Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011

[Zarniwoop]

24 Aug 2011
Tonight we had our grandson with us so we started off gently with a game of RoboRally this is one of the first games I ever owned and still good. Players race their robots around a number of boards trying to reach a number of flags in order. The first to complete this task wins.  Robots shoot lasers at each other, there are laser turrets on some boards, you have conveyor belts/pits/cogs/water/oil etc to deal with all effecting your ability to control your robot. This is just FUN always full of funny moments when people get things wrong or are pushed out of position meaning their carefulky programmed robot suddenly falls into a pit Oskar won this game

We then tried a new game The Impossible Machine This is an excellent little card game where each player has a coloured deck of parts they can add to the growing machine. Each player has a hand of 6 cards and can place 3 cards on their turn into the machine. Placed cards can go anywhere as long as the symbols on the left and right hand edges (input and output) match the cards it is going to connect to.

Special cards, Catalysts, start the machine also after 15 cards are placed the machine starts. Players can still add cards but at the start of each turn 3 columns of cards are flipped over, once all the cards have been flipped the machine is complete and put aside for scoring. Once 3 machines have been completed the game ends.

The Final Scores: Caz:14, Paul: 15, Jordan & Sal: 17

We then went on to play King of Tokyo An extremely fun little game and a popular choice for Wed Nights. The artwork and components are of good quality befitting the style of the game. Essentially a dice game with players trying to get to 20 points first whilst trying to damage the other players, there are various cards which can be purchased which provide one off or permanent effects to you or other players. Players roll the dice upto 3 times keeping or discarding dice, the dice symbols mean you either collect energy (used to buy cards), cause damage, heal or score points.

To score points if you have 3 of a number (1, 2 or 3) you score that many points, if you score more than 3 of a number then you gain an extra point for each one. To heal for every Heart token you heal 1 point of damage, unless you are in Tokyo. For every lightning bolt you gain an energy cube which can be spent on cards during your turn and finally Fists represent damaging other players, those outside Tokyo hurt the player inside whilst those inside Tokyo damage all other players. Players in Tokyo can not heal but do gain points for going into or staying in Tokyo, if they are damaged by a player they can elect to leave forcing the other player into Tokyo.

Sally Won our game of this

Finally we finished of the evening with a firm favourite Buckets, which you can never have just one game of the two winners were Myself and Sally.

[Zarniwoop]

31 Aug 2011
For the first time in a long time I bought and played a game the same night. The game is question was Wiraqocha and myself, Phil, Caz and Mike sat round to play this. I had not heard of this until I saw it in on Spirit Games new games list. I looked it up on Boardgamegeek and was hooked

The theme is steampunk which is always good and the quality of the components is excellent, with the possible exception of some of the stickers where the artwork is a little dark making it hard to distinguish between some of the special pieces. Players represent different conglomerates competing to collect the spoils of this Lost Valley of riches. The board consists of a number of hexes with either a number 1-12 or a dice combo in order to place one of your pieces you need to get the exact number or the right dice combo. The hexes produce resources, gain extra dice to roll, allow a re-roll, gain extra mining points or contain one of the 4 relics that will let you discover Wiraqocha's treasure. There are 3 ways in which you can win, Collecting all 4 Relics, Mining a number of Somnium Crystals or acquiring a number of Buildings and Technologies to build the Leviathan. Players move or add their pieces to the board and mine crystals, collect resources spending these on the various cards which provide special actions or additional playing pieces to aid them. The game lasts more or less the hour specified and is huge fun to play, there is a lot of player interaction and in all the games I have played so far the competition is fierce and the final outcome close with more than one player a turn or two away from winning.

I really enjoy this game, it is easy to teach as the rules are not too complicated but there is depth here as well as plenty of replayabilty. The game comes with a variant which is swapping one of the tiles for another which adds a twist to the normal setup. Worthy addition to my collection which has already had a lot of plays.

Phil won this, keeping up my losing my own game record

We then played a game of Dominion which is another all time favourite of the Wed night club. The classic deck building game, which always goes down well. The final scores for this game: Mike:36, Paul:33, Phil:27 and Caz:21

[Zarniwoop]

7th Sep 2011
Tonight Caz started her evening off playing a game of Quarriors  a dice deck building game. Phil won this game apparently

We ended the evening with our first play of Guards! Guards! this game has some excellent quality components combined with some really great diskworld artwork. There is a lot of discussion around the board for being abstract, well for my 2 cents the board looks great and suits the gameplay, some of the text could be easier to read but it is not a show stopper.

