Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2009

[Zarniwoop]

15th July 2009
Started the evening off with a game of Dominion: Intrigue the new expansion for Dominion which can be played as a game in it's own right. We played one of the suggested Setups, which seemed harder to generate money than the base game but there was certain good combos to be had and with new cards that double as VP with Money or Actions there was a lot more to think about. The game plays a little slower than the base game, which is no bad thing, and eventually someone depleted the final stack triggering end game. Phil and Richard were busy working out which one of them had won when I finally managed to total my score and to my own disbelief found that I had WON!!....

We then went straight into a second game using the same setup, this game was not as smooth as the first with everyone struggling to get a decent hand working, there was not many VP cards bought until near the end resulting in a much tighter score.

Finally, after Richard left for the night Phil, Philsy and myself started a game of Plunder which we didn't get a full game of but did look interesting. It played well, once I started to get my head round it, and it does feel very piratey which is a good thing. I look forward to playing a full game of this sometime in the future.

[carldjcross]

We had a bit of Intrigue going on too but before that we had a second go at Looting London. It turned out to be a much more tactical game than the one we played at Raiders with people looking ahead and trying to scupper each other but strangely not a lot of destroying evidence going on. That was probably more to do with me not explaining how to clearly enough but at least they’ll know for next time.

And so on to Dominion. Peter Tortured us all for most of the game to the point where we were convinced that none of us would be able to actually take a turn about half way through. Thankfully Frog read the rule clarification but it didn’t stop Peter winning with 0 points. Uh huh, you read that right no points at all (no VP cards were bought for the entire game). The other places were decided on the number of Curses we had picked up along the way. As Zarniwoop says in his review this is now a game full of player interaction with cards being changed and passed around aplenty.

Next up was a quick game of Lost Cities which was characterised by a mad scramble for those all important artifacts forcing some of us (well alright, me) to show my hand early to grab them at the expense of potential points later on.

Just as I was about to leave someone suggested a game of Incan Gold which is always hard to turn down. It ended with a tense showdown (it sez ere) between Peter and myself with Peter finally succumbing to a second spider card to come in second.

I really must start bringing a paper and pad with me. By the time I get around to writing these session reports I’ve often forgotten who won what. I do remember, unusual as it is, that I won two games: Looting London and Incan Gold and that Peter did won Dominion. It might have been Carol who won Lost Cities but I honestly can’t remember. Rubbish

[carldjcross]

Since I've been lazy and not posted session reports for the last two weeks it's time for a quick catch up:

Wednesday 22nd July

Phil, Sal, Peter and myself tonight and we decided to raid the games library with the vague idea of playing a classic or two I'd not played before.

After the usual umming, ahhing and I-don't-know-what-do-you-want-to-play-ings we came out with Days of Steam a newish game nobody had played before. Since only Sally had read the rules she gave us a detailed rundown of what we should be doing and off we went.

It's a tile laying train game boiled down to the basics: pick stuff up and deliver it to somewhere else. The trick here is the need to lay tiles to gain the steam needed to move your little engine-meeple and if you can screw over someone else where you're doing that all the better. Which to be fair happened a fair bit, especially towards the end to Phil who for a long time was one point away from winning. He eventually did though.

Next was Roll Through the Ages.

Phil always plays a defensive game of this. A favourite opening move of his is to grab medicine meaning that he's immune to the plague disaster, cue much teasing and accusations of paranoia. Well it worked out for him this time: plague was rolled again and again meaning that we all ended up so ridiculously behind while Phil steamed ahead by default. He probably taught his civilisation to wash their hands or something.

We followed this up with two games of Incan Gold the first of which Phil won again but true to the spirit of the game he pushed his luck a little too far and spoiled his winning streak for tonight by not winning his last game.

Wednesday 29th July

Not many of us tonight so with our visitor from Australia we played an 8 player Citadels. As usual there was much assassinating of the King, stealing from the Merchant and lots of complicated double bluffing going on.

Frog won convincingly with 25 points while everyone else came in at the 15-19 points range.

Leaving us just enough time to finish off with a Bucket King. Carol seemed to have it sewn up but it all ended in a thrilling duel between her and Ron* although she did eventually beat him down.

*Note: This might not be his actual name.

[CrazyFrog]

Wednesday 29th July

Frog won convincingly with 25 points while everyone else came in at the 15-19 points range.

Actually for the record Sally won with approx 37, I'm second. 

[carldjcross]

Ooops!  I really am going to have to start writing these scores down.

I knew it was between the two of you.

[EvilGinger]

dont fret Carl sally will box you ears and then you wont forget again after all it almost works on Phil

BTW any one up for a quick game of EVE conquests as I NEED to play the game again

 Ginger

[carldjcross]

dont fret Carl sally will box you ears and then you wont forget again after all it almost works on Phil

So that's why he takes so long to take a turn.

[carldjcross]

I arrived a little earlier than normal tonight and was waylaid into a game of Eve:Conquests with Phil and Evil Ginger.

