Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2008

[Zarniwoop]

Well the shop was full tonight and lots of games were being played including Okko, Race for the Galaxy, Agricula, Mutant Chronicles amongst others.

We ended up playing Settlers: Struggle for Rome which I had purchased ages ago and had not yet played. This is a very different twist on Settlers, whilst using the familiar mechanic it also adds new elements which help spice up the game and make it very interesting. You play tribes forging across the Roman empire plundering cities and eventually forging your own empires. The aim as normal is to amass 10 Victory points, this is achieved by conquering cities and meeting certain targets to gain special Victory Point cards. The components for this game are very nice and suit the theme well and the game board is large and very colourful.

The turn phases are played differently from the original game, the first player rolls 4 times for resources marking on the wind rose marker on the board which number has been rolled. In this way 4 different numbers are always rolled removing some of the luck element from the original game. The rest of the phases are now done by each player in turn starting from the first. Trading & Building, Horseman Tribe Actions, Warrior Tribe actions, at any time a player may opt to not do a tribe action and instead take 2 gold or a resource card of your choice.

In order to plunder cities you must equal or beat the number of towers of the city you can then overturn the counter to see your reward & cost.
The additional actions, the changes in playing style and the overall mechanics of the game are very good involving having to make choices on whether to keep wandering or start to forge your empire. I enjoyed this game and would recommend it to fans of the original and new players alike.

[Zarniwoop]

October was another busy month for the shop games with the place filling up regularly so the games I describe below are only the ones I played in.

During this month we played the following games at the shop:

Red Dragon Inn 2
This was the first play of this expansion and it was really good fun. It adds four new characters who have new and intersting twists to the game, a new drink deck with some new tweaks as well. I really enjoyed this game it's incredibly fun to play with the new characters making it a good addition if you already one the first. You can combine both sets to form a game suitable for upto 8 players which is a very neat idea. This game managed to break my current trend as I actually won this game...

Carcassonne: New World
Carcassonne is always a favourite, and this variant adds new twists that always make it fun to play. I have yet to win at this one and the night we played this proved no exception as Sally and Oskar ran away with the lead.

Blue Moon City
This game is really well made, really good artwork and components with an easy to learn but challenging game mechanic. Your aim is to rebuild the city and make sacrifices to the obelisk. The player to make the required sacrifices first wins. It is never hard to find players for this game and remains a favourite.

Igels
This is a quirky game, not suited for younger players due to some of the subject matter depicted on the cards. That said the artwork is superb and whilst the rules seem complicated on first reading, the game actually plays quite well and was enjoyable. Our first game was a little slow as we were learning as we went but unfortunately as this was the last game of the evening and we were all getting a little tired we abandoned this mid game. We will play this again as it was fun and it will be nice to see how the game pans out.

Red Dragon Inn 1&2
Having played Red Dragon Inn 2 i felt inspired so took along both sets and managed to get a 5 player game which proved to be quite fun and the extra player(s) does change the dynamic of the game. I will definitely be trying to get more people together to have a bigger game of this as it should be hilarious fun.

Hare & Tortoise
Another timeless classic which we managed to introduce to a couple of new players. making careful use of backward moves, collecting / eating carrots you aim to get to the finish line first. In order to achieve this you first have to eat a number of lettuces in your hand by stopping on specific squares, you also can not cross the finish line with more than a certain amount of carrots which increases as others complete the race. Very enjoyable and every game is different as people always manage to break you well laid plans

Galaxy Trucker
We introduced Phil into the mayhem and fun that is Galaxy trucker, a game where you build spaceships out of scrap and race to reach your destination with your cargo and ship intact. This is plain fun, even the rules are written in theme with lots of humour, it has an introductory round in the rules to help people get used to how to play before launching into the advanced rules in later rounds. We have great fun playing this won and I think Phil even won this, no surprise I did not win it was my game after all This will be played more at the shop when we can get on the bigger table

[Zarniwoop]

In Keeping with the theme of the night Crazyfrog wanted to play a game involving blowing stuff up.

In the end we played Nuclear War which is a very satirical game which, whilst quite an old game now, is still very topical. The basic aim is to be the last person standing with at least 1 million population left to win. It is also possible fore veryone to lose, but on this occasion Oskar managed to win by killing off the last two players using propaganda to remove the last of their populations.