The players are newly recruited members of the City Watch, the eight great spells are missing from Unseen University and they have been tasked to collect  a set of the spells and bring them back to the university. Each recruit selects a guild to infiltrate giving them which spells to collect and unique guild abilities to aid them in their tasks.

The winner is the first to bring their selection of 5 spells back to Unseen University which is achieved by working your way through the city collecting volunteers to help you run the spells past the gauntlet of saboteurs, Luggage, magic and other obstacles. You can collect magic and items to aid your volunteers in their tasks or to hinder your opposing players.

As you return each Great spell your selected team has to pass different Wizards challenges in order to safely return it. You selection of volunteers needs to have the right combination of attributes in order to stand the best chance of succeeding.

Throw into this mix a secret society trying top summon Dragons to the City which, if successful, block quarters of the city from being used  for anything other than passing though and which the players have to battle to get rid of them. So there is a lot to this game and it just feels like you are there in Ankh-Moorpork.

The rules are not overly complicated but there are some gaps and the layout is not the best. These are things that can be overcome and the designers have been extremely quick to respond to questions on various BGG threads which is really good. Hopefully a formalised FAQ or revised pdf of the rules will be forthcoming.

This is a game that requires a few rounds / games to get the hang of it but the games we have played so far have been close and there is a lot of fun to be had here.

Well as this was my copy of the game, Phil won - there is a trend starting here there may have to be some get Phil strategies (only kidding)

[Zarniwoop]

14th Sep 2011
Tonight Elder Sign turned up in the shop, being an Arkham junkie there was not much arm twisting involved to get me to buy a copy which we then preceded to unbox to play.

As is to be expected the artwork is in keeping with the Arkham Games theme and the component quality is very good. In fact some of the tokens are better suited to the theme than the normal Arkham Horror game.

The characters are exploring a museum steeped in the usual Arkham Horror mythos meaning there are monsters, magic and mystical traps to overcome to try and prevent the ancient one from arising and devouring the world.

Players either stay at the entrance to heal, buy items from the shop using trophies gathered, rolling for random rewards or by tackling adventures in one of the various rooms in the museum.

A lot has been said that this game is easy and that the rules are broken. Well from my experience, which admittedly is still only a few games, the game drips the theme and the each game I have played could easily have ended badly given a different choice or a bad dice roll. For me though, whether I win or lose an Arkham game, its all about the theme and the atmosphere generated by the players. If you get the right people playing who buy into it all the game is a joy to play and you get cheers as people get the right symbols on the last roll or the collective sigh after a horrible fail or character loss.
As to the rules, I found them easy to pick up and teach to new players. Are they perfect, no there are places where examples or more clarification would help but they are far from broken.

I have to say this was an excellent purchase and I really enjoy playing this. It has all the look and feel of its big brother, all the same atmosphere and enjoyment but with simpler gameplay and can be played even with a large group in around 2 hours which is great.

I would recommend this game for fans and non-fans of Arkham Horror, but if you play with a larger group I would recommend thinking seriously about how you sit people around the game everyone needs to be close. The reason is that they need to be able to read the flavour text on the cards but also it helps everyone interact on each others turn helping to enhance the atmosphere of the game.

In our game we could have had nice gentle last round to win but Martin, after we had all decided we need do no more adventures and grab that win, decided to push his luck and go for one more room.

Well the ancient one was awoken, we had several adventurers devoured and on the final roll of the last survivor we banished the ancient one for a very narrow WIN.

We then went on to Play Quarriors this is a dice game where players start of with a set of dice and on their turn roll some dice then use these to acquire other special dice from the available pool, all with different functions. The aim is to build your "Deck" of dice in order to score points which win you the game achieved by placing creatures in front of you, if they are still there on your next turn you score them before discarding. This was actually quite fun but unlike the card deck-builders, there is a lot more luck involved in this game. Scores were: Paul:14, Richard:10, Martin:10, Ben:8

Finally, whilst I was waiting for Caz to finish her game of Wiraqocha we played a round of Nuts! always a funny game. Ben won this one!

