Sunday 9 May 2010

When I arrived at Wargames Supply, Susan and Raymond were playing a game of Three-Dragon Ante, they were kind enough to restart and teach me. Basically each round the players are playing to win the pile of gold in the middle, by having the highest value set of three cards. Obviously playing high value cards is good, but to balance this if you play a lower value card than the previous player you get to do the extra power written on the bottom of the card. There are other complications and the deck has 70 cards mostly illustrated with dragons. Susan had the dragon's share of the gold when Raymond ran out of money (and I wouldn't have been far behind).

Lucy joined us for a game of Stone Age. Susan tried the othodox green cards strategy (getting 65 points worth). Lucy went after tools. Raymond and I aimed for lots of people (ending up with 9 each). Huts and agriculture were popular across the board, and we all ended up on 5 on the crop track. I think this was my first Stone Age win, and possibly the first where the green strategy was not successful.

Ian     172
Raymond 164
Lucy    152
Susan   152

In the final few minutes Susan taught us all Merchants: Lords of the Sea (a Reiner Kniza card game with a box that looks like a PC game). It is a game to earn the most money playing cards to match the goods on your ships, but everyone else also earns for the goods that match your cards. Raymond and I helped each other but not enough to beat either Lucy (who came second) or Susan (who won).

Susan   55
Lucy    46
Ian     39
Raymond 35

Friday 7 May 2010

Frank's Zoo
Carl, Andrew and Anna were the first to turn up and we tried to get a game of Frank's Zoo in before the others arrived. Well we got two hands in, and terminated the game with Anna well in the lead.

Anna   5 12
Andrew 6  8
Carl   2  5
Ian    3  2
Anne  -1  1

Wars of the Roses: Lancaster vs. York
Carl was keen on playing his new game and it turns out that Andrew and Anna had met the designer in Brisbane. I got off to a good lead on turn one so all the others cashed in their French Aid for between 15-25 pounds each. I had no mercenaries and not much money so gradually lost ground. I ended up with lots of port but lost my ship to John. Carl went religious and also won the Captain of Calais every turn except the first. Carl caught me but never got more than 2 points ahead before the end of the game so my French Aid was pretty much worthless. Carl ended up with 3 bishop-cathedral town combinations earning 9 points per turn.

We did get the tie breaking rule wrong in the first half of the game, and Andrew and Carl both made planning mistakes putting troops in illegal places. John didn't like the game, whereas I found that the theme and components reminded me of Kingmaker (which seems like the obvious inspiration) but the mechanics were a combination of straight forward majority control with blind bidding style planning (but not quite as innovative as Wallenstein). I got an impression of a game with plenty of randomness (due to the blind bid style planning) . I'd be happy to play again though I don't think it is a game to be taken too seriously.

Carl   126
Ian    116
Andrew 101
John B 100

Attika
While we were refighting the War of the Roses the other went back to ancient Greece. Anna won the first game with an end-to-end victory. Nigel won the second game with another end-to-end victory.

China Moon
Anne taught Anna and Nigel this nasty no luck race game. Which Nigel won. Then Nigel, Andrew and Anna went to catch the bus.

Nigel 14
Anne  11
Anna   8

The Kids of Carcassonne
Carl's other new game is a simplified Carcassonne with a twist that the meaples are placed only when a road is finished. The winner is the player to get all their meaples on the board first. I beat Carl, John B and Anne.

Attika
Carl went home and we finished the evening with a third game of Attika. This time I won by building all my buildings first.

It was a good evening for Attika fans.

Friday 30 April 2010

Frank's Zoo
Last week we planned to play this again.

I handed Anna 5 points in the first hand by playing 3 lions on Nigel's 2 lions. Anna played 3 Elephants and no-one could top that. So she got off to a good lead with 9 points. On the second hand Nigel jumped into second place and from there he caught up with Anna, dropped behind and caught up again, using a Hedgehog strategy (getting all the Hedgehogs on one hand). I pretty much ignored Hedgehogs and Lions, aiming to go out quickly but I wasn't overly successful.

This time Nigel did make up for previous games and won on the tie break (which is the player who made the most points on the last hand).

