Matt's choice: This week we played Goa, bit of an old classic (apparently) I've only played it once before and I couldn't remember anything about it. Think it'll need a few more plays to get the hang of it.
Steve 44, Matt 40, Paul 39, Garry 26
25th Nov - Goa
18th Nov - Terra Mystica
Steve's choice: This week we played Terra Mystica - brilliant brilliant game.
Matt 115, Paul 106, Garry 102, Steve 85
Then time for a few rounds of No Thanks
Matt 144, Steve 199, Paul 281, Garry 291
30th Oct - A day off work...
... to play some of the new Essen Games.
Funf Gurken
Garry 0, Matt, Steve 6
Potato Man
Steve 30, Garry 29, Matt 28
Gluck Auf (Coal Baron)
Steve 123, Matt 102, Jo 101, Garry 97
Russian Railroads
Matt 345, Steve 321, Garry 210
Funf Gurken
Steve 6, Matt 7, Garry 6
This is an elimination game, the scores are irrelevant.
Just back from Essen
This should keep me going for a while.
The huge pile of punched cardboard frames from Glass Road, 16 of them!
The game weighed the same as two small children, glad I bought it at the
The game weighed the same as two small children, glad I bought it at the
end of the day or it would have dislocated my shoulders.
21st Oct - Tzolkin
Another game of Tzolkin, it's a really good game but if you know people who suffer with AP it can be a bit of a problem. There's an expansion out this year but there is already enough going on that I think I'll stick with the base game.
Steve 72, Matt 63, Garry 53
Then a game of Botswana to finish things off.
Matt 89, Steve 88, Garry 82
14th Oct - Hansa Teutonica
Last week Izzy sat in on the rules explanation for Hansa Teutonica and Matt reckoned that she would able to join in a game with the 'grown ups'. Well she finished in second place, just one point behind her dad, you've got her well trained Matt!
Matt 50, Izzy 49, Garry 40, Steve 39
Then time for a filler before the end of the night. Relikt is a great game but it's not a light filler, lots of game in a little box. Good job Izzy had gone to bed otherwise I'd have come 4th rather than 3rd (but still last)
Steve 12, Matt 12, Garry 6
7th Oct - Hansa Teutonica
I really like this game, and yes there really is more than one path to victory. Lance almost caught us all napping but didn't quite manage to follow through.
Matt 52, Lance 37, Steve 34, Garry 31
Then time for John Silver
Steve 25, Garry 18, Matt 16, Lance 3
30th Sep - Keyflower
Great game. Somehow I managed to get the win, I wish I could remember how I did it.
Garry 50, Paul 45, Steve 40, Lance 40, Matt 37
23rd Sep - CO2
This week we played CO2. It didin't seem to go down very well, I don't know why really as, looking back, I can't think of anything in particular that I disliked about it.
Didn't make a note of the scores.
9th Sep - Tzolkin
Tzolkin - Quite good but nothing that special (ie no trains in it). I made a huge mistake at the begining that haunted me all game.
Steve 73, Matt 68, Garry 31
Sep 2nd - Terra Mystica
Another play of this great game.
Steve 119, Matt 117, Garry 102
The time for Fish Eat Fish.
Garry 12, Matt 6, Steve 3
28th Aug - Caylus
This weeks Monday was on a Wednesday. We played Caylus this week I'd not played this in ages and still rate it a 10.
Matt 87, Paul 84, Garry 78, Steve 72
19th Aug - Snowdonia
Another great game of Snowdonia. Matt and I got a bit caught out by the end of the game coming a bit too soon for us.
Steve 100, Garry 78, Matt 75
Next was a game of Chronicle, same designer as Love Letter, great artwork a reccomendation from Matt, so I grabbed a copy at UK Games Expo. I really hated this game and nearly put it through the shredder when I'd finished.
Steve 3, Matt, Garry 1
5th August - Al Rashid
We played Al Rashid this week.
hmmm... the game itself is quite reasonable, a worker placement/bidding mechanism to gather resources and powers, it's not bad but nothing new.
