What have I played this week?
Spoiler (click to reveal)
Week One: Monday
Spoiler (click to reveal)
After finishing the main campaign from the base set, we moved on to try the second case in the series. We had a beacon from our first attempt that would give us three additional time at when we needed it, and a mysterious cube that we found at the end of the game. The Marcy Case centers around a zombie outbreak, and uses much more in the form of game mechanisms than the case in the base game. Players now have bullets, but must be mindful of how quickly they get used up, as this creates noise, which will in turn attract more zombies to the scene. Across your travels you will find a number of infected girls; the aim of the story is to locate and save Marcy. We played two runs, and managed to find a bunch of different girls, however in both games we ran out of time before we could figure out which one was Marcy. I’m pretty sure that on the next run, we should be able to complete the story. The Marcy Case was a much more interesting campaign than in the base game, which did at times feel a little dry. I know that there will be at least another two stories after this one; I’m looking forward to seeing where the series takes us.
Week One: Wednesday
On Wednesday, my local gaming group had an all day event at the Bull’s Head in Warrington. I thought that it would be a good opportunity to whip out a longer game, one that I wouldn’t usually be able to play with this group. A few people had asked me about Android, after seeing that I had listed it as a 10/10 on BGG and had identified it as my favourite game; so it seemed like the right game to play. All four other players at the table were new to the game, so the first 90 minutes was spent setting the game up and teaching it. We played with the basic campaign to keep things simple, but did include the more balanced way of assessing evidence at game end, found in the FAQ for Android. I played as Blaine, and spend the whole game focussing on connecting favours to the conspiracy, and collecting as many favours as possible. We ended up with political and corp favours being worth three points each, and Jinteki tokens being worth six. The other players got into their characters, and did a great job of narrating their own story. When the other players started working out how many points I had towards the end of the game, I did get ganged up on. Craig managed to place enough evidence on Mark Henry to make him the killer, giving him the positive hunch points; however I had scored so many points with favours by endgame that I ended up winning instead. The people at the table appeared to enjoy the game, some asking when they could play again; it took eight hours in total, including setup and a short break halfway through. A great game to end the year with!
1st - Allen 91 (Louis Blaine)
2nd - Craig 65 (Raymond Flint)
3rd - Andre 48 (Caprice Nisei)
4th - Andrew 46 (Floyd 2X3A7C)
5th - Dan 39 (Rachel Beckman)
Week One: Thursday
New Year’s Eve now, and I ended up inviting a few friends over to play some board games to cap the year off. We started with a bit of a group favourite, throwing in the promo cards that I grabbed from Essen this year. It’s hard to go wrong with this game to be honest, the game is as fun as the people that you play with, and is always best in a reasonably big group. We played with seven, using the scoreboard from the Dixit: Odyssey set; and after everyone had been given the chance to give two clues, and a quick kebab break, Bobby hit the 30 points needed to win the game.
Next up, Kevin Wilson’s unusual party game, I Hate Zombies. This is a bizarre rock-paper-scissors variant with special powers; it is the first game in what will be a series of microgames by BGG. We had been a little disappointed with this the first time that we played, as it seems to be almost impossible for the humans to win. We played a few rounds and encountered the same problem. The Zombies have won every game of this that I have played so far; I’m convinced that we are doing something wrong but I’m not sure what it is.
From one unusual game to another. Flowerfall sees players throwing cards onto the table in an effort to connect their flowers to the green point flowers. On one side of their card is their flower, along with some obstacles; on the other side is just a bunch of the scoring flowers, so you have to be careful how you throw the card, to make sure that you don’t score points for other players. Once all of the cards have been thrown, you look at how many flowers you are connected to and score points accordingly. The game is very funny, and not particularly serious. We played two rounds with players throwing the cards at the table, and one with us flipping the cards from our thumbs. Very daft, but very fun too.
