Big Bang Burger Bar

Its a little way off yet but a heads up for anyone planing to run any games there look at the Spirit Games Page for Beer & Pretzels (http://www.spiritgames.co.uk/bnpdetails.php) 

Location: 
Town Hall, Burton on Trent, Staffs.   

Open 10.00 till 10.00 Saturday, 10.00 till 7.00 Sunday 

East Midlands D&D Members can sign up for Day One (http://dnd.meetup.com/700/calendar/6869917/) and Day Two (http://dnd.meetup.com/700/calendar/6869916/) just follow the links.

Tickets 
£4 per day or £7 for both: on the door on in advance from Spirit Games (beat the queue!). 

This is a Huge local event and is always a fantastic weekend of gaming. A chance to try something new or run that game you have always wanted to try. Help is always at hand on the day to find players or find a game. 

If you plan to run any games please contact Phil at Spirit Games (http://www.spiritgames.co.uk) so he can help get things set up for you on the day.

The Town Hall is close to the railway station and has a large free car park so the transport situation could hardly be easier. There is a fair selection of hotels and B&Bs; please see the link below those details too. See you there.

So far I am planning on running Lord of the Rings Board Game (http://www.spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=832) (with possibly some of the expansions)

I will also have a fair amount of my library with me (including Pirates) if anyone is interested.

will run Runebound 2nd ed with painted figures possibly with some of the small expansions

Is Lord of the Rings board game any good?

Very good, it is a co-operative game with you playing the hobbits and trying to avoid going evil and meeting Sauron.

I will probably play at least one game with no expansions so feel free to pop along and play. It takes 2-5 players.

You really have to think about how to play your turn as the consequences could effect the other players and your chances of winning, I would recommend it to anyone.

Sounds like a laugh....count me in.

Thanks to everyone who came along to the 19th B&P especially those who wondered over to play in my games it was fun.

I managed to get a few games  in over the weekend:

Saturday
Red Dragon Inn (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=3498) A fun game themed around adventurers revelling in the tavern after their latest adventure. The last person standing is the winner. Needless to say I was taken out quite quickly, in fact people dropped out quite quickly in that game. Good fun and a great starter or ending game.

RoboRally (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=2441) The original version but using a home made starter board like the new release. We had a couple of games of this one, a small game with 5 people with the usual amount of mayhem and robot destruction then a full game of 8 people. I love this game, it is just fantastic fun, easy to pick up, easy to get your program wrong and immense fun watching people work out there moves. I did spend much of the second game trying to actually leave the starting grid with not that much success.

Settlers of Catan (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=3641) We played the German version of the game (cos that's the one I own  ;D ). We had a 6 player game of this which is slightly different to the normal game as everyone gets a chance to build or buy cards after the active players turn. This is another one of my favourite games and is always good fun to play, one of our players had to bail out near the end of the game to give someone a lift so Phil from Spirit Games stepped in to take over his place. Unfortunately for Phil he took over a position that was behind everyone else leading to him losing on this occasion, but he was good humoured about it ;)

Finally a group of us played The Esoterrorists (http://spiritgames.co.uk/rpgsin.php?UniqueNo=4559) an RPG from Pelgrane Press (http://www.pelgranepress.com/) using the GUMSHOE(c) system. This is a really simple, rules light system that has been used in several different settings now including a new game in the Cthulhu Mythos. This was a twist on a quick scenario played at the coopers the other week so two of us had a slight clue of what was going on. It was fun to see the new team work through the same puzzle (with a few twists) only to miss out on some large clues but stumble there way back on track. After some really bad timing and lousy dice rolls we just about managed to stop the threat but left ourselves with a real mess to try and cover up.
Thanks to Whitefire for running the game as always he ran a really great game he has a good DM'ing and playing style so it is always a pleasure to be involved in his games.

Sunday
Started the day off with Lord of the Rings (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=832) I really like this game, especially as it is a cooperative game. We started with the basic game, we nearly lost it all in Helm's Deep but managed to recover and made it right through to the end destroying the ring and scoring an 83 (The second highest score I have achieved). Everyone enjoyed the game and it always interesting as you all have to work together to help each other through to the end. We even manged to keep all the Hobbits alive right till the end. I was banned from shuffling the event tiles for most of the game, as it was the result of my first attempt at shuffling that caused the problem at Helm's Deep.

We then played a game of Pandemic (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=3783) this was Pallet Rangers copy (as it is currently out of print  :'( . This is another cooperative game where you try and find cures for various diseases before there are too many outbreaks worldwide. We managed to grab Richard (who knew the rules) to come over to play on the promise we would play Race for the Galaxy (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=3594) when we finished. Our first attempt was a very quick game, we hit epidemic cards early and also had one two many outbreaks as a consequence. We then setup for another go and despite a few near misses we managed to cure the 5 diseases before disaster struck again.

Race for the Galaxy (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=3594) This is not a bad game just takes several games to really understand what you are doing. This game ended up a fairly low scoring game and in the grand scheme of things was fairly close between the players.

I finally got myself of copy of It's Alive (http://www.reivergames.co.uk/ItsAlive/index.php) by Reiver Games (http://www.reivergames.co.uk/index.php) this is just a brilliant game (see review (http://bigbangburgerbar.co.uk/Forum/index.php/topic,291.0.html) by Arnu) which is simple to learn and play but has stunning parts. This is a home made game but you would never believe it given the quality of the parts involved and I look forward to future games in development by this company. Jack is an extremely nice chap and I hope I get to play a game with him sometime. Oskar played this for the first time, and despite Pete completing his creation won the game on points which is apparently a rare occurrence so well done!

I was then drafted by Sally to show her friends Shear Panic (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=2984) using the replacement player mats (http://boardgamegeek.com/file/info/22033) from BoardGameGeek.com (http://boardgamegeek.com) (These are extremely good and help people know what to do on their turn). This is a CUTE game and always fun to play, I hope they will now enjoy this game more now they have seen how to score the game and will now have the summary sheets which go a long way to make the gameplay simpler (these should have been issued with the game really!!)

We then had a game of Fearsome Floors (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=2196) this is just a brilliant game that is simple to play and is great fun with several players. You have try and help your pieces escape being eaten by the monster and leave the mansion. I did terrible on this game losing a piece early on then just getting worse from there :(

Finally we ended the evening with a quick game of Bloody Legacy (http://spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=2171) this is just a silly game but immense fun. You play traps or tricks on the other players who either take them or try and pass them onto other players. Once a player runs out of cards or has 5 points of damage they are out of that round, play continues until there is one person left. Each player gets 3 lives and once they are all gone they are out of the game. The winner of the last round starts the next, this game is fast and great fun. A perfect game to end the evening with.

I throughly enjoyed the weekend and a big thanks to Sal & Phil at Spirit Games (http://spiritgames.co.uk/index.php) for hosting another fantastic weekend of games and for the unexpected 3rd place prize for reviews submitted to their site.

Looking forward to next year's event already, for those like me who can't wait please check out Raiders of the Game Cupboard (http://raidersofthegamecupboard.co.uk/) a one-day event run by a group of local gamers (Myself, Arnu, Whitefire, Oskar and CrazyFrog).

Thanks to everyone involved......