So new year new location....
This year the event was held in the
Three Queens Hotel which was quite a pleasant venue with some good gaming spaces and the Staff were very helpful. I would say the only slight disappointment was that 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 it was a little more expensive than getting it from across the road but heh!..
Started off the day with
Relic Runners:
 | The game play seems simple enough with a Move and Explore action on your turn. Each player has a toolbox of additional actions they can potentially take to aid their tasks.
The paths help movement, on your turn you can move one unfamiliar path (ie one without one of your coloured path tokens on it) per turn but you can move over your own coloured paths for free thereby enabling longer movement with careful placement.
The components, as expected from DOW, are top quality and the artwork is great.
We played with a full compliment of players this time and it certainly changes the dynamics of the game, there is plenty of tension as players compete for the various levels of Temple and ultimately the Relics themselves. With this number of players though early mistakes of not getting enough of your paths down cost you dearly as I found out. We did have a couple of players who ended up front runners for the win but I would imagine on future games with the same players it would be a lot more balanced as you would know the game better. Good fun and a really solid game.
Lauren:67, Luke:67, Caz:45. Richard:33 and Paul:15 |
Next up was
Lifeboat | which Helen and Gareth had just bought so wanted a helping hand getting to know the game. Always enjoy playing this, its viscous and fun with plenty of table banter to be had during the game. What's not to like really!! A game where people are trying to survive in a lifeboat and each one loves and hates another person on the boat which means wanting to help or hinder other players during the course of the game. Really good fun and plays great with more people. Caz:14, Andie:13, Helen:9, Gareth:8 and I died so 0 points |
Last game of the day was
Archipelago:
 | Sadly I seemed to have missed out taking a photo of this in play but I really enjoyed this, I think it is a great game when played with the right people. There is plenty going on here and whilst there is an element of striking out to win on your own players have to co-operate to a degree to prevent the game beating everyone. We did get a couple of things wrong in the game, but there is quite a lot to keep track of and its always easy to overlook something. On the whole I enjoyed this , though I did not fair well scoring really quite badly overall.. Johnny:10, Colin:6, Sarah:5 and Paul:3 |
Sunday started off with a game of
Smallworld | This is just a fantastic game that I really really should play more often, especially as I have several expansions I have not even tried yet. Brilliant design with simple mechanics but plenty of options for strategy as you all try and gain the most points for the end game. Neil:87, Roy:85, Paul:74, Andy:66 and Caz:58 |
Next up was
The Witches: A Discworld Game:
 | Another game that is really fun, more family orientated but there is still enough there to interest more serious gamers. a quick fun little game that again has players needing to co-operate a small amount to stop the game winning but ultimately it's the best witch wins (the one with the most points obviously). The artwork is superb and there is good use of cards for multiple aspects of the game. Chris:27, Paul:20, Caz:20, Les:12 |
Last game of the event was
Keyflower | I'm really enjoying this game and will always be willing to get in on a game. Its a lot of fun with plenty to think about as you plan on bidding for tiles or using tiles for their ability etc. Planning your village to aid your scoring or tempting players to use areas thereby giving you meeples to use later takes some thought. There is a lot of game here and plenty of strategy and with a random layout each time the game is different every play. Great design and immense fun to play. Chris:91, Paul:67 and Simon:41 |
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.
It was a good first event there and I am sure lessons will be learned going forward to future events held there.
There was a slight downside as the wall in the Atrium appeared to have water running down it on the Saturday but the Staff did their best to help those affected by bring copious towels etc. I believe there was no component damage just some water damaged boxes. Shame its never nice to see things damaged.
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 2014, and hopefully at other events in between.
