Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011

[Zarniwoop]

2nd Nov 2011
Started the evening off with one of my Essen games - Lost Temple this is a race game with each player trying to find the Lost Temple first. Each turn 9 characters cards are shuffled and a number set aside, then starting with the first player everyone chooses a one or more (depending on players) any left are put aside at the end. Each character has a s special ability and/or some means of moving you piece nearer the Lost Temple, along the way you can pick up chance tokens, some are good some are bad. You also collect a gem each turn, which are spent with some characters to move your piece. This game is great, with plenty of player interaction as some of the characters can be used to hinder your opponents process.

Paul, Caz, Steve, Jason, Chris and Mike played this with Mike leaping ahead to the Temple first.

I finished the evening off with a game of Utopia this is a beautiful looking game with some great artwork and fantastic pieces. Essentially an area control game where you are competeting with the other playres to build monuments for various civilisations or one of the 4 wonders. Monuments score for you at the end of each round but there value can be influenced each round by the players, Wonders score when you build them and also whenever you or anyone else builds a monument on that island. The aim is gain prestige as you invite princes from the various civilisations and encourage them to build their monuments and wonders. This games looks great, plays well and only lasts about an hour but there is a lot to do here with plenty of options. I really like this and it seems to play will with 2 as well as with more players. I will be playing more of this game. Chris:55, Paul:54 and Stew:40.

[Zarniwoop]

9th Nov 2011
Tonight Philsy made a rare appearance and we tried out his recent purchase: Ninjato released by Z-Man Games this is a beautiful looking game with some great artwork and components. The shurikens used as action markers are quite tactile being made of wood, although maybe a tad on the large side.  Each player has three actions (Shurikens) which they can place on various areas of the board:

Go to the Dojo - Draw cards a visible stack of three

Attack a House - Attack a house using Dojo cards from your hand using stealth (Lower value card then the Guard) or strength (Higher Value card than the Guard).  If defeated you take the lowest value treasure placing it on your shuriken. Now you can push on and try against the next guard in an attempt to steal more treasure. There are 3 treasures per house, and getting all 3 will let you clear out the house but if you fail you only get to choose 1 treasures on your Shuriken and have to discard the rest.

Guards with a red symbol mean the house is alerted, another treasure added, and to steal the last treasure you need to defeat an Elite guard (tougher but worth victory points at game end)

There are 3 factions in the game, and after clearing a house, you must change the house alignment to one of the other 2 factions in the game. House alignment becomes important during scoring rounds, so you'll want to pick a faction that you are in good with.

Visit the Sensei - Where you can learn new skills, in order to pick skill, you use your action to discard a card equal to the number listed on the skill card. Once you have one of the 3 Types (Crane/Snake/Tiger) future skills of the same type are free. Each of the skills represent rule breaking abilities to aid you.

Appeal to Envoys in the Palace - These are allies that you gain you gain favour with. You discard treasure matching those on an Envoy cards face up in the Palace area. You gain honor (victory points), and
keep that Envoy for the rest of the game.

When you score, end of rounds 3/5/7, the player with the most envoys of a certain house can choose between influence points or a rumor card. The runner up gets whats left over

Visit the Pavilion - You collect rumor cards. These are scoring bonuses giving you multipliers for scoring at the End of the game.

We did not get to complete this game but it was great fun and I can see this getting played more often, it should play quite quickly once you get to know what all the of actions do. Really good fun.

[Zarniwoop]

16 Nov 2011
Started the evening with a game of High Noon Saloon similar to En Guard! and Kung Fu Fighting but has more to it than it's siblings. This game fits its theme well and the addition of the board just makes the whole game more interesting and fun. We tried a 3-player of this (Me, caz and Neil), this was eventually won by Caz.

We then played a really silly but extremely fun game of Cash `n` Guns where players have a hand of identical cards: five “click”, two “bangs”, and one “triple bang”. Each round players select one of their bullet cards, then on a count of three point there foam gun at one of the other players, then on another 3 count players get the chance to drop out, but doing so means taking a shame token (- $5000 at the end of the game). The bullet cards are then revealed, bangs cards cause wounds (3means you are out) eliminating the player from a share of the cash, surviving players share the loot evenly, any remainder left for the next round. This continues for 8 rounds or until only one player remains. The person with the most money wins.