Anna   9 12 13 17 19
Andrew 5  4  7 11 17
Nigel  2  8 13 15 19 (winning on tie-break)
Ian   -1  3  7 10 10
Anne   2  3  2  4  8

Rheinländer
We fulfilled another promise to ourselves by playing this again. I grabbed a lot of castles (again) and also tried for churches but Anne was always one step behind me and I was never Archbishop long enough to use the power. I lost 3 of my Dukes at the end. Nigel had by far the biggest Dukedom but size doesn't matter as much as how many Dukes you finish with.

Andrew 41
Ian    32
Anne   27
Anna   25
Nigel  24

We played again. This time I went for 3 and 4 point cities. There was quite a bit of aggression in this game, which Andrew survived the best. While Nigel went on a religious kick and became the unchallenged Archbishop and won the game. The scores were close this time.

Nigel  33
Andrew 30
Ian    30
Anne   29
Anna   28

China
China and Rheinländer are both 45 minute games where you play card(s) to get your pieces on to the board in order to gain majorities. In both games the cards have two uses: an obvious use and an alternative one. In Rheinländer you can play a knight onto empty space who's number matches your card, in China you can play in a province whose colour matches your card. Alternatively in Rheinländer you can use any card to extend a region, in China a pair of cards can be used as a wild card. In both games you end your turn by refilling your hand. In addition to the mechanical similarities both games have traps for beginners. In Rheinländer, unlike what the theme might suggest, expanding or attacking is more often than not counter productive. In China the importance and timing of Emissary placement is hard to get right.

I enjoy this quick area/majority control game, probably because it is more about opportunistic moves than deep strategy. I think most of the others had only played once before and need a rules refresher. The game started in an unorthodox fashion with everyone starting in a different region. When you start a region you only get to place one house in it, while on other turns you get to place two pieces. So often players are reluctant to start regions because it often helps the player to their left. Perhaps it is in the way I explained the game or may be it is better with fewer players but no-one else enjoyed it.

Ian    38
Anna   33
Anne   27
Nigel  25
Andrew 24

It was Nigel's night with two wins.

Friday 23 April 2010

Take It Easy!
I was on the phone when Andrew and Anna arrived so they played this quick tile laying game with Anne while they waited for me and other people. It is essentially a multi-player solitaire game where each player has their own set of tiles and layout, and they all add tiles to their layouts in the same order. Each line of tiles that all have the same number (colour) score the sum of the numbers.

The game was finishing when Nigel arrived and I finished my phone call.

Anna   174
Andrew 134
Anne   104

California
Its been a long time since I last played this game, but it is easy to teach and it didn't take long to bring Andrew and Anna up to speed. Some people had a bit of trouble with the coins (in this game silvers are $1 and gold/bronze are $5). Nigel initially collected money (having $10-15 at one point) but still managed to buy as much floor as everyone else. He also decided that the characters should have names, calling one of the women Jane, Anne named the brown guy ??? and the blonde guy became Brad. Anna's house was party central and she was collecting a pile of presents (and other bonuses). A steady stream of people were arriving at my house but very few bought presents, but I got some bonuses. Nigel and Andrew were similarly short of presents. Only Anne stayed out of debt. Anna demonstrated her ability to pick-up new games by winning.

Anna   19
Ian    14
Anne   12
Nigel  11
Andrew  9

Frank's Zoo
Nigel was keen to make up for his previous bad showing and Anna and Andrew rarely need persuading to play this game.

Nigel started badly but recovered and got into his stride. Anna started well but dropped off the pace until her comeback at the end. Anne played a steady game. Andrew lead for most of the game but couldn't hold off Anna in the last hand. I started OK but it then fell apart.

Anna   6  5  9 11 17 25
Andrew 4 10 12 15 19 22
Anne   4 10 12 14 16 21
Nigel -1  3  7 12 14 13
Ian    3  4  6  8  7 10

Everyone, except me, wanted to play again. I vetoed and suggested...

Rheinländer
... a game where I wanted to make up for my previous bad showing.

I went after castles in a big way (as dictated by my initial hand). Nigel and Anna also grabbed a castle each. The churches remained evenly divided for much of the game so the Archbishop was out of play for most of the game and never converted anyone. I was a bit aggressive but with only one success (crossing the river and grabbing a castle off Nigel). Anne and Anna also fought over the central island (Anna won) and Anne took the other island off Nigel. People seemed to think I was winning despite Andrew having more dukes and cities than anyone else, so efforts to stop Andrew were too little too late.