However the problem with the game is this, first the rule book is a mess, this on it's own is not enough to put us off as clarifications are normally resolved on the 'geek. The graphic design (or lack of) is possibly the worst I have ever seen, despite being in English I couldn't read a single word of text, it was either to small that you would need a magnifiying glass to read it or it was written in a very stylized font that made it illegible, even the title on the box cover needs a bit of working out. Then the colours of the Guild Tiles are 5 different colours but they are are printed so similar that I could hardly tell the difference. Coupled with the sub 5pt type I couldn't read my own tiles let alone the ones available or owned by other players upside down over the otherside of the table, I made several mistakes due to this.
So a fairly run of the mill game that is totaly unplayable in it's current form, hope I never have to play it again.
Jo 29(tiebreak), Paul 29, Garry 25, Steve 19
29th July - Locomotive Werks
For some reason I'm quite fond of train games, there's nothing in particular I like other than the theme. I guess the next step is a train set in the loft.
Locomotive Werks is about running a train factory and making sure you switch production to the right sized trains at the right time. It's quite good but the presentation makes it feel very dry. It does need to be played quickly or else it can drag, this isn't too much of a problem as the decisions are straight forward and the maths involved basic (but I obviously need to improve my basic maths!). It's one of those games where you need to know the game quite well to prevent a runaway winner, it's possible to stop them but you need to know how to do it, the game wont do it for you.
Matt 334, Jo 235, Steve 130, Garry 98, Paul 78
22nd July - Chronicle and Diamonds Club
I wasn't around this week but Matt has kindly written something up:
Diamonds Club was a bit of a 'points salad' game but the scores where really
tight at the end. There were a couple of single moves that would have changed
the result. Played in 90 minutes, pretty easy to explain from the rules and
seems to have a bit of replayability. It didn't set the world alight although
that may be because games published since have had a similar feel. Probably a
keeper, it certainly warrants a couple more plays. It was like Bora bora with
fewer rules, fewer bits (just) and it played a little faster but was not as
deep.
Matt 70, Paul 67, Steve 60
Chronicle
Paul 3, Steve 1, Matt 0, Izzy 0
8th July - The Doge Ship
I'm a bit behind on some updates so I'll keep this brief. This week we played The Doge ship.
Matt's Session Report on the 'geek
Garry 58, Matt 50, Steve 45
2nd July - Bora Bora
I bought Bora Bora at the UK Games Expo. On first play it seems to have more mechanisims than a Swiss clock factory. Too early to say if it's a keeper, I'll give a few more plays.
Matt 178, Steve 131, Garry 115
13 May - Terra Mystica
Another game of Terra Mystica, we're all really enjoying this at the moment. Brilliant game.
Steve 121 (Nomads), Garry 110 (Dwarves), Matt 96 (Cultists)
Then time for a filler.
Tenakee
Matt 57, Steve 35, Garry 26
29th April - Yspahan
I bought myself a dice tower this week so decided to try it out with a couple of dice games, well not strictly dice games but games with dice in them.
Yspahan
Steve 74, Matt 47, Garry 42
Santiago de Cuba
Steve 35, Garry 37, Matt 31
22 April - Age of Empires III
Age of Plastic Figures this week. I did much better this time, normally I'm pretty bad at this.
Paul 81, Garry 74, Steve 69, Matt 57
15th April - Domaine
9th April - Trains and Noah
Woooh! deck building, not my favorite genre, but it has trains in it which softens the blow. Trains is the deckbuilder that actualy works (I'm not a fan of Dominion). Basically you use the deck to enable you to build a railway network on a map. Good stuff, can't wait to play it again (even tho I lost)
Matt 40, Steve 41, Garry 27
Noah is a nice little card game that I picked up at Essen, nice little tin box, cute graphic and vicious game play, what's not to like.