We ended the evening with a bit of a favourite for me. Acquire is such a straightforward game, but also one that is engaging and has just the right level of player interaction for my taste. It is basically a game about acquiring shares in hotels, and watching them grow and merge with each other; trying to get the best out of each deal by buying shares in the various hotels. The game is surprisingly engaging, considering that it was designed back in 1962. Our game didn’t follow the normal pattern of one hotels sweeping across the board, but rather several medium sized hotels dotted around the board. The game ended when the fifth and final hotel was considered safe. Adam had tons of cash at the end of the game; I had less money but plenty of shares. The game was tight, I was convinced that Adam had won, but I edged ahead in the end.
1st - Allen £40,600
2nd - Adam £38,600
3rd - Bobby £29,800
4th - Andy £29,600
5th - Matt £23,800
Week One: Saturday
02/01/16: Flix (x4)
Saturday night now, and Adam was the first to arrive for my regular games night. I whipped Flix out for a couple of rounds while we waited for the others to arrive. The game is fairly unknown, but I love it. So much that I ranked it #9 in my top 20 games recently. Flix is somewhere between a dexterity game and a two player abstract game. Adam picked up the flow of the game pretty quickly, though he did flick the little plastic balls straight off the board at times. I won the first, Adam won the second, and I won the two games after that. Very enjoyable.
Allen 3 - 1 Adam
After trying the solo game the week before, it was time to try the full game with other humans. Adam was the only person who was yet to play Agricola, so he was at a slight disadvantage. Caverna does have a lot of similarities to Agricola, in the way in which players take their actions, and in the way that the harvest phase works; so having played Agricola makes this much easier to learn. The player board seem to be easier to fill in this game, however there is a lot more board to fill. The game feels very clean, and I don’t think that players were ever struggling for moves to make during the game. The inclusion of rubies really does make this a much gentler game to play that Agricola. Rubies can be acquired easily, and can be traded for almost any resource in the game; meaning that getting two animals for breeding is simple, so long as you have the space on your farm. Adam focussed heavily on upgrading his dwarfs, though didn’t do enough in other parts of the game to easily sustain his family. Bobby had the most effective farm, breeding every kind of animal by the end of the game; Matt focussed more on grains and vegetables, choosing to expand his animals later in the game. I focussed early on in making a food engine with animals to feed my workers, then concentrated on building rooms in my cave. The game was tight, but in the end I edged across to victory. Caverna is an excellent game, there is no denying that; but I do feel that it is missing that notion of scarcity that I love in Agricola. Will it replace Agricola, as so many people have suggested? no, not for me. The games look the same, but do play very differently; Both have a place in my collection for now.
1st - Allen 78
2nd - Matt P 73
3rd - Bobby 70
4th - Adam 50
Next up was a game that Adam picked up the other day, Boss Monster 2. The first thing that jumped out at me about this game was the artstyle, which I loved. Growing up with Nintendo and Sega, and being obsessed over video games, Boss Monster gave me an instant sense of nostalgia. Essentially, players will be building a dungeon out of cards, to protect themselves from heroes that will be attacking them. If too many heroes successfully attack them they lose; however players need to defeat a certain number of heroes to win, so they must strike a balance between luring heroes, and having a strong enough dungeon. The game seems to center more on novelty than strategy, but it was still fun nonetheless. Matt was defeated, leaving only Adam and I in the game, then we both died on the next turn. Technically none of us won. The game was fun, I would give it a shot again; though I think overplaying this one might kill it.
Amie joined us for the next game, a quick little dice roller. She always gets that crazy “I’m going to win in one turn” look on her face when she plays this, and usually ends up busting. She didn’t even get a piece on the board before this game was over; I’ve left her pieces next to the board so that you know that four people are playing. Matt was new to the game but picked it up pretty quickly. Despite my slow start, I pushed and pushed late on in the game to claim my third space and win.
From one short dice game to another. We squeezed in a quick round of Qwixx; which has ended up being one of my most played games of 2015. Not much to say about it really; Qwixx is fun to play, impossible to write about. Adam won!