Andrew 39
Anna   36
Anne   33
Ian    26
Nigel  18

It was Anna's night with 3 wins and a second place. While Anne specialised in coming third. There was a consensus that next week Frank's Zoo and Rheinländer must be played again.

Friday 16 April 2010

Lots of games were suggested and after some discussion we split into two city building games, four people playing Metropolys and three playing Attika.

Attika
Again it was a close game between Anne and Anna with Anna winning and Nigel a long way behind.

Metropolys
This was possibly the slowest game of Metropolys ever. I got my first three pieces down and everyone (correctly) thought I was after statues. Andrew then got 6 pieces down in a rush and appeared to be after gold neighbourhoods. Finally John got some pieces down, I got one more, and still Carl hadn't played anything but seemed to favour red. Once Carl got under way he got all his small pieces down and scared John into taking back the lead. Andrew and I were in weak positions at this point and Carl and John pretty much dictated the rest of the game. The scores were close though.

John B 27
Ian    25
Andrew 23
Carl   23

Scotland Yard
John went home and we were 6. Unable to decide on 3 player games we tried this as a six player game.

I was Mr X. I made a mistake on my first move that I didn't notice until after the game but I don't think it made any difference as I was easily cornered after my second reveal and was caught just before the 3rd reveal.

Anne was bored because she was in the wrong part of the board and was accidentally blocked by Nigel from getting back into the play. Andrew and Carl who grew up with the game were in their element.

Psychologically it is an interesting game. The person playing Mr X feels claustrophobic seeing how close the detectives are to catching him, while the detectives seeing heaps of empty space see their task as impossible.

Frank's Zoo
Andrew warned us against 6 player Frank's Zoo and while it is OK the fewer cards and more players playing before your turn mean less control. The bigger range of scoring favours getting out early above getting lions and hedgehogs.

Anna dominated each hand which probably means there is still skill in the 6 player game.

Anna   7 14 19 25
Anne   5  8 13 19
Andrew 2  7 11 18
Carl   4  6  7  9
Ian    4  2  5  4
Nigel -1  1  0  1

Friday 9 April 2010

Seven of us split into a group of three and a group of four. Our first two games of the evening were Sylla and Attika.

Sylla
It's been a few months since we last played Sylla but we picked it up easily enough. Nigel ignored the events (including Legionnaires and Vestal Virgins) and concentrated on building and collecting money. Travis and Nigel were Console twice each. Travis ignored money while he and I concentrated on collecting tokens and controlling the events to our advantage and to hurt Nigel (we managed to close all 3 or 4 of his market booths). Nigel collected slaves for building and Christians by accident and ended up with 4 freed slaves and 6 Christians for 24 points, but had very few tokens! Equally accidentally I had very few Christians.

Travis 69
Nigel  64
Ian    63

Attika
There was a remarkably close finished despite Andrew having fewer tiles on the board at half time. Everyone finished in the same round by getting all their tile built. Anna first then John B then Andrew and Anne. Anne was one card short of winning.

Sylla was only about halfway through at this stage, so Attila was followed by "On the Underground"

On the Underground
John successfully emulated Nigel's strategy of locking up the North West corner of the board, while Anna built a loop. Anne's initial lead failed to put her among the place getters.

John B 53
Anna   50
Andrew 42
Anne   33

Then Travis and John went home and we pulled out a couple of card games

Hornochsen
By half way through the game most of the piles were looking depressingly red, but in fact only Nigel ended up negative.

Anna   12
Ian    10
Andrew  7
Anne    4
Nigel -12

No Thanks!
The deck wasn't very shuffled, which was a great advantage to Anna, she would have won except she got cold feet and took a 27 she didn't need to.

Nigel  11
Anne   18
Anna   21
Ian    23
Andrew 31

(remember low scores are good)

Friday 12 March 2010 (King Cotton rules)

Brass

Nigel and Anne suggested playing Brass which was one of the games I had already put on the table. Anne declared she wanted to get away with building no level 1 buildings, while I wondered if I could get a chance of improving on my Cotton King strategy.