Garry 15, Steve 11, Matt 9
2 April - Terra Mystica
Tuesday this week due to the Easter Holidays. We were joined this week by Tony Boydell who was working in the area, so I took the opportunity to get my copy of Snowdonia signed. Tony wrote up the evening much better than I can here: Tony's Blog
Matt 107, Garry 91, Tony 88, Steve 74
Then a game of Fruit Bandits
Steve 40, Garry 39, Tony 33, Matt 30
and to wrap up the evening a game of Love Letter
Matt 4, Garry 3, Ton 3, Steve 1
25th March - Agricola
Agricola, this time with the World Championship Deck. I didn't realise that there was a World Championhip.
Steve 52, Matt 44, Garry 27
Then a quick go at Hey That's my Fish.
Matt 35, Steve 42, Garry 24
11th March - Terra Mystica
Terra Mystica is a brilliant game, my favorite from this years Essen.
Matt 118, Steve 94, Garry 90
4th March - Snowdonia
Another go up Snowdonia, this time the Blaenau Ffestiniog route. Quite different and I managed to grab the win with the (overpowered?) Ivor the engine card which enabled me to build in the fog.
Garry 88, Matt 80, Steve 62
25th Feb - Comuni and Coup
18th Feb - Locomotive Werks
I like train games (there I said it), Locomotive Werks is not your typical train game though, you're trying to build trains rather than networks. If you've played Martin Wallace's Automobile this is the game that he was inspired by (or ripped off, depends on your point of view). It's fairly simple but tricky to get right, we played with 3 but in hindsight it would probably be better with 4 or more.
Garry 408, Steve 357, Matt 323
11th Feb - Il Vecchio and Mow
This week we played Il Vecchio a game released this Essen, it was on my list but my suitcase was too full so fortunately Matt picked this up just after Christmas. Another great game from Essen, OK nothing wildly innovavative but a good solid game, looking forward to playing it again.
Garry 63, Matt 56 (tiebreak), Steve 56
Then we had time for a game of Mow, which I would have won but I was brutally picked on (that's my excuse anyway)
Matt 67, Steve 77, Garry 81
4th Feb - 5 games!
Blimey we managed to play 5 games this evening, unheard of!
First Up Carolus Magnus. This was quite a close game despite the scores (honest)
Steve 8 Matt 5, Garry 0
Then 2 games of Cabale a nice wooden abstract
Steve 37, Matt 29, Garry 23
Garry 16, Matt 2, Steve 1
Next up was the fish game Fish Eat Fish
Matt 8, Garry 7, Steve 0
Then finally a quick game of Botswana
Garry 34, Matt 30, Steve 21
21st Jan - Myrmes
Another go at Myrmes, better known as 'that ant game'. When I first played this just after Essen I was quite impressed but it seems that this years Essen crop was particularly good and everything else I've played has been even better. Still, it's a good game but nothing special.
Paul 60, Matt 53, Garry 53, Steve 44
15th Jan - Terra Mystica
Another go at Terra Mystica. This time we randomly chose our factions and also set up the bonus cards and scoring card randomly. I love this game, really really good, I still feel as though I'm stumbling around in the dark regarding strategy but it's great fun learning.
Matt 93, Garry 88, Steve 77
And we had time for a game of Love Letter afterwards.
Matt 5, Garry 1, Steve 0
11th Jan - Terra Mystica
Really wanting to try out Terra Mystica so we decided to give it a go on a Friday night as it was likely to take quite a while.
The game itself is not difficult to play but there is a lot of rules to learn. I'd read the rules several times before and written out a players guide, even so it took 90 mins to explain everything. Fortunately we got almost everything right, with just 1 rule about building towns wrong.
Once we got started things flowed a bit quicker but there are so many things to do it really melts your brain.
It's a great game though, well from what I can tell after 1 play. Loads of things to do and with all the different Faction/scoring tiles/bonus tiles I think it going to keep us busy for a while.
Matt 89, Steve 89, Ben 80, Garry 69
(These are the scores I have written down, I'm not sure if they're right, I thought Ben came in 3rd Place)
7th Jan - Comuni
Comuni this week, hmmm... Not sure about this one
Paul 45, Steve 32, Matt 30, Garry 16
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