Whitefire and Evil Ginger have done a sterling job of describing how the game plays in their reviews (http://www.bigbangburgerbar.co.uk/Forum/index.php?topic=729.0 )so I won't repeat those here but instead try to give you a flavour of how the game actually played out.

By all accounts the rules are a pig to read so we had the advantage of learning the game from Evil Ginger and also of playing while we learned which meant we could get started fairly quickly.

For a game that looks like a complicated 4 X space opera  Eve plays surprisingly like an abstract game. For most of the game we were building and moving the admittedly nice poker chip style pieces with very little hint of any of the titular conflict since you can play agents on enemy territory without a fight and peacefully coexist unless it happens to be an objective world.

The scheduling wheel which looks horribly complicated at first sight becomes, after a couple of turns, second nature and keeps the game moving along at a reasonable rate.

I should be annoyed that Phil came from nearly 10 points behind to win in a single turn by picking lucky objective tiles that he got to take automatically but in all conscience I can't since I started with a massive 7 point (out of 15 needed) lead thanks to exactly the same kind of luck in my setup phase. Evil Ginger thinks that that this would even out in a longer game. I'm not sure it's worth it.

Eve isn't a bad game  though it's just that I can think of games that do it better. Galactic Emperor has a stronger theme and Antike's clock mechanism is more streamlined. Eve's combat system seems to have been well thought out though with tactical decisions with an added random factor but there seems to be very little incentive to use it. All that said I would play it again, particularly if my opponents had played a game or two before to make it a bit quicker.

Sadly I was too tired to take Zarniwoop up on the now obligatory Incan Gold game to close, how did it go?

[EvilGinger]

I still like the game and its on my must get list, I will admit that phil was a spawny git of a high order in the way he won a pair of objective worlds turning up not only in his empire but on planets he already had outposts on. I will grant that having the largest empire by area probably helped a bit.

As for combat there was far more combat in the first four player game as we scrambled for the last VP's, so putting EVE into the category of games best played by more rather than less people.

I am also beginning to think that there are subtleties in the project cards which we have missed though that the cards are not explained in the rules other than in the most general way, is one of the rules many faults, and dosent help at all either. I will agree that it could have felt more like a space empire building game and less abstract.

I want to play it again a longer game with four players perhaps at raiders before I can form a definitive opinion of the game.

 Ginger 

[Zarniwoop]

Started the evening off with some quick games of Hive whilst waiting for Sally to finish her chores 

We then had a game of Kingsburg which Sally romped to an overwhelming Win with me and Carole tied for second place.

To round the evening off we ended up with a game of Incan Gold always a good opening/closing game. After many failed attempts by various parties to run away with the spoils only to have someone else try the same ploy thereby wrecking the plan it was eventually won by Phil (?)..

[Zarniwoop]

12th Aug 2009
Tonight we played Kingsburg with one of the new expansion modules (New Playmat with 2 additonal building lines).
The new buildings offered new twists which Phil managed to exploit and ended the evening as the winner.

The new playmat offers a bit more choice but does not have a significant change in gameplay. I look forward to trying some of the other modules to see how they play.

[Zarniwoop]

19th August 2009
Started of with a game of Dominion Intrique rather than using one of the preset scenarios we went for a random selection of cards. After a fairly close battle between most of us Peter finally ended the game and won.

We followed this up with a game of Traders of Carthage this is always a good little game. After a really good game of this Frog came out victorious.

[Zarniwoop]

26th Aug 2009
After a game of It's Alive played with Chloe and Jordan (grandkids visiting for the week) which is a really good game and everyone enjoyed it, Phil persuaded me to have a go at Mordred. I liked this game, its a balance of risk taking and luck with a fair amount of player interaction. The board and pieces are very good, Peter was the eventual winner of this one, though as ,y first go at this I managed to hold my own quite well!..

Our table then had a go at Race for the Galaxy another popular game, having not played this for sometime it took a while to get back into the swing of things. I managed to start to put together some good combos and was about to place a decent addition to the set when end game was achieved. A close game where Phil won.

Finally we decided to plump for Around the World in 80 Days as we all knew how to play this . After a good close game, where I shot to the front early I managed to win with a trip of 67 Days, Followed by Peter with 68 and Phil came home in 72.

[Zarniwoop]

2 Sep 2009
We prepared early, planned to play Mwahahaha! and actually achieved the goal... Just let this amazing feat sink in a sec..... Right, now as for the game I had forgotten how much fun this game was, the rules are poorly put together but this we have come to expect from White Wolf but the actually game is cracking. Philsy turned up just as we started the first round so managed to jump in. After several rounds of sending in the minions to try and prevent the leaders from Threatening the world Carole managed to keep enough resources to power her doomsday device and made the world cower winning the game.

[Oskar]

Yes I foiled the opposition and conquered the world again Mwhahahaha !!!!!
ooopps sorry forgot myself for a minute there, I'd forgotten how good this game was.