Nigel started with development for £2. I followed with development (burning two level 1 cotton mills) for £4. Anne decided that £6 was too expensive and took a £30 loan instead, which put her first for the next turn. But iron was still £3 so she built a coal mine in Wigan and a canal for £8. Nigel did the same in Manchester. Ideally I would have liked to take advantage of Nigel's coal mine by playing a Manchester card or an Iron card to build an iron works in Manchester and then burn another couple of cotton mills, but I didn't have the right card. So I did the next best thing I used two cards as the card I didn't have to build an Iron Works for £5, putting me in first place for the third turn and giving me access to the cheap Iron for more development (burning two more cotton mills).

I then switched to building mills and shipping cotton. I used the external market to ship from my first three mills and luckily for me there were 3 un-flipped ports for me to ship to from my fourth and fifth mills. So I used one of Nigel's and one of Anne's. Nigel finished the canal phase with an un-flipped level 2 mill which was still un-flipped at the end of the game.

Going into the rail phase I still had my level one coal mine. The rail phase didn't go so smoothly as there was a shortage of building spaces and resources were expensive but eventually I managed to get down two more mills. Towards the end of the game I wondered if it would be better to switch tack and build a ship building yard in Liverpool rather than build my last cotton mill, but the cost in iron was too much. So I built my final mill and a port and shipped cotton and used my last two cards and £35 to build three bits of track. Nigel used his last two cards the same way.

Nigel's track was worth more than mine but my eight cotton mills and other odds and ends were worth 93 points.

Ian   190
Nigel 167
Anne  161

Nigel complained that it was a hard game, but then Brass always is hard. Anne said that starting third ruined her game. I think it would be possible to score 200 in a three player game -- though you might need a bit of luck and non-obstructive opponents.

Friday 5 March 2010

Andrew Rae had asked me to play test Dawn of Nations v0.2 so while we were waiting for the last people to turn up I put Dawn of Nations sheets on the table. I didn't teach the game, just let people read the rules themselves (the consequent quiet period felt strange). There were six of us to start with and John arrived and joined in during the second round -- which didn't put him at a significant disadvantage. Most people picked up on the rules without trouble. One had trouble with remembering to declare a goal before throwing. And there were a couple of questions that were answered by other players using info on the play sheet.

Having tried the War Divine-Favour Decline-and-Fall strategy last time I wanted to try the Exploration Trade Wonder-of-the-World strategy. I assumed that Trade would work better with more players. As it turns out my dice throwing was sub-par.

It seemed to scale up to seven as well as could be expected. Because Trade and War are popular and are interactive the down time is less significant than other seven player games.

Nasia was the only person to try for Divine Favour (unsuccessfully) and Anne was the only person to try to finish the game by finishing the Wonder of the World over 3 turns.

People were reluctant to talk about it afterwards except to say that it was a good filler.

Nigel  82 (mostly War with some Trade and Technology)
Anne   78 (mostly Exploration with Trade and the Wonder)
John B 78 (mostly War, Exploration and Trade)
Andrew 76 (mostly War with some Exploration)
Nasia  66 (mostly War with some Exploration)
Anna   66 (mostly War and Exploration)
Ian    52 (mostly Trade with some Exploration and Technology)

Then we split into two groups. Nasia taught her new game of Dungeon Lords to Nigel and John. This looked cute but bitsy. John won. I can't say much about it as I was busy playing Tichu at the other end of the table.

This time it was Anna and I against Anne and Andrew. They called and failed Tichu twice while we called and made Tichu seven times. Nobody called Grand Tichu and nobody made a 1-2. There were three bombs, including 2 six card straights, in one hand (#4 I think)!

Ian & Anna  Anne & Andrew
1)   205 T         -5
2) T 320           80
3) T 410          190
4)   550 T        150 T(failed)
5)   690 T        210
6)   705          295
7) T 870          330
8)   940          260 T(failed)
9)  1095 T        305

The other game was still going, so we played Frank's Zoo.

Andrew Anna Anne Ian
1)  1    5   -1   7
2)  6    6    2   9
3) 13   10    5   8
4) 18   14    4  11

We terminated Frank's Zoo slightly early because Dungeon Lords finally finished. We then decided on our last two games of the evening. At one end of the table John, Andrew and I played Metropolys. I mis-read what both of the others were going for while they picked my statue fetish up early on. The initiative swapped back and forth between us but John finished the game.

John B 36
Ian    35
Andrew 15

At the other end of the table they played Buccaneer and Anne tells me Nigel hogged big stacks which proved expensive and Anna got the best of the tokens.

