeek on this game some of it makes more sense. This could have been cured with both clearer more direct statements in the rules and a worked turn example. We had fun with it but this was interrupted a lot with having to continually thumb through the rules to try and find elusive or nonexistent help on a question. Hopefully an FAQ or revised rulebook will be forthcoming to help this out. I managed a Win but I'm not entirely clear how  

Finally we ended the evening with an all-time classic Buckets, the first game was with Caz, Sal and Myself. It ended with a head to head between me and Sal but she had nearly a full set of buckets with me struggling to stay in with just a few. I did manage to hold my own for a brief time but ultimately lost out to Sal. Phil then joined us for a another last round of this, with me getting repeatedly kicked for not having any Blue Cards but this time, after another nail-biting round, Caz come out the winner.

[carldjcross]

For the 18th Neil and I had arranged to play the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game which I wanted to play partly because it shares many of it's mechanics with the forthcoming Star Wars LCG.

First impressions were that it was another of Neil's beloved suicidal card games were everyone dies on turn two. Mainly because we did actually die on turn two. However a second playthrough on a supposedly harder scenario yielded much better results with our little raiding party skirmishing with the forces of Sauron, crossing the rushing Anduin only to be crushed by the WitchKing on the opposite bank.

Resources seem to be tight in this game and in both playthroughs I had cards that I was never in danger of being able to play although better hand management and in the case of the first game, just a longer game might have seen these out of my hand and on the table.

I liked the LotR LCG and things bode well for the SW version. Can't wait.

[carldjcross]

Wednesday 25th January saw Paul, Carole, Philsey and me take on Kingdom Builder.

I'd played it once before but the whole point of Kingdom Builder is that it's a simple game built around variety. The first game I played had a very train game feel to it as we snaked our settlements around the board like Catan's Longest Road. This time it reminded me a little of Small World as we fought for small areas of the board with valuable special tiles like the harbour or point scoring buildings.

I said on the night that Kingdom Builder is a game where it pays not to get too attached to your plans. I spent the whole of the first game not drawing flowers and suffering because of it and as a consequence I came last to Carole's win. The next game I managed to monopolise the monument early on and win. I know the random nature annoys some but is fine for a game lasting 40 mins to an hour (how those people on BGG have got this to last 2 hours or more is beyond me).

1st February saw the same lot plus Phil and Sal have a go at Powergrid: The First Sparks. It's well known that I'm not a massive fan of the mighty Powergrid and just like Race for the Galaxy I know full well that the fault is mine and not the game's.

First Sparks is quicker and lighter than its big brother but has many of the same mechanics. Including, unfortunately the one that allows stupid people to paint themselves into a corner as I've done with Powergrid in the past and did again tonight.

Now granted it was a daft move but any game that allows it's players to guarantee themselves no more meaningful choices on move 2 is in my opinion broken. Everyone else took pity on me and houseruled me back into the game but by then it was far too late and I never did get to make another choice.

I would play it again though,a little more cautiously next time, because everyone else seemed to be having a whale of a time but this first play left me in the dark.

[Zarniwoop]

1st Feb 2012
tonight we started off the evenign with another game of PowerGrid: First Sparks which I am really enjoying playing and I really think I prefer this to the original PowerGrid. There is a lot to figure out on this game and there is lots of player interaction which is alwys good. The fianl scores for this were: Phil:15, Philsy & Sal:13, Paul:11, Caz:7 and Carl:4

We finished the evening off with a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse which is quite an interesting co-operative card game. Having done resonably well early on, eventually we lost big style. Playing: Myself, Caz and Philsy

[EvilGinger]

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a lovely little game & when I tried it I really liked it though that was long enough ago for me to have forgotten all but the basic details & I believe we won. Its not as I recall a long game and has various levels of difficulty based on the Mega villain the team is up against and the environment where that confrontation takes place.

The one we beat was the easiest in the least challenging environment as I recall. I would recommen it but its not a brain burning hardcore gamers game but fun.

 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

Owing to my running a roleplaying game on Thursday I will not be at this Wednesday's Boardgames night I would love to be but I have it would seem my limits in this regard.

I would however quite like to have another go at the lord of the rings card game next week it would be nice to beat the game again using the shadow rules.

 Ginger

[Zarniwoop]

8th Feb 2012
We started the evening off with a game of HollyWood Blockbuster where players compete to put on the Best and Worst films for awards. This is a nice little game with some interesting film titles

I quite like this game and it is relatively easy to pick up and does produce some funny moments as players pull together some interesting combinations in their films. Final Scores were: Paul 59, Mark 59, Sal 50, Caz 49 and Phil 94.

We then had a game of Flash Point Fire Rescue which is nicely made game which is a co-operative one where players are firefighters trying to rescue victims from the building before it collapses or explodes in fire. There is a basic introduction game and advanced options to provide variety as well as tougher challenges. We went with the Basic game but despite our best efforts we lost the fight with the fire and all was lost in the end.

[Zarniwoop]

15th Feb 2012
We started the evening off with PowerGrid The First Sparks This is proving quite popular and I definitely prefer this to the original game. Tonight was Carl's second go at this game and this time things went a lot better this time with the final scores being: Sal:15, Carl:14, Caz:14, Phil:13 and me:12. Carl Coming 2nd place due to a tie break.

We followed this up by introducing Carl to Family Business this is always a fun classic. An excellent game as usual with Carl actually claiming the win.

Finally we rounded the evening off with a game of Kingdom Builder which is becoming a firm favourite. Final Scores - Phil:37, Caz:39, Sal:54 and Paul:42

[Zarniwoop]

22nd Feb 2012
Started the evening off with a couple of games of Flash Point Fire Rescue this was using the more advanced rules of the game and we basically sucked as FireFighters as we managed to lose both games.

We then went on to play Powergrid: First Sparks which is becoming a favourite with the Wed Night crowd. This is essentially Powergrid-lite, it has the familiar feel of the original Powergrid but plays a lot quicker. Players are trying to build up their tribe by forraging for diffrent types of food and acquire various tools to improve their skills to forrage for this food. This proved to be a really close contest with Eric, Richard and Myself all on 14 with Richard winning the tie-break, Sally scored 13 and Caz 9.

[Zarniwoop]

29th Feb 2012
Started the evening off with Abandon Ship which is a definite Sally game as players strive to rescue specific Rats whilst hindering others that you think are other players. There are also pieces of cheese up for grabs at certain sections of the ship which grant additional points. Phil ended up winning this one.

Phil then broke out Hacienda players attempt to get their animals to market and keep them watered. Essentially placing tiles on terrain squares using cards you pick up, you can hinder other players progress by building your cattle trails in the way. Phil proved to be very good at this (well he has played it a lot ) scoring 113, Caz 86, Martin 83 and myself at 77.

Finally we finished off with a game of King's Breakfast this is an excellent game that is quick to pick up and play. Sadly I believe this is out of print at the current time. Phil:55, Me:49, Martin:39, Caz:39 and Sally:32

[Zarniwoop]

7th Mar 2012
Started the evening off with a 6player game of Rattus Players take a power if they want one, either an unclaimed one or one in front of another player. Place cubes on the board, how many depends on how many Rats are currently in the area. Move the plague piece to an adjacent area. Player then adds new rat tokens to adjacent regions, the number of rats depends on the area the plague piece is moved to: No Rats - No More Rats added, 1 Rat - 1 Rat added or 2-3 Rats: 2 Rats are added. If there are Rats in the area the Plague piece is moved to these are now resolved one at a time by flipping them over and carrying out the effects. The game ends when the last rat token is placed out or someone is lucky enough to have all their population tokens on the board (Rare), the player with the highest surviving population wins.

Seeing as the game is about the plague bizarrely it is actually quite fun even with 6 people. I enjoyed playing this and I would not turn down another game. Caz:14, Chris:13, Barry:12, Paul:12, Eric:10 and Cooper:9

We then went on to play Lifeboat players are handed a random character card depicting one of the survivors, each with their own unique ability. They are also handed two other cards - A character they Love and a character they hate.

At the end of the game, if you survive, you score points if your love is still alive and if the person you hate has died.  The characters are placed in the lifeboat (represented by cards in a line on the table), the first in line picks up a number of cards from the supplies deck equal to the players, looks at them then takes one and passes the rest onto the next player in the line. These items can be weapons, water, money, jewels etc that either aid you during the game or represent additional potential points for the end game. On their turn players can: Do nothing, Swap Places with someone (who can refuse so a fight breaks out!), mug someone (Steal some supplies, again this can lead to a fight!), play cards with special actions or Row. When players fight they can get wounded placing a token on their card, each character can take a differerring amount of wounds, also the other players can take sides in the fight each adding their strength total to the attacker/defender. When players row they take 2 navigation cards and select one, each of these cards depicts who has gone overboard and who is thirsty. The last person in the row picks up all the cards placed by rowing and selects one to use, if no one has rowed then a card is taken from the deck instead.

Play continues until the fourth seagull is sighted meaning land has been found.

Phil:16, Paul:7, Cooper:19, Chris:14, Barry: Dead, Caz:17 and Eric:19

Finally we finished off the evening with a game of Kingdom Builder This has become a firm favourite as it plays really quick and each game is different given the amount of variety in the components. Phil:60, Paul:43, Cooper:38 and Caz:52