Great fun, lots of luck but you can't help but laugh your way through this, though be warned this can lead to nasty looks as you point your foam gun for a 2 or 3rd time at one of your friends

Sally:$24000, Andy:$27000, Paul:$28000, Neil:$28000, and Carole:$50000

Finally, we broke out Undermining this is a really quick, fun little game where players compete to collect ore to spend completing contracts and/or upgrading their UMV to help them mine the ore better. The artwork is superb and the game simple yet quite strategic with plenty of opportunity to scupper your opponents. Sally:19, Paul:22, Caz:30 and Andi:44

[Zarniwoop]

23rd Nov 2011
Started of the evening with a game of Deadwood Rival gangs are vying for control of Deadwood and the new railway coming into town, the gang with the most money will win. This is a quick, fun, game with a wild west theme a perfect start/end of a session of gaming. This plays quite quickly with the bonus of being easy to explain. Paul:$11, Caz:$14, June:$14, Emma:$15 and Phillip: $17

We then had another game of High Noon Saloon (I really quite like this game ) I managed to win this one, a rare one-off I'm sure.

Finally finishing off the evening with a game of Martian Dice
Swoop

1. Roll great big handfuls of Martian Dice. Every roll will be some combination of pesky Tanks, sizzling Death Rays, and terrified fleeing Humans, Cows, and Chickens.
Scoop

2. Set aside the Tanks, then decide whether you want to keep the Death Rays (for zapping Tanks), or abduct a type of earthling (for points).
Score

3. Keep Swooping & Scooping until you are happy with your haul or you run out of Martian Dice. Earn points for your abducted earthlings, but ONLY if you've got enough Death Rays to fight off the Tanks.

FUN!!!! FUN!!!! FUN!!!! similar to the hilarious Zombie dice but just soooo much better.. Really great fun and really quick to play. Sally:16, Paul:22 and Roy:25

[Zarniwoop]

30th Nov 2011
Started off the evening by what started out as a 2-player High Noon Saloon then 3 and finally spiralled out to a 5 player as various people drifted into the shop. This turned out to be an epic game, as we all seemed to independently decide to pick on the cowboy with the most Grit left, except for the odd revenge attack. Play continued until we were all down to our last bits of grit and speculating that all someone needed was the "Swinging from the Chandelier" attack card to just wipe the lot of us out. This did appear but with an unfortunate set of cards meant the Chris could not quite take everyone out, leaving a final showdown with Barry who eventually won out.

Finished off by playing a game of Utopia a great little game with some fantastic pieces. Players are ministers of Utopia encouraging princes of various cultures to the various islands to build monuments and Wonders. The player who earns the most prestige wins the game. This game is simple to learn but has a lot of strategy to it, with every game having differing outcomes. This plays really quickly and scales well with different numbers of players. Paul:43, Neil:48, Chris:51 and Barry: 59

[Zarniwoop]

7th Dec 2011
Started off with a game of Santiago de Cuba is a like a little version of Cuba that plays in about an hour. The aim is to collect Victory points achieved by loading goods on ships (the demand determined by rolling dice) and/or by using the abilities on various buildings. Each turn the players can move a car along a track to the next Charactor on the board or pay money to skip ahead 1 or 2. Each character provides a reward of some sort and allows the player to place a meeple one of a set of buildings marked with a coloured flower. These buildings, and the characters are laid out randomly at the start of the game. Each building allows the player the option of taking its action, of which there are many. All these help you on your way to victory. One of the Characters allows you to place one (of 3) control markers you have on a building, these mean you get a reward when another player uses that building. Only one player can occupy a building at any time. The value for goods loaded onto the boats can be changed by various means, and normally the boat can only be loaded by the car being moved to the dock, though there is a means to load a good early.

This continues until the 7th ship has sailed then scores are totalled. This is a fun little game with plenty of variability and certainly is fun to play. Its quicker and easier to play than its larger cousin and would certainly get more play I think. Really enjoyed this. Chris:37, Richard:40 and Paul: 42

Ended the evening with a game of Thurn and Taxis an old favourite this one, always love to play this game as it is both simple and devious at the same time. Players compete to build postal routs across Germany gaining points for length of routes, having post boxes in all of one district, having a post box in every district etc Once someone has completed a route to earn them the 7 Coach or has played their last post box that round is completed and the scores calculated. Caz:25, Paul:32 and Andy:58

[Spirit Games]

Games we have been playing - November 2011 up-date.

Christmas approaches once more, and it is high time I brought you up to date with my choices from the deluge of games we have had this year.

First off, what did I allowed myself as early birthday presents this summer? The answer: King of Tokyo - now awaiting a reprint - and Conquest of Planet Earth. By the time of my birthday I had allowed myself a Wiraqocha as a very early Christmas present and that gets played constantly. Recently I have been getting the hang of Eminent Domain, a more user-friendly Race for the Galaxy with a touch of Dominion, which puts it right up my street. The long-awaited reprint of Alien Frontiers arrived last month and has been avidly played. Most recently of all, the last game I played on Sunday at Midcon was Urban Sprawl - a 3 hour game, but which we got the hang of as we went along and thoroughly enjoyed. I would put this alongside Agricola as a game that sounds and, at first glance looks uninspiring, but turns out to be good fun.