1st - Adam 85
2nd - Allen 82
3rd - Amie 71
4th - Matt P 38
We squeezed in one more game for the evening, a quick three player game of 7 Wonders. I’ve mentioned it before on my blog, but three players is definitely the best way to play this game. You can influence the whole table, and you can keep track of what the other players are doing. We played with Cities, Leaders and Babel; though Babel only had a slight impact on the game. It’s a shame really, I feel as though that module had so much potential, but even when it is included it rarely gets used. I had a Babel tile that shut down some of the commercial buildings, which ended up being the only one used in the game. I drafted the Rome board, which gives you and your neighbors (everyone in this case) a discount on leader cards, and the chance to draw and play more leaders during the course of the game. I got really tied up in trying to get points from the leaders, neglecting Matt’s domination of military and civilian cards. He ended up winning the game quite comfortably. I had a great evening.
1st - Matt P 75
2nd - Adam 68
3rd - Allen 61
Week Two: Monday
Monday now of the following week, and also Adam’s birthday. All the hype about Pandemic Legacy got me thinking about the original game. I will buy Pandemic Legacy at some point, I’m a bit gutted that I never grabbed a copy at Essen last year. Nonetheless it was nice to go back to a game that I haven’t played for a while, and Adam hadn’t played before, so it was a good way to introduce him to the game mechanisms before diving into Legacy. We played using the fifth virus from the first expansion and the base game; we kept to the standard difficulty, and were lucky enough to draft the Researcher, one of the strongest roles in my opinion. We kept outbreaks to a minimum but were a bit slow to cure the diseases. We eventually won the game with two turns left in the game. It was fun, but I really need to pick up a copy of Pandemic Legacy; getting to the #1 spot on BGG is a huge achievement for a game.
Next up we played one of my favourite eurogames, and definitely my favourite Stefan Feld game. This was the first game that I played with Adam a few months back and games club. Amie dropped out so there was only the three of us for this game. Luckily Burgundy scales perfectly from two to four. I focussed on early early shipping to get ahead on player order, then on getting castles and mines to benefit from the completion bonuses first. I was lucky enough to get a science tile which gave me an extra silverling when shipping. Nikki played really well, keeping ahead on the score track for the majority of the game. She went a bit sheep mad, completing a region of five using only sheep tiles. The game was very tight. I managed to connect my third monastery late in the game, which game me enough points to edge ahead for a win. In most other games, Nikki would have won with such a high score.
1st - Allen 234
2nd - Nikki 227
3rd - Adam 185
Week Two: Wednesday
Andre and I squeezed in a quick game of this before the rest of my group turned up at my local board game meet up. He’s been raving about this game for a while now, so I was eager to give it a shot. It turned out to be pretty fun. Players each have a hand of cards, representing units in an army. Players take turns in placing their cards around a central neutral card, representing Hill 218. The aim of the game is to either occupy the enemy’s HQ space, on their side of the hill; or to have the most cards when each player runs out of cards. the game reminded me of a fun version of Lords of War. Neither player managed to occupy the enemy HQ space; but when we had both used up all of our cards, I had more units on the table, making me the winner. I think I’ll grab a copy of this game, it’s definitely worth picking up.
Time for the main game of the evening with my friend Frazer and a few others. He’s actually started blogging recently here on BGG, you can check his blog out by clicking here. This is one that I have been meaning to try for a while, and after a few turns, I loved it. The game is simple but has plenty of choices and depth. I had a secret mission to make a long route coming out of Chicago, and linking to as many cities as possible. Rob got a bit carried away with bonds, and ended up bankrupting himself. It was obvious that Frazer had played before, shooting ahead on the points track, which doubles up in this game as a way of tracking income. The game is essentially a pick-up-and-deliver game, with a bunch of randomised coloured cubes being placed on the board at the start of the game. Players must connect cities to establish trade routes, in order to get points and in turn increase my income. I was expecting a lot of end game points and for a moment at the end of the game, I thought that I had won. I went from maximum smugness to sorrow in a flash once I had adjusted my points. I felt like Leo at the Oscars. Frazer won the game by a whisker. Loved the game though. I definitely need to try that one again.
1st - Frazer 71
2nd - Allen 69
3rd - Porter 58
4th - Ema 57
5th - Rob 8
What have I obtained this week?
Tiny Epic Galaxies
I grabbed a copy of this as a birthday present for Adam. I’m quite looking forward to giving it a shot myself at some point.