Anna  99
Anne  87
Nasia 81
Nigel 78

Friday 26 February 2010

With 20-20 Cricket on Friday night and Super 14 Rugby on Saturday night I thought that drivers would be put off regardless of which night we chose to have games so I didn't expect much of a turn out. But it my predictions are often wrong. Margot and Jim (who were introduced by Luke) have been thinking of coming for awhile finally showed up this Friday. Andrew and Anna brought their friends from Brisbane (Kevin and Ann).

We split up to play a couple of Reiner Knizia games: Rheinländer and Traumfabrik. Kevin put his teaching skill to good use bringing Nigel up to speed with Rheinländer, which is a game of conquest where aggression is not always the best policy. Anna grabbed lots of quick castle based dukedoms while Anne went for cities and suffered when other people merged her dukedoms. Andrew complained at the end that everyone was picking on him!

Anna   38
Kevin  33
Anne M 32
Nigel  28
Andrew 21

On the other table I taught Ann, Margot and Jim how to make films in this German view of Hollywood. Ann and Margot quietly made a lot of films while John and I tried for quality over quantity and Jim had trouble hiring film stars (which meant he was shunned at the Hollywood parties) and he made some trashy movies. The scores were unusually close with the awards being spread quite evenly.

Ann    66
Ian    64
Margot 62
Jim    55
John B 53

Ann and Kevin wanted an early night so Andrew and Anna took them home. Leaving 6 of us. We made what was probably a bad decision and decided to play a six player game, as there are not many good six player games. After a lot of discussion we settled on Elfenland, a game of planning and frustration. The first round went well with most people getting to six of their cities. In fact things were pretty close at the end of the third round but in the fourth round the blockers came out and Anne suffered the worst ending up four cities from home with only 14 cities visited. It was a three way tie for first with Nigel, John and Margot all home with 18 cities visited.

Margot 18
Nigel  18
John B 18
Ian    17
Jim    16
Anne   10

Margot suggested that a timer might be a useful addition, Anne suggested playing without blocking tiles and John suggested that instead of giving everyone a blocking tile, that the blocking tiles should be shuffled into the pile of tiles.

May be we should have played TransAmerica or King Me.

Friday 19 February 2010

At lunch time Andrew Rae invited me to a lunch time play testing session in Frank Kitts Park. There were 7 of us so we broke into a 3 and a 4 to play v2 of Dawn of Nations. Jeff and I drew against Andrew with a War/Divine Favour/Decline and Fall strategy while Andrew tried a doomed Trade strategy. The new version of Dawn of Nations doesn't have the central sheet and the Wonder of the World scores negative if you fail to complete it (which put people off trying for it). Then we tried their new game, which is a real-time free form trading game against a timer. Where you are trying to collect the correct cards to match both public/shared goals and private goals. The designers watched 5 newbies play. We were too excited to put our cards down at the correct times. I won with a run of goals towards the end.

In the evening Anna, Andrew and Nigel all showed up together and I started putting 5 player games on the table. People were discussing what they wanted to play when John showed up, invalidating many of the 5 player games. Anne suggested we start with a six player game (as she thought it would be more social). John suggested Atlantic Star which John, Anne and I have played a lot (though not much in recent years). It was Andrew and Anna's first time and possibly Nigel's second.

John made the best decisions about what colours to go for (a quick yellow for a loan, and finishing as the only player going for blue, with minimal competition in between). I made some silly decisions like blowing 6,000 out of my last 7,000 on uselessly clearing the deck and going for green at the same time as two other people (who played before me). Experience counts in Atlantic Star and the scores bear this out.

Ian    47
Anne   46
John B 41
Anna   38
Nigel  26
Andrew 23

We then split into two threes. Anne and Nigel taught Anna Brass at one end of the table while John and I taught Andrew Metropolys at the other end. In the first game I felt I didn't have much control, though I did manage to get some of my pieces on the right colours and even some linked together. Andrew on the other hand seemed to do nothing wrong.

Andrew 36
John B 28
Ian    23

In game two John ran away with the game. I only got my 4 largest pieces on the board and Andrew only got 5 or 6 pieces. It was the most one sided result I've seen so far.

John B 34
Ian    11
Andrew  8

John went home and as Brass was a long way from finishing Andrew and I played Battle Line twice and still had time to watch the last 2 or 3 rounds of Brass. I won the first game with a break through against the run of play and won the second by winning the last flag with the last card in the draw deck. Nigel who, complained about how badly he was doing won Brass with a colossal score.

