CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 09/12/2010

1.    Despite the continuing low temperatures we had 8 players in attendance this week. On Table 1 Paul led a game of the new release “LONDON” and introduced Allister to the game.  Because of the need to explain the mechanisms to the new player it took over 2 hours to complete but once again all the players enjoyed it. Luke kept his building stacks to mainly 4 in number throughout, a clever strategy. Roger and Paul struggled to get rid of poverty points so they were always in trouble. Luke managed to get rid of all his poverty points near the game end, which meant that Roger and Paul lost many VPs. On his debut Allister was surprised to finish second, but this shows that the game can be played at different levels of knowledge. There was much analysis made at the end and all agreed that the game was a good one and it will be played a lot in the future.

2.       On Table 2 Mike introduced Lucy to ”INDUSTRIAL WASTE” which Tony and Geoff had already played. It is basically a card game about acquiring resources for your factory, fulfilling an order and gaining money for it. Each time you do this you generate pollution and this is recorded on your individual factory board. At the end of each turn you need to pay for the workers you have employed. Money is tight in the game and there is the opportunity to take loans but they must be paid back before the game end, otherwise they count as lost VPs. By playing certain cards a player can introduce innovation to either use less resources, less workers or generate less pollution. This is important as there is just one ‘Accident’ card in the deck and when this is discovered the players examine their current standing for pollution and get heavily penalised financially for being in either the Yellow zone or even worse, the Red zone, and they also reduce their earning power for fulfilling orders by 1. A neat series of mechanisms that has a variable game end condition so it’s difficult to predict who the winner is. A good business management game, which Geoff won, with Lucy second. Mike and Tony had too many unpaid loans at the end so they suffered for this.

3.       As Table 1 had still not finished table 2 turned to another clever auction/set collection game  this time “NEFERTITI”. This game is about players visiting different markets on the board with their servants in the hope of securing the right to acquire cards with different artefacts shown on them, and sometime a Royal Seal for use later in the game. The players are trying to build up sets of the same types which will bring them VPs at game end, but other players sometimes start collecting the same type and that devalues the set. Those who have acquired a Royal Seal can spend it to employ one of the 12 characters in the game which give special one-off powers, such as enhanced interim scoring, have 2 turns in succession, stealing a card from other players, gaining extra money etc. The way in which the markets are scored is novel and the whole game plays neatly in around 45-60 minutes. Tony and Lucy fought out a close finish with Tony just edging ahead in the last play as he had one Royal Seal left and this gave him 3 VPs, enough to take him past Lucy. Mike was a distant third, with Geoff trailing in 4^th.

 
Games played and Winners were:

Müll & Money Geoff Williams;

Nefertiti Tony Simons;

London Luke Williams.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 02/12/2010

1.    Due to the snow and other commitments we only had 7 players in attendance this week. On Table 2 Mike led a game of the new release “LONDON” and introduced Luke to the game.  Because of the need to explain the mechanisms this game took over 2 hours to complete but all the players enjoyed it. Paul used his buildings wisely and this enabled him to obtain 3 shops at one point, all earning him good money. He had planned to use this to pay off the loans he had taken out. He also had several buildings which did not flip so they were active for some time, and this kept his poverty points low.  Mike, Roger, and Luke maybe built too many stacks in their building display and kept gaining poverty points as a result. Mike thought he had a chance of being the one with the lowest poverty points at game end and he thought this might bring him into contention but Paul even managed to achieve that in his last turn. This meant that when all loans had been repaid, and victory points tallied up he ran out a clear winner with 60-odd points to Mike’s 35, Roger’s 21 and Luke’s 19. A classy victory for Paul but maybe the others have learnt a bit about how the cards inter-relate.

2.       Whilst this was going on Table 1 had 3 players playing a game of “PUERTO RICO”, a club favourite. In a tight finish Richard was victorious with 49 points and Robert and Tony tied on 46 points.

3.       As Table 2 had still not finished the 3 other players turned to “COSMIC ENCOUNTER”, an update of a fine game from the past. Each player is the leader of an alien race. The object of the game is to establish colonies in other players' planetary systems. Players take turns trying to establish colonies. The winner(s) are the first player(s) to have five colonies on any planets outside his or her home system. A player does not need to have colonies in all of the systems, just colonies on five planets outside his or her home system. These colonies may all be in one system or scattered over multiple systems. The players must use force, cunning, and diplomacy to ensure their victory. In another close finish Tony was victorious this time.

4.       As Table 2 had still not finished Table 1 played another game of “COSMIC ENCOUNTER “to finish the session. This time Richard came out on top.

Games played and Winners were:

Puerto Rico Richard Piesse;

Cosmic Encounter game 1 Tony Simons;

Cosmic Encounter game 2 Richard Piesse;

London Paul Bulpin.