[Zarniwoop]

21st Sep 2011
This week we had another game of Wiraqocha which I am really enjoying playing it is such a fun little game. Well it was a close run thing between Phil, Sally and Caz all of whom were a turn or so away from getting a winning condition but in the end it was Caz who romped home with the win.

We ended the evening with a game of On The Underground which is a great game we just have not played for some time, which did lead to us missing or getting wrong several rules during the game. This did not ruin our enjoyment and really did not effect the results at all with the final scores being: Caz & Sal: 49, Steve: 43 and last me with 34

[carldjcross]

Catacombs - Wednesday 21st September.

I’d seen Chris with this odd shaped game at Raiders on Sunday and when I found out it was essentially a cross between Pitch Car and a dungeon crawl I was sold. When I found it was nearly fifty quid I was less so. But begged him to bring it on Wednesday which he did.

Since none else had played the game Chris gamely volunteered to be the Dungeonlord and myself, Andy and Neil became the heroes.

The game itself is simple and neat; pretty much all the action in the game is simulated by flicking wooden discs at other wooden discs. So a barbarian charging across a torchlit hall to attack a goblin horde in a frenzy is actually a wooden disc being flicked into another disc, an elf unleashing a deadly flurry of arrows against a dragon is, in reality, several smaller discs being flicked at a big one.

Weirdly though it really did feel as if we were adventurers delving into monster infested catacombs and we even started talking and planning in those terms.

Neil took the barbarian and later the lion share of the spare elf, Andy was the thief/rogue and I was the wizard, the one with lots of other discs large and small to represent his spells.

We managed to dispatch the nasties in the first few rooms without too many problems although we all noted Chris’s deft flicks. We missed a trick early on by not using my teleport spell to rescue a character left exposed by an over zealous flick but we were doing pretty well.
Andy was racking up gold with his thief and half way through we had him equipped with a very handy cloak of invisibility which allowed him to pop up behind the monsters and hit him where it hurt. Neil was merrily picking off stragglers with his elven archer and piling into them with his barbarian tank and I was having fun summoning skeletons and flinging fireballs at nasties.

We entered the last boss room one character down (RIP the elf) and with depleted health but with high hopes.

At one point our whole plan hinged on a moderately difficult shot with a fireball. All eyes were on me and of course, I missed. From there on in the dragon picked us off one by one until it was just my wizard left cowering behind pillars…I mean until it was just my wizard left standing.

I’m glad to report that the wizard went down fighting just after firing off his last spell. Screaming for his mum probably but fighting. The dragon was severely wounded but we were beaten. Both Neil and me loved this game. Chris said he’d like to play as one of the heroes and Andy gave it a go but knew pretty well soon that it wasn't his sort of thing.

With a bit of luck Chris will bring this again and if he does I’ve promised to be the Dungeonlord (or whatever they call the DM) but I’m making him choose one of the hard quests because I’ve seen he’s quite handy with a wooden disc.

[EvilGinger]

If you can get Chris to bring this tomorrow I would be up for it sounds great



Ginger

[carldjcross]

If he does I'll happily be the bad guy. 

[HairyDogWalker]

It's already in the boot of my car. 

Chris.

[EvilGinger]

Great I haven't had a wednesday night board game in a while owing to being on Role playing duty every week for ages and I have to come down to sort out the rebirth of Thursday Night Role playing.

 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

& I still haven't as I did not manage to finish a game last night as I kept wanting to go to sleep I did manage to start three though Bragart looked promising but not my sort of game when I am less than normally with it, Nuts the card game very silly fame I normally love but again the brain needed its sleep so I bailed to let some one join in who was going to enjoy taking part. Finally I tried Elder Sign a very Arkham like game during which despite food & caffeine it became apparent that I was not up to gaming so I toddled off home & had an early night.....

Have to try Elder Sign on a more auspicious night as it looked like a really good game & an Arkham game with all the flavour of the latter but a lot lighter on the playing time.


 Ginger

[Zarniwoop]

28th Sept 2011

Started off with another game of Elder Sign which I have to confess I really enjoy and would play this in favour of the original game just becuase of its quicker play time. Each game is different and there is always a palpable atmosphre at the game table with everyone routing together for the active player on each die roll. Excellent stuff, we managed another close win, despsite a large part of the game being one step away from disaster.

We then finished off the evening with another classic Around the World in 80 Days this is a delightful game which is always great fun to play and has a good mix - light enough for anyone in the family to play but with enough extra to keep the gamers interested. Somehow I managed to win this (I think the universe survived?!!?). Paul:71 Days, Sal: 88 Days, Martin: 93 Days, Caz: 95 Days.