Nigel 174
Anne  167 (income 64)
Anna  167 (income 53)

Nigel had a tried to build his high tech cotton mills in the canal phase but failed to flip them, so he was lagging on the score track at half time. I think Anna built both her level 2 Ship Building Yards.

Birthday Games (13 February 2010)

It was a bit hectic the weekend before my birthday with the Wellington Sevens plus being out of town for half the week, so I organised my birthday games for the following weekend.

Peter, Michelle, Abbey, Lara and Lance were the first people to arrive. They arrived at the same time that my friend Graeme rang up and by the time I was off the phone On the Underground was on the table. Even though Peter has owned this game much longer than Anne has, it was Michelle's first time.

Michelle 34
Ian      31
Lance    30
Anne     29
Peter    28

While we were playing Abbey and Lara played some Mancala, and more people arrived. Brandon brought a huge box of games including Hoity Toity which he played with John B, Craig, Leonie and Nigel.

After On the Underground Michelle played Trans America with Siobhan, Abbey and Lara. While I taught Peter Sylla, Christians were persecuted, the slave revolted and the Senate was purged. John was first Consul, I was the second, John was third, Lance fourth and I the last and Peter stayed out of politics.

Lance  61
John R 59
Peter  50
Ian    50

Meanwhile yet more people had arrived and John B taught Craig and Luke Hansa Teutonica, Brandon introduced Leonie and Anne to Villa Paletti. Then Siobhan, Abbey, Lara and Michelle had a go. The third game involved 3 pairs Brandon and Anne, Siobhan and Leonie, Michelle and Lara.

It was heading towards dinner time and Peter, Michelle and girls left, so we were looking for short games Brandon pulled out High Society and Luke, Nigel and I joined him. At 5:30pm I optimistically thought that I could teach and play Traders of Cathage in 30 minutes. Lance got one more VP than John R but neither actually counted their VPs!

After a pot luck dinner involving Craig's Guinness pie, Brandon's pasta, Luke's chicken curry, Claire's vegi-curry, Anne's cake, and my quiche, we went back to games. Brandon, Luke, Travis and Nigel played Ys. Leonie, Craig, Frog and John R played Factory Manager. While I pulled out another of my unplayed games: Owner's Choice. This turns out to be a really light dice based share trading game. In game one:

Lance  $1190
Claire  $880
Anne    $840
Ian     $790

In game two we made much more money

Lance  $1430
Ian    $1400
Anne   $1300
Claire $1060

Siobhan was keen on joining a game so we played Villa Paletti a colourful Jenga-like dexterity game which she played with no fear. After all she was the only one of us who had played before. Who cares who won?

Claire left, as did Craig, Leonie and Siobhan and Nasia had arrived in time to play Traumfabrik with Anne, Frog and John R. Meanwhile who knows why Nigel was keen on Reef Encounter, but it had been so long since any of us had played with had to relearn it (even Lance). When Lance pulled off a sneaky coral dominance move Nigel himself started to doubt the wisdom of wanting to play this game.

I did well with my first piece of coral but lost my way after that. While Luke made an amazing run from the back to win in his first game.

Luke  73
Lance 64
Nigel 59
Ian   50

It was close to 2am before Anne and I got to bed after a very successful birthday games. And the tradition of the birthday boy not winning on their birthday continues unbroken.

Friday 5 February 2010

It was a rare hot, calm summer evening in Wellington with the sounds of a party at Wellington Girls Collage drowning out the sounds of the Sevens at Westpac Stadium and people were more comfortable on the deck than inside. So we took the dining table out onto deck and played until the fireworks went off at the stadium. Though we did have a break mid-evening to eat Nigel's vegan apple crumble.

At the far end of the table John B and Travis beat me at Sylla while the near end Anna won El Grande.

It was the first time for everyone at Sylla and we were not sure what stuff was worth. John hovered on zero for much of the game though he was grabbing more tokens than Travis and I. I found that the game reminded me a little bit of In the Year of the Dragon as you are constantly planning for negative events (and you recruit character cards), though there is more interaction in Sylla than In the Year of the Dragon.

