6th April 05.....................................................8 Players

Julian – I hope that all goes to plan this weekend. We look forward to having you back with us as a married man in a few weeks time.

Julian’s comment:

I spent Wednesday evening printing, folding and stapling the orders of service for the wedding, personally I would rather have been gaming. However, everything now seems ready and I will be back with you in May, after 3 weeks of exploring Africa.

This is the second week of the children’s Easter holiday. We had a turnout of 8. The kids teamed up on one table with the remaining 5 of us at the other. On reflection I should have gamed with the children to guide them along the path of light, getting them to play something sombre and strategic rather than loud and physical.

I was at Baycon over the weekend. This is my favourite convention. I played a load of games. It is always interesting to see what folks choose to play at these events. The popular heavier games were Power Grid, Goa and Puerto Rico. Mid weight games that were popular included Ticket to Ride, Settlers, Alhambra and Ra. At the light end the popular games included Fairy Tale and King Lui. The surprise game for me was a 4 player playing of Sunken City, which I really enjoyed. I part watched a very tense game of Taj Mahal, which I would have loved to be involved in. Baycon is a holiday to me as well as a convention and I enjoy the social side as much as the games. For the second year in a row I got to spend time with Karen and Nigel who are my favourite convention couple (I’m copying them into this e-mail so I best be nice :-))

Our little club has developed quiet a profile. On a couple of occasions, upon hearing I was from the midlands, I was asked if I knew of the Halesowen club. It appears that we are one of the more established weekly, public venue, boardgame clubs, in Britain. 

Mike’s Comment:

Given that we always tend to mention the Club when we play at Cons (just in case the opponents are locals), have managed to get on most Web Club Lists (something I particularly pushed around 2002, I seem to remember, though I guess we ought to check those listings now as they may refer to Tuesday meetings still), and that we've only ever cancelled one meeting in 5 years, I'm not surprised we are becoming pretty well known in the hobby.  Don't know if we want to try and raise our profile still further, it's finding the right idea and making the commitment that's always the problem. I'd be happy with just 2 more regular members!

 

Matt’s comment:

After spending last Wednesday night surveying the timbers of a prospective barn conversion with the current tenants still in-situ (...) I got back to find I'm lecturing to a load of builders next Wednesday evening. Gah. See you all the week after. Is there a plan to go to Beer and Pretzels in Burton next month?

 

My retort:

I intend to go to Beer and Pretzels but I will not commit until a day or two before. I gather from your web site that you kill beetles, a noble occupation.

Citadels – 60 minutes

We played with my copy of Citadels. I appreciated that we played this game at a reasonable pace, which helped me enjoy it more, but I still don’t think it is a good Wednesday night game. It is the sort of game, if it had been around, I might have enjoyed playing in free periods in the sixth form common room many years ago.

I found myself with the role of Warlord on 3 different occasions towards the end of the game, which made me unpopular. I hit Steve on the last round knocking him from third to last and promoting myself to joint third. A couple of turns earlier I knocked one of Dave’s buildings down depriving him of a probable early victory.

Alhambra – 70 minutes

This was actually my 10th game of Alhambra but it was new to everyone else. I have only ever played with 2,3 or 4 players. I suspected it would not be good for 5 but we did not seem to have any other choices acceptable to all so we tucked in. There is too much down time with 5 and it is pointless trying to plan ahead because the tiles have normally changed by the time it gets back to your go. I do like this game though I suggest not playing with so many again

Steve seemed to find it particularly painful.

The children played Pitch Car and Think Blot. They had a load of fun. Daniel and Jon are counting the days to half term when they can join us again.

This session has been a bit of a so so gaming experience for me. I am not about next week, I fancy something a bit meaty for the week after. 

Steve’s comment:

I apologise for my bad mood this week - it was a combination of the kids playing up (although James like the others had a terrific time) and the interminable boredom of the second game. I learnt two things this week - Gordon is dead right that the kids need an adult on their table, particularly towards the end of the evening. The second is that multiple solitaire games plus more than three players plus slow play equals I'd rather watch Chelsea on the telly! Or play Pitch Car! How about we play Power Grid when Gordon is back week after next? How about Ra or Puerto Rico next week?

 

Dave’s comments:

Thanks for Wednesday night, I certainly felt a lot better at the end of the evening than at the beginning of it. We played a game that I have liked since we first played it and a game that I would like to play again soon.

 

Steve - No need to apologise. I think I was feeling much the same during Games of Thrones the other week. I’ll add my agreement about the kids, I notice the same thing last week early in the evening, although I didn’t notice so much later (I think I was too engrossed in Kremlin).

 

I enjoyed Alhambra. Although 5 may be slightly more than the ideal number of players, I don’t think the downtime was excessive, taking that number into account. I don’t think it is a multiple Solitaire game, as there are actually two strands to it, building your own garden and you have the opportunity to affect others if you watch what your opponents are doing. That said, in my usual contrary way, I generally would prefer a multiple Solitaire game and the more players there are the more I would like it. The problem is that there is really no such thing, the nearest we have that comes close in my view is San Juan. By the way, surely anything would be preferable to watching Chelsea (or any other team) on the telly, even Settlers of Catan.

 

Gordon - Are you sure you got the timings right, I seem to recall from what Mike said that the Citadels was the 60 minute game and Alhambra the 70.

 

Regards next week, maybe it’s the masochist in me (as I have not got a good record of late), but I’d be up for Ra for part of the evening. Maybe also San Juan and I’d be keen to dig out Vinci or Industrial Waste, both of which were nearly played last week, before the addition of an extra player and then the surprise suggestion of Kremlin.