The next game of the evening was Witches Brew which is a lovely little game with great theme and lovely artwork. The aim is to collect the most victory points scored by casting spells, brewing potions or collecting vials (which count as VPs). In order to achieve this you need various spell components or gold. Collecting these items requires the use of one or more characters in your hand.

Each player has the same characters from which you pick 5 for your hand that round, if you go first you claim the primary role of that character, each other player in turn can either say "So be it" and take the reward for the secondary role or opt to claim the primary role leaving you with nothing. More than one player can share the secondary role but only one player gets to play the primary role which leads to very tactical play. The risk is if more players go after you then you also could lose the primary role and the chance for any reward, not knowing what the other players will play adds to the fun. There is always one open spell which adds various benefits but can only be cast by the Warlock so this is always a gamble to go for this option.

This was great fun, despite me losing (again) but would definitely play this again

[Zarniwoop]

Games played tonight were:

Pandemic
This is a great co-operative game where you try and cure 4 diseases threatening the world. Each player takes on a different character each of which has a unique ability which helps in the game. The idea is that you have to work as a team in order to win, whilst you have only one way to win there are numerous ways to lose

This games lasted quite a while, which was really good as everyone was getting into it and having fun. In the end though, having found 3 cures and done a pretty good job of fighting the pandemic fires across the globe, we lost in the last round with 4 out of the 5 cards needed for the last cure as we ran out of player cards (one of the many ways to lose).

We then played Traders of Carthage which has become a classic wed night game. This is always fun and once people get their heads round the numerous things the cards represent becomes a very strategic game. As per usual I managed to lose, I can not win at this game but yet I always want to play it again which shows how good this game is.

[Zarniwoop]

Tonight the shop was well and truly packed, some of us had to decamp to the Pub (a bit of a chore I know but what can you do).
We played a game of Traders of Carthage (A firm favourite of 2008) followed by a game of Tinner's Trail which we had to rush a little at the end as the pub was trying to close up

Phil won the Tinner's Trail but seems to be hell bent on claiming a recount so that he wasn't

[Zarniwoop]

Tonight we played a lot of little games which was really good.

We started off with a game of Turso another favourite of 2008. This is a cute little game which is unfortunately is out of print due to wizzkids troubles, hopefully someone will snap this up and reprint it.

We then played It's Alive which an excellent game which is always fun to play. Then came a game of Bohnanza the bean game which is always fun as well. Several rounds of Bucket King followed which is a fantastic game always a favourite at the shop. Finally we played a demo of a new game called Rattle Snakes, which involves placing magnetic snake eggs on a board showing a variety of different coloured snakes, this was a fun little game .

[Zarniwoop]

Tonight we played Galaxy Trucker a really fun little game where you compete to build the best spaceship you can out of junk and race to get to your destination with as much of your ship, crew and any cargo intact as you can. The game is played over three rounds with ever increasing size of ships to build with an increasing level of difficult encounters to overcome. This was really enjoyable, even with Phil managing to play the second round with the first round ship template

Good fun had by all and this will get played again and again.

[Zarniwoop]

Tonight I finally got to play Sin City which is a really colourful game which fits its theme very well. The aim is to try and be the first to complete 3 goals, the game is played by simply moving various pieces around the board and following action cards which move the heroes around the board who kill or return certain pieces. If at the end of an action anyone has completed their goal they announce this and take a new goal card.

Then we played a game of Power Grid which is always a firm favorite and a very enjoyable game. As always we started this late in the evening forgetting how long this actually can take to play

[Zarniwoop]

Our first game tonight was Kings Breakfast a delightfully simple card game which is always fun. You try to collect various sets of food items from the kings table, but having to be wary that if you have more than the king you will not score for that item so it is a careful balance.

We then played Tsuro which is a firm favourite to play but is now sadly out of print due to WizzKids demise. Hopefully someone will buy the rights and re-produce this game.

Finally we played a game of Mag-Blast which is a beautiful little card game where you compete to be the last fleet standing. You each have a command ship which is surround by your fleet you then play cards on each other to try and blast the other players out of the game. If you fail to make a suitably silly noise when you fire your blasts it is deemed to have missed making this really fun game to play with a good group. Also a nice way to round of the evening.