John B 69
Travis 53
Ian    52

In El Grande the others were so eager to get inside that they had packed up the scoring pieces before Anne got back outside with my note book! So these scores are reconstructed from memory

Anna   95
Nigel  88
Anne   86
Andrew 72

To be honest it was getting a bit chilly to be playing board games outside once it got dark, but I think that the following evening was a lot warmer, proving that once in awhile Wellington can turn on nice summer evenings.

Wellycon Warm Down (23 January 2010)

It was a wet windy day at the end of January in the Metropolys of Wellington and the citizens were wondering when summer would arrive, so what better to do than go to the Wellycon Warm Down at Thistle Hall on Cuba St. When I got there Tony and Shem were looking for a game and agreed to my suggestion of Metropolys. Part way through the rules explanation Gynn joined us.

Shem played his top pieces early against advice from Tony and I -- and paid the price. Gynn got the difficult statue goal, which I think should be worth more points.

Ian  43
Gynn 26
Tony 23
Shem 16

In my humble opinion Caylus is a deep, tough game, where experience and planning pay off. It's been a number of years since I last played so I needed Gynn's excellent rule explanation as much as the people who hadn't played before. Gynn led until the final turn by building more buildings than other players. Andrew burst past him in the final turn by building the only blue building of the game for 25 points. Your's truly came last through dismal planning, especially were castle building was concerned.

Andrew 72
Gynn   63
Anna   55
Tony   45
Ian    43

Anna and Andrew were so taken by Caylus they did a trade for a copy.

Friends Nathan and Roland were looking for a game so I taught them Nexus Ops. There was a bit of wasteland between Roland and I so we tended to attack Nathan more. Roland was doing well and looked threatening with his dragons but I had a good last turn.

Ian    12
Roland  9
Nathan  4

Martin and Felicity were looking for a quick game before leaving and Stephen and John were at a loose end so I taught No Thanks! My prior experience paid off in the first game.

Ian      19
John     25
Stephen  27
Felicity 33
Martin   38

(Remember low scores are good)

One game is not enough. John grabbed a lot of cards (as an experiment) and it showed in his score!

Felicity 21
Martin   25
Stephen  26
Ian      30
John     39

Game 3 wasn't my game! But look at Martin's improvement!

Martin    2
Stephen   8
Felicity 27
John     28
Ian      40

Then John pulled out his New Zealand map of Ticket to Ride. It involved lots of tunnels and also some road links which involved playing wild cards. The South Island players did better than the North Island players for what it is worth. Personally I prefer the passengers of Märklin to the tunnels of Europe but I guess it is better to base an expansion on the cards available in the base game.

When we got back from dinner Anna and Andrew taught me this light dice rolling, push your luck game (Pickomino). It's all skill I tell you

Ian    12
Andrew  9
Anna    3

Valdora was by far the pettiest game of the day. A straight forward pick-up and deliver game. I didn't recognise it as a Michael Schacht game! Optimization is the order of the day. Andrew's prior experience paid off, having unboxed it and learnt it earlier in the day he was ready to teach it in the evening. He was doing 2 or 3 things a turn while we were doing one.

Andrew R 122
Anna     105
Ian       94
Andrew H  88

It probably wasn't a good idea to try and teach Andrew Rea a game during the last 45 minutes of a Wellycon event. It probably didn't help that Anna is not a fan of Chicago Express! But Tony nobly took over from Andrew when he got distracted by administrative tasks.

Though none of the above is an excuse for my score!

Red dead ended once its shares were held 3 ways. Green had the most enthusiastic builders and Black only other railroad to reach Chicago.

Andrew Hubbard  $62
Andrew and Tony $52
Ian             $41
Anna            $24

Games Played in 2009

This entry is based on something I wrote for BGG.

Normally I'd check out the Friendless Extended Boardgamegeek Stats Server for info about my plays for 2009, but it is not reachable at the moment .

So directly from my Boardgamegeek records I played 318 face-to-face games, made up of about 137 distinct games and expansions. Slightly down on 2008's 323 plays of about 140 distinct games and expansions.

• Expedition tops my play list with 33 plays - its been my "go to" gateway game for 2009 (and the second half of 2008).
• Chicago Express is second on 16 plays - this is my game of 2009. A share-buying, network-building railway game that plays in 60 minutes or less and which is more about getting others to help you more than you help them.
  
• 10 Days in Europe hit 10 plays, together with it's African cousin (6 plays) they are the most played filler games of 2009.
  