I have borrowed back the copy of Sutter's Mill which I gave a friend for his birthday and have been interesting several of our regulars, this is one that seemed to pass people by initially but is a bit different without being too complicated and has always been fun. Two similarly overlooked games that we pull out of our games library from time to time are Abandon Ship and Montego Bay. While on the subject of simpler games, Braggart has largely taken over from Nuts! as the default quick fun card game, and Marrakech continues to come out regularly as does It's Alive.

At the last Raiders of the Games Cupboard (next one is on 29th December, by the way) I took the opportunity of a game of Ad Astra, as I usually do, and also played Ankh-Morpork, the new family/light gamer Discworld game, and Fortune & Glory, an impressively large box of bits which also proved possible and enjoyable to play straight away after punching out the counters using the Quick Start rules.

Most recently Sally and I have been trying three very different card games: Food Fight is clearly designed to appeal to those wanting a bit of silliness but in fact plays rather well and has now had several outings with different groups. Conflicting Kingdoms is a semi-customisable card game a bit like Magic the Gathering (oh yes, I've been playing a fair bit of that too), but with a strong tactical/positional element too. I'm getting more drawn into it the more I demo it to people. And Revolver is a two-player game with an unusual mechanism which will take a couple more games to get the hang of . I'll have to put up a review once I know what I'm doing - maybe by the time you read this...

Phil.

[EvilGinger]

Nice to see you on here Spirit Games & it all makes me want to get to more wednesday games nights consider it something of a new years resolution even though I don't do those.


 Ginger

[Zarniwoop]

14th Dec 2011
We started the evening off with a 5 player game of Lifeboat, players are hand 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.

This was quite fun and did produce some funny accents and cruel / funny player interactions. The game ended with "the kid" being thrown overboard and to add insult to injury someone chucked in some "Chum" meaning the sharks attacked the kid taking him out of the game.

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

Phil: (Sir Stephen) 28, Chris: (Lady Lauren) 17, Barry: (Frenchy) 16, Sal: (the Kid) Dead and Paul: (The Captain) Dead

We ended the evening playing Mundus Novus

It is the 16th century. The riches of the New World enflame the greed of the great European merchants. To bring back the gold and precious commodities (cocoa, corn, tobacco, vanilla...) they will charter fleets of caravels, build warehouses and seek the help of famous conquistadors.

Mundus Novus is an immersive, tactical game of trading to acquire the wealth of a new continent.

An interesting card game with an unusual trading mechanic which claims 45min but took way longer than advertised, due in some part to it being the first play for some of us. It took me some time to really get the hang of how the trading worked, as ultimately you are trying to build sets of cards each turn in order to gain money or buy ships/warehouses/seek help from the conquistadors. There is more than one way to win the game, Sally nearly won by getting 75 money but sadly this was a turn too late as the other 2 had both gotten the magic combination of every commodity plus incan gold. The tie being resolved by most money.

I enjoyed playing this, I might be tempted to try again but not one I think I will add to my collection. Barry: 1st, Philsy: 2nd, Sally:3rd and me last!

The other table played a game of City Tycoon Phil Says :- City Tycoon a cross between Urban Sprawl and Infinite City - but what would I know I came last.  

Andy:38, Chris:31, Martin:27 and Phil:22

[Zarniwoop]

21st Dec 2011
Well we started the evening off with a game of Wiraqocha which is proving a popular game with at least some of the Wed night gamers . This is an excellent little game with 3 ways to win providing for plenty of interaction as players both try and complete one of them whilst trying to stop someone else. The game involves rolling dice, which does mean an element of luck, but there are ways you can effect the outcome of dice which mitigates some of the randomness. I like this game and will always be willing to play in a game of it. Phil won this, I was merely providing a means of slowing down Martins/Phils battle for the win.

Finished the evening with a first play of Space Maze a quirky but fun little game where players race to collect the Artefact at the centre of the maze to return it to their mothership. In order to move through the maze you need to get the doors to match the primary colours that make up the colour of the alien you are trying to move, various cards allow you to manipulate the maze. You roll dice (one of each colour per player plus a movement dice) each player taking one dice on their turn until they have used 3 dice. On your board you can play 2 action cards and one movement dice, but only one per turn. To play a card you needs to place a dice on it with at least the value shown on it or higher and the colour of the dice determines which of your aliens can use the action it provides. The movement dice have a number of coloured feet on them showing how many moves each of you aliens can make. This plays reasonably quickly and is quite fun.
Andy was our runaway winner on this first game, helped by the fact I got the rule about playing the cards wrong (I thought you had to get the exact number only)