Monthly Gaming @ Spirit Games - 2016

[Zarniwoop]

Monthly Gaming at the Shop 2nd Sunday of every month
Starts at 12 noon 'til late.

We have plenty of tables for playing board games and card games, and a bit of wargames space too. New players welcome as well as our normal friendly regulars, and a large games library on site. The Burton Bridge Brewery is just over the road for those who want a pint with their game, tea and coffee are free at the shop and Aldi and Family Bargains are close by for those who want snacks.

Parking at the supermarket is still restricted on Sundays and the council car parks still charge, but there is plenty of legal on road parking and other good alternatives nearby, ask for advice.

Contact Details
salnphil@spiritgames.com

[RichardD]

This Sunda I intend to play Food Chain Magnate. For a change. Once again, no bicycles will be ridden, and no bones broken as a consequence.

[Zarniwoop]

I hope to try Mombasa and maybe Taverna. Though as always I will have a bag 'o games to choose from or leave untouched. It all up to the gods of gaming

[HairyDogWalker]

I'm very keen to try Mombasa, but I won't be there tonight or Sunday.

Maybe one of you will have worked out how to play by next week.

[RichardD]

My plan - copied from someone else - is to plonk the game in the middle of the table and insist that (1) we play it, and (2) someone else reads and teaches the game.

[Zarniwoop]

I'm very keen to try Mombasa, but I won't be there tonight or Sunday.

Maybe one of you will have worked out how to play by next week.

I didn't get to play Mombasa Wednesday night, but did get to learn/play Taverna (Nice little game once you get your head around stuff)

So Revised plan is to play Mombasa Sunday, get some stuff wrong, find some obscure rules I missed then play a proper game on Wednesday hows that sound

 

[HairyDogWalker]

Sounds great. I'm a definite for Wednesday, even if you don't get the first play out of the way on Sunday.

[Zarniwoop]

Good turn out for the Sunday session at the Shop. Well I did get to play Mombasa as our first game and I had a good go at teaching it. We inevitably got a few things wrong along the way either by overlooking a rule or getting one wrong etc.

There is a lot going on in this game but it all works together well providing an excellent gaming experience. The issues are that you need that first game to work out how to "play" the game, not understand the mechanics that's relatively not too bad but how to use your turns wisely to make the most out of them. There is a possibility for AP to creep into things with a multiplayer game but not too much to be detrimental.

There is plenty of player interaction and you will need to be aware of what other players have chosen as action cards for that round in order to decide the order you will take yours. The player boards have a couple of tracks on which are both important for boosting your wealth (Victory Points) at the end of the game. It is important to keep track of these and it can be easy, at least in our experience of one game , to loose site a bit of what is needed or provided there.

The rounds seemed to move along at a reasonable pace with the latter rounds getting quicker as we all got more of a handle on what was going on. The final scores were reasonably close with Andy on 148 and both me and Simon around the high 90's separated by only a couple of pounds (I can't remember our exact scores and I am not near the score pad to verify ;( )

All in all a very enjoyable game which I look forward to trying again on Weds, even though I will have to face teaching it again to new people.

It does need a fair amount of table space, so beware of where you intend to play it.

I then joined in a 6-player Evolution where I managed to survive till the end but did not fair that well, especially after several Carnivores got a taste for my creatures, my own fault for not adapting quicker.

[RichardD]

Nmeanwhile on the other table we played the final adventure of our Warhammer Quest campaign (winning it despite losing three of the four previous adventures), Roll For The Galaxy, and a five-player Food Chain Magnate marathon.

[Zarniwoop]

Sunday 10th Apr

So Phil double booked teams to open up, which caused a little confusion but hey no harm no foul

The day started slowly with people drifting in and mainly chatting as gamers do, started setting up a small short game to start which proved to be a gamer summoning spell so need to break out the bigger games.
In the end the first game of the day for me was Pyramidion, this was a learning game straight from the rules so ended up with just Carole and myself. The others got into games on the other tables after a little faffing and some more arrivals.

Pyramidion proved to be quite a good little game with some interesting gameplay and choices, it plays relatively quickly once we got our heads round a few things. Will definitely play again and it should prove a bit more cut-throat with a higher player count.

The next game of the day was The Builders Antiquity this was bought for our trip to foreign parts and the selling points were it was cheap with a very interesting tin Once played though it is a cracking little game that plays in around 30mins+ (maybe a bit more + ) but has a lot of interesting choices and a well thought out mechanic at its heart. I will gladly play this anytime it has a lot going for it and above all is fun to play.

Finally, after several games finished in short order we swapped around players and we broke out Belfort a firm favourite from wed nights of old and it was good to get it back to the table. I mostly remembered the rules with only a few little delves into the rulebook for clarification. There is a lot going on in this game but it does allow for early mistakes to be corrected by having a couple of turns before you start scoring. Once you get going though it does all kind of fit into place and then you find the end game coming round a lot quicker than your plans allow for

After this we had to bow out to get home for Lupo but it was a great day with great people as always

See you all again soon.

[RichardD]

We did owed Grid Deluxe and something forgettable. Blood Rage, that was it. For some reason Eric Lang games generate a lot of hype without good reason IMO. Still, £50-60 saved.