 

See you next week

 

Dave C’s comment:

Re: adult supervision: I agree, in fact I nearly suggested it on the last e-mail. I'm quite happy to do it (when I'm there, and not getting covered in blue paint decorating Ben's room); I think Gordon mentioned some time ago that I've got quite a few 'family/younger members' orientated games. The kids do get noisy; that's their nature, but I don't want to put them off coming as they are the Next-Gen of boardgamers.

Dave D 'almost' endorsed Settlers. Can we put a sticky on that post?

 

Mike:

I agree with DD, I do like Citadels very much, and I would be happy to play Alhambra again, but I think it would probably be better as 3-player, maybe 4, less downtime and probably better opportunity to plan and react to what other players are doing.  Yes, the timings were the other way around. Probably here next week, Jon too, I'm in the USA week after.

13th April 05.....................................................5 Players

Dave D’s report:

Just the five of us tonight and a close game of Vinci with just 10 points separating all the players, Steve won, making very good use of Astronomy at two points. I had fun toward the end with a Speciality Field General, coming on with 20 odd units and causing general mayhem, then the next turn taking it off the board and causing more mayhem in a different place, only problem was after removing 14 units at the end of the turns it was only scoring a maximum 9 points. Oh well part of the fun in Vinci is seeing what can be done with unusual combinations.

Vinci – 135 minutes

The evening was completed with a quick game of Guillotine, which a strange second day terminated almost immediately, when having seen the execution of just one nob, the Scarlet Pimpernel appeared to rescue Robespierre of all people.

Guillotine – 15 minutes

Note that the timings for Citadels and Alhambra were reversed last week; I have adjusted the points in the following table.

20th April 05.....................................................7 Players
We had a turnout of 7 tonight. Mark Stretch put in an appearance armed with an interesting collection of games none of which we actually played as it happened. I was well up for tonight’s session having not gamed for 2 weeks and I went home very satisfied. It was a good evening, thanks everyone.

Below is a list of the 10 games we spent most time playing at the club during 2004. The hours refer to the sum of the number of players times the time spent playing ie a 1 hour four player game would contribute 4 hours towards the total.
 

I don’t think the list contains any surprises. I do think the list goes to show that our rather bashful, “flash a game about and see if there are any takers”, method of game selection has served us well.

Note that the total hours spent playing the top ten games is about a third of the total time we spent gaming in 2004. In other words two thirds of the time we were playing games other than those listed. It all seems healthy to me I don’t know if others would like to comment.

Puerto Rico just missed the cut at 14 hours. The next 3 games all on 12 hours were New England, Guillotine and San Marco.

I am changing the links so the game title now takes you to the relevant results page on the web site. The individual boardgamegeek links will be available from the results page.

Puerto Rico – 80 minutes

Matt was new to the game though he managed not to set anyone up as normally happens when a new players plays PR. Matt was good on coffee. He brought the first of the bonus buildings.

Mark brought an early Harbour, which he used, to good effect. He was low on cash with no factory, large market or coffee to bring him in the dosh. I imagine shipping multiple good types often was the plan but he was getting little help from the rest of us.

Steve felt like the force at the table helped by being the only producer of tobacco for half of the game. On the final build round Steve was one doubloon off buying a bonus building, which would have changed the final scores significantly.

I made use of a Factory and put the money into 2 bonus buildings. Bringing the game to an end quickly before the shippers could dominate was a plan that worked well for me.

Broadly speaking Steve and Mark were producing and shipping and Matt and myself were generating cash and sinking it into buildings. The game came to an end when the colonists ran out.

Sunken City – 60 minutes

This is a game that benefits from having exactly 4 players. If taken too seriously I guess the play could bog down. Neptune was busy sinking the city and we were there raising it up again. It was a fun romp, which came to an end because the cobbled street tiles ran out. Steve only had one treasure to get with the rest of us needing 2. The values of the treasures brought home resolved the draws.

Ra – 60 minutes

Steve’s report:

After several Ra sessions at the club where my luck was cursed by Set, I finally managed to win a game. In the first epoch we were hurried somewhat by the appearance of Ra, but I had managed to get a few monuments and, crucially, a single Pharaoh when neither Dave nor Rich got one. That was a swing of seven points to me for a single dude with a crown - very nice business. I really went for it in the second epoch, exchanging all my high suns for low ones but picking up three civilisations. Dave at this point had a good collection of monuments and Rich had a good flood but again my paltry Pharaoh total edged it. The final epoch was low on Ra’s, and high on wasted tiles as Dave and Rich tried in vain to catch me with a perfect combo. In the end the epoch lasted so long that I managed to use my nickels and dimes to get the monuments I needed. Dave's monument collection secured second place.

Industrial Waste – 80 minutes

Steve’s report:

This is a very good game for an hour and a bit and could come out more often. The cards were very light on Innovation, and Dave's factory didn't manage to move out of the 1890s with urchins sweeping the chimney etc. I went hard for a "green" strategy, using all my innovation to get clean technology and thus keep the waste levels low all game. I gambled because I had to go heavily into debt to do it, and if the game finished early I would have been stuffed. Fortunately Rich, who had cornered the Growth cards, decided to develop rather than go for the quick win. This gave me the time to pay off the debt, and gave the game time to dish out about seven Accidents. Great if you're green, not so good if you're producing mounds of brown sludge like Dave was. The last Accident drove Dave into serious debt and third place; I edged Rich on a money count.

27th April 05.....................................................6 Players

There were 6 of us tonight. We started on a single table and later split into 2 threes.

This is a rather poor picture but it is the only one I have this month so I will go with it. Is Mike thinning on top? Finally losing the schoolboy look. At least he has hair. Toby is lacking in that department, me too come to that but Richard and Dave easily make up for us. Maybe me taking a photo from such a high elevation was not a good idea.

Speed Circuit – 70 minutes