Thursday 25 November 2010

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 25/11/2010



1.    Table 1 played  another game of “WITCH TRIAL”, a card game which was introduced last week. There was much jostling at the start but after a build-up of court fees Allister swooped in to pick up the big prize and get the win.
2.       On Table Mike introduced 3 other players to “MYKERINOS”, a game about prospecting a land for control which will then appeal to certain patrons in the game. These patrons will be used in subsequent rounds to enhance movements and to provide valuable end-scoring opportunities. Players have a certain number of cubes allocated to them each turn and they use these to place upon a region on the board with a view to gaining control of certain parcels of land when everyone has passed in that round. There are specific rules about placing but these can be enhanced by using the powers of the patrons a player controls. Each region is scored and the victor gets to chose one of two options, these being to place cubes in the Museum for game end scoring or to grab one parcel of land, which comes with another patron’s favour. The second highest gets the second parcel or places a cube in the museum. If there are any parcels left to allocate the 3rd and 4th place in the region will get them. Players score interim points if these are shown on the parcels of land they collect but the real scoring occurs at game end after 4 rounds. Players score 5 points if they have managed to attract a complete set of 5 different patrons ; if they have  second complete set they score again. The cubes in the museum will be placed in a room valued any one of 2, 3 or 5 points, and the players calculate a score by multiplying the value of the highest value times the number of cards they have for that patron. This is added to their current score. Tony did well in the latter type of scoring, by having cubes in room 5 for several patrons and having 3 cards for that patron, scoring 15 points for each one. He romped away with the win scoring over 50 points whilst Mike was second with 30-odd and Geoff and Roger trailing behind. The message seems to be “get cubes in the museum”.
3.       Table 1 played “CHAOS IN THE OLD WORLD”, a game of mystical powers of various gods. Each god’s distinctive powers and legion of followers grant you unique strengths and diabolical abilities with which to corrupt and enslave the Old World. Players are trying to seek domination by corruption and conquest, but they must vie not only against each other, but also against the desperate denizens of the Old World who fight to banish you back to the maelstrom of the Realm of Chaos. Every turn you corrupt the landscape, dominating its inhabitants, and battle with the depraved followers of rival gods. Each god has a unique deck of gifts and abilities, and can upgrade their followers into deadly foes. Definitely a game for lovers of this sort of thing and Luke started very strongly, mainly at the expense of Paul. Everyone closed up towards the end but a strong finish in the last round enable Luke to grab the win.

4.       Back on Table 2 Mike introduced some of the players to “DAS AMULETT”, a game about collected jewels in 7 different colours to build your own amulet and the first to do so is the winner. At the start the jewels are placed randomly in various regions on the board, each region being a different type of terrain and requiring different types of Metal Cards with which to win the auction for the jewels contained within it. Players acquire Spell Cards in an auction each turn and they use their powers at appropriate times to collect more Metal Cards, or gain a discount off a bid at the auctions and many other varied things. The clever mechanism is that the numbers of Energy Stones used in the winning bid are placed upon the Spell Card. Each spell uses up energy at different rates so at the end of each turn players must spend the appropriate number of energy stones. Once the stones are exhausted the Spell Card is returned to the table. To gain jewels the active player select a counter at random which indicates how many regions will be visited in a round.  The winner of each auction in a region takes the jewel of their choice and then moves to an adjacent region where another auction takes place. This continues until the requisite number of regions has been visited. Play continues in this fashion until one player is able to claim victory. Chris took an early lead by winning a region and using his spell to take both jewels in the region. He repeated this until his spell expired. Allister also had a good start by winning in a region with a Pyramid, and his spell enabled him to take both jewels as well. Mike and Roger had spells which enabled them to make other players spell lose energy stones more quickly and they used those to slow Chris and Allister down. Tony and Geoff started to gain jewels too and then Mike used his spell that gave him better powers in regions adjacent to the Great Wall to gain jewels. Towards the end of the game 5 of the 6 players had 5 jewels and 1 had 4 jewels so it was anybodies game to win if they could get the right cards for the right region. By cleverly moving jewels around such that the ones he wanted were in adjacent regions to the current action Chris found himself winning an auction to secure the 7th jewel and complete his amulet.
Games played and Winners were:
Witch Trial Allister Gittins;
Mykerionos Tony Simons;
Chaos in the Old World Luke Williams;
Das Amulett Chris Cook.

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