If we played anything else, I've forgotten that too. I know I never got my game of Poseidon in, so you know what I'll be lobbying for tomorrow.

[Zarniwoop]

Sunday 12th June 2016
Thought it was about time to try another update on this thread

Started the day off with one of my recent purchases Quadropolis I had watched the run throughs and read the rules so was as prepared as I could be Really great game that is simple to teach, as the actions to take are quite simple, but the choices and execution of those choices provide quite a challenge. Final scores for this game were: Francis: 49, Paul: 44 and Chris:36

Having finished that game some of the others also were finished or close to finishing so we reconfigured for the next games. In the end I passed on the The Manhattan Project in the hopes of getting Burano played. In the end I had a second game of Quadropolis the teaching went a little easier this time around. Interesting that the game was quite different to the first and bodes well for repeated plays. Both games were using the "Classic" mode and there is a more advanced "Expert" mode that can be progressed to for future games. Final scores for this game: Andy: 48, Caz: 47, Aiden/Paul: 43

Finally I finished the day off with a game of Burano with Phil & Sal. I was a bit out of practice teaching this so the explanation took a bit longer than it should have and was not as smooth as I would have liked. It was also, in retrospect, the wrong part of the day to start this as people were tired and maybe not as on the ball as they would normally be so the game took a lot longer than it should for 3 people. That said it was another good session and I didn't notice the time taken until we started packing up, which I see as a good sign. Sally was the eventual winner of this one. I will have to ensure I try and place this again soon so I can get the rules more fixed in my head to make teaching a better experience. I really like this game and every time I have gone down a slightly different path for scoring which again bodes well for future plays as there is more than one path to score well.

Well thanks again to Phil & Sally for letting us invade the shop again on Sunday and keeping them late

See you all on Wed night for the next gaming session

[RichardD]

I had an ace day, too.

Played Simon in a game of that new two-player tank game (sort of X-wing meets Flames of War) using the shops demo copy, and kicked his butt. Two dead Sherman tanks and my Panther completely undamaged! Superior tactics allied to lots of lucky dice rolling.

I think it was Descent next, continuing the Wesnesday night co-op game versus the app. We had a few new monsters turn up too, making it interesting.

I'm not sure that I can remember everything we played - Multiuniversum with five after Descent, and then with three at the end of the day. I'm liking it in a kind of Carl Chudyk card game sort of way. Plus gummy bears with swords.

Then Barony. A good game, but not one I want to play again. It was too dry and too aggressive/angst-ridden for me. Very similar feel to Go (which is what Luke was thinking too).

Although Descent is great, the star game of the day was probably In Pursuit Of Happiness. Sort of themed like CV (acquire jobs, relationships, possessions etc) but with mechanics quite reminiscent of Nations, with some worker placement mixed in. It was fun, engaging, challenging and interesting. I've heard it described as Game Of Life for eurogamers, which is very unfair - it's much, much better than that. I thought within a few turns that I might have to buy a copy, and it's not often I feel that way (Steampunk Rally was the last one).

[Zarniwoop]

Sunday 10th July

We started off the day playing my shiny new copy of Via Nebula I had read the rules but luckily Chris, who had played before, was on hand to run through how to play. I really liked this game mechanically it is quite simply but there are depths to the choices and strategies. Whilst I did terribly on my first game I can definitely see this getting a lot of table time.

The next game to hit the table was Quadropolis this is another game I have enjoyed immensely and it has had a lot of table time in the short time of owning it. I have yet to try the "Expert" game but I am still getting a lot of enjoyment out of the "Classic" mode.

Finally we finished off with Burano now I really enjoy this game, though I am still learning how best to play the various aspects of it. I do struggle to teach this and I fear I did a less than stellar job on this occasion. The core actions are simple but there are bonus actions and numerous scoring options that take some explanation. A combination of not enough plays and the complexity of all the aspects mean I have yet to find a real rhythm of how to teach this consistently. That said once started the game flowed along quite well. I managed to avoid painting myself into a corner, unlike the last games of this but in doing so I probably played it too safe thus failing to score as highly as I could have.

I would love to get a few more plays of this and I will have to try and persuade some willing volunteers to give it a go.

Thanks again to Phil and Sally for letting us invade the shop and look forward to the next instalment

[RichardD]

I've played Quadroplis twice now, both times with the classic mode, and I have a 100% success record. But I'm not very keen on it. It feels a bit like an over-complicated Take It Easy, with a side order of analysis paralysis (and I'm not normally terribly AP prone, but it brings out the worst in me). It's by no means a bad game - it's just not one that I've enjoyed playing.

Burano I have only played the once. And that once will be enough. It reminded me a LOT of Trajan - overly complicated mechanism for selecting actins, multilayered ways to score points (none of which seemed to make a huge amount of sense), and I came away with the impression that the game was trying too hard to be innovative and deep, but managed instead to be a bit of a themeless mess. Oh, and it's obviously way to easy to pull off a huge win despite not knowing what you're doing.

Via Nebula was the complete opposite for me. Engaging, attractive, straightforward, but with different ways to approach things. Oh, and it has the classic Eurogamers tension of needing to do four things each turn, but only having two actions available. Agonising decisions - but ones that can be made quickly - and lots of interaction. "Hope he doesn't go there, hope he hasn't seen that - ARGH! That's me stuffed then."