The nickels (fives) list is headed by Brass and On the Underground with 8 plays each.

• Brass was 2008's game, and I achieved the same number of plays this year (though twice this year I suffered the pain of coming second on the tie-break).
• On the Underground was Anne's Christmas present though many of 2009's plays were with Peter's copy prior Christmas. This train game is about gaining points through the often conflicting goals of connecting particular stations (or making loops) and meeting the needs of the travelling public.
  

I like card games almost as much as board games, I was introduced to climbing card games this year through Frank's Zoo and Tichu and if the player numbers are right Tichu may be a hit game of 2010. Other games I played for the first time this year, which will hopefully be back on the table regularly, are:

• Dschunke - A Michael Schacht game from 2002, it has blind bidding which is not my favourite auction form but I find this game intriguing
  
• Nefertiti - Another auction game set in, wait for it..., ancient Egypt
  
• 1960: The Making of the President and Twilight Struggle. These last two lent to me by different Andrews are the culmination of a quest to find a good game for me and Anne in the 1-3 hour category. Though we still haven't decided which one to buy.
  

I played 3 different prototypes this year: Andrew Rea introduced me to Dawn of Nations - a print-and-play dice game which is more interactive than Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age. Earlier in the year I played the latest versions of Jarratt's Age of Steam map and his Letter's of Marque.

There were a stack of game that I only played once. Many of which I'd like to play more, such as: Galaxy Trucker, Hansa, Modern Art, Patrician, Princes of the Renaissance, Sticheln and WildLife.

I regret not playing an 18XX game in 2009, not playing Stephenson's Rocket and playing far too little Age of Steam. On the other hand I did manage to reduce my unplayed games list to single digits.

My main gaming achievement for 2009 is establishing a regular gaming group at our place usually meeting on Friday nights.

The new gamers I played with in 2009 include:

• Andrew and Anna refugees from Brisbane and laid back Tichu fans who I met at Wellycon Warmup and are regulars on Friday nights
• Brandon a refugee from Auckland, introduced to me by Travis, and who has an unfortunate aversion to train games
  

For best days of gaming I'd have to choose between Wellycon Warmup, Wellycon Saturday, a couple of games of Die Macher and various birthday game sessions.

Thankfully I can report that I survived 2009 having been nagged into playing only 4 games of Dominion and 1 of Pandemic: On the Brink

Friday 1 January 2010

I thought I'd start 2010 as I'd like to continue it, by playing games.

In addition to the usual suspects, two Johns and Nigel, Nasia arrived from downstairs bringing her Christmas present, Tobago, and big plate of chocolate dipped strawberries. Tobago is a game where players play cards to narrow down the location of treasures on the island of Tobago, they also drive around the island in the 4WDs in order to be at the right spot when a treasure location is narrowed to one hex. We decided to split into 2 threes. With Nasia teaching John and John Tobago at one end of the table while I taught Nigel and retaught Anne China at the other end. China is a relatively simple game but with some important rules to remember. I don't think Nigel and Anne were concentrating as I explained the rules though Nigel blamed my explanation.

China results:

Ian   66
Nigel 53
Anne  48

Tobago results:

John R 44
John B 35
Nasia  27

There was probably enough interest in Tobago for another game with the same or different players but we decided to play a six player game and settled on Expedition for some reason. Nigel who has played often enough seemed to have trouble remembering rules. Somehow when we weren't looking John R was down to his last card, leaving some of us with rather too many cards in hand.

John R 13
John B 12
Nasia  11
Nigel  10
Ian     8
Anne    6

We decided to play again. This time Nasia got 5 points on her first turn, and she kept her lead for the win.

Nasia  16
Ian    15
John B 13
Anne   12
John R 10
Nigel   8

It was 11:30pm and we were looking for a short 6 player game (I probably should have pulled out For Sale, but it slipped my mind) and I suggested Hornochsen (the second Wolfgang Kramer game of the evening). John B played the "get out as quick as possible with a non-negative score" strategy while I played to stay in with more cards than other people to give myself options (which is risky but paid off this time). Anne started well with some good positive points but ended up with some bad piles. Nasia took no cards for a safe zero.

Ian     50
Nigel   16
John B   3
Nasia    0
Anne    -8
John R -16

The chocolate dipped strawberries were a great success and I think Nasia will need to bring Tobago back so more of us can try it.