1.
With 11 players in attendance we split into
3 tables. On table 1 Tony introduced the game of “WASABI” to Lucy and Allister.
Your author knows nothing about the
game except it is related to food so the following description is lifted from
BGG. Wasabi! is a light and fast game where you compete against other players to
assemble your quota of unique sushi recipes in a rapidly dwindling space.
Players draw a variety of delicious ingredients into their hand from the pantry and play them one at a
time onto the board, building off of each other's previously-placed ingredients
in the attempt to complete recipes of varying difficulty. Completing a recipe
earns you your choice of special actions from the kitchen to perform later (Chop!, Stack!, Switch!, Spicy!,
and the dreaded Wasabi!) that will help you in your efforts or
disrupt your opponents' carefully arranged creations-in-progress. Completing a recipe with style will earn you bonus points, but you might not
always have the time to set up such stylish maneuvers... balancing speed with
technique will be crucial if you plan to win the game! Victory comes as soon as
the board fills up with ingredients. Points for completed recipes plus bonuses
are tabulated, and the winner is the player with the most points. An extremely
skilled player might score an instant victory by completing their quota of
recipes before the board fills up. It was not a surprise when Tony, who
is known to like food, emerged the
victor.
2.
Table 2 saw Mike leading a group of 4 in the
new game “TRAJAN”. In this game
based upon the glorifying of Rome players use various actions from a choice of
6 to either: gain Senate votes; Take
tiles from the Forum; Do some Military action to conquer new lands; Use the
Seaport action to ship goods; Construct various parts of the city; or use the
Trajan Option to place Trajan Tiles on their Manacala board. It is the mancala
that provides the driving force for this game, as each turn a player must
select one of the 6 bowls on their mancala, and place the tokens within it