[Zarniwoop]

5th Oct 2011

Started off the evening with a Wed Favourite: Kingsburg, I am still terrible at this game but it is always a joy to play and there is a lot going on in this to keep things interesting. Paul: 26, Ben: 30, Martin:39, Caz: 40

I disappeared from the games, as I was not feeling really well, so consoled myself by punching out my new shiny copy of Deadwood.

The others went on to play a game of Bohnanza another classic title that is always fun to play. Martin:21, Ben:22, Caz:28

[Zarniwoop]

12th Oct 2011

Tonight we had a go at my latest purchase Deadwood, Rival gangs are vying for control of Deadwood and the new railway coming into town the gang with the most money will win. The components of this game are excellent, although the numbers are hard to read on the Cowboys face up side.

Each turn players can either place one cowboy from their Ranch onto a building in the town and "Annex" it which means they get to use its action/control function or they can remove any number of their cowboys from buildings in town or the abandoned mine back to their Ranch. All of the buildings provide different abilities to earn the gangs money or aid themselves and some provide means to scupper other gangs.

If you decide to place one of your gang into an occupied building there is a shoot-out determined by rolling dice and if one or both of the cowboys are killed they end up in boot hill and out of the game. There are 3 ways in which the game ends:
 
The railroad is completed by placing the Train Station
The last Wanted Poster is taken
One Gang has all of its Cowboys eliminated

The game is really easy to learn to play but the strategies as always are a little harder to master. The game flows really quickly, and will speed up once players get to know which buildings do what.
I really enjoyed playing this and will almost certainly get loads more plays of this, it seems to work really well with 5 players and not too bad with less, though I feel you need players more familiar with the game to make fewer players work at its best.

The mechanics of the game, the buildings, the artwork and really every aspect of this game really suits the theme and the length of the game is just right.
The rules are pretty clear, easy to follow the only gripe I have is the layout of the building descriptions a uniform layout would have been easier to follow (ie picture then text to the right) also  having then listed alphabetically making it an easier reference to quickly scan when a new building comes out.

Overall a really enjoyable game that will see a lot of table time.

Well this was my 2nd game of this and I up to my usual standards: Paul:$15, Caz:$24, Mike $37

We then moved onto another recent purchase of mine Discworld: Ankh-Morpork another Discworld themed game where players are vying to take control of the city in the absence of Lord Vetinari. Each player is given a different personality at the start of the game, all of whom have different objectives to win the game by.

Players have a hand of cards which they use to take various actions denoted by icons on the cards, the components and artwork are superb. The game plays really well and there is a lot of player interaction as you try to hide your objective with your actions, hoping to distract your opponents long enough to complete your win condition. The various areas of the city provide different abilities to the players who manage to control them. There is a card for each city area outlining their functions, which the controlling players takes to show the areas they control. The cards can be used to aid your cause, but sometimes can be used to scupper your opponents, but use with caution as they will almost certainly be returning the favour.

The game plays quite quickly and with experience you will be able to hide your objective better from other players.

This is good fun, provides much amusement during the turns and suits its theme quite well. I do not feel you need to be a fan of Discworld to play or enjoy this game but it will certainly help you get more from the humour and atmosphere of the game.

Caz:67, Sal:71, Paul:76, Mike: 79

[Zarniwoop]

19th Oct 2011
We started the evening off with an old classic race game - Hare and Tortoise this is a really great game which is a lot of fun to play but the unique movement mechanism does require a little maths. You have to balance spending carrots to move forward vs going backwards to collect more as you have to eat a number of cabbages before you can cross the finish line, with only a few spaces where this can be done. Also you can not cross the line with too many carrots left so you are constantly weighing up your options on how far and fast you want to move, there is a lot of strategy here and a lot of fun, especially with a good group of players.

Sally:1st, Pete:2nd, Paul:3rd, Caz:4th, Phil:5th and Andre:6th

Then moved on to a game of Fresco I really like this game, it is fairly unique in how it plays and looks. I always enjoy a game of this and it easy to pick up and play. I have yet to try this with any of the expansions (it comes with three in the main game!) but the base game is still good.

Caz:91, Sally:83 and Paul:70

Keeping up my not winning my own games count!