Another year another SabreCON, an event hosted by
The Leicester Sabres (University of Leicester's Game Society) where
Spirit Games had a stall at which I was demonstrating games.
Once again the traders and
Spirit Games Stall were in the main hall, ours was not next to the coffee shop this year but one stall futher away but close enough
(Bonus!!
)
Here was the gang putting the final touches to the stall:
Our first game of the day was
Batavia this is a cracking game and the more I play this the more I like it. The game is light with an element of luck but there is room for strategic play which does mean every game feels a little different. Really have fun with this and it is a joy to teach new people, the scores for this game: Phil/Sally:53, Caz:50 and Paul:42
Just as we were clearing this away ready for trying something else we had some people come over asking about it and so we reset the game and ploughed straight into another game. Aside from a couple of nerve induced rule mistakes (by me doh!) we managed to have a very quick second game of this which was very different to the first. The scores for this one were: Paul:50, jack:48, Sophie:42 and Caz:33.
Yeah I know I won my own game, luckily the world did not collapse but you might want to avoid going under ladders and stuff for a while
Next we broke out another favourite
Kingdom Builder (with
Nomads expansion). Once again this is a great fun little game that plays really quickly, is dead easy to teach and yet provides a very satisfying game. The final scores for this were: Paul:58, Phil:55, Sally:43 and Caz:27 ....
... Ok so this was a second win of one of my own games in one day but we still survived.... (i think)
Finally before tearing down the stall to make our way home we had one final game of
Caylus Magna Carta now I have to confess that this is now my 3rd game of this (2 with the advanced rules) and I am sorry to say this really does not grab me. The hand management mechanic, point scoring, action system are all interesting but for me the game plays too long for what it is. I am not sure what it is because its not that its an awful game but it seems about 1/2 way through I just lose interest and it becomes almost a chore to get to the end game. Whether house-ruling a change to the amount of VP tokens, which would then shorten the game, may be in order I do not know but I'm not sure I would have the enthusiasm to try again.
A lot of people really like the game and I can see that there is a lot here for people to sink their gaming teeth into, just not for me though. Final scores: Phil:45, Caz:36, Sally:30 and Paul:30
I really enjoyed the day and thanks to everyone who organised this years event and for all the kind offers of assistance when we were packing up the stall. The facilities of the event are really good and the Coffee shop a bonus (though as with previous years many people would love for them to stay open for a little bit longer
)
Can't be sure how numbers compared to previous years but there seemed to be a steady amount and the Stall certainly saw quite a bit of traffic through the day. The only downsides were people going outside using the fire escape door leaving it open, as the weather outside was COLD!!!
we kept getting icy blasts across our demo table. Plus the autodoors behind us were getting used a lot adding to the COLD!!
. We may have to bring a windbreaker to the next one if it gets this cold again next year
Good fun was had by all and thats the main aim.
Here is the
Google+ Photo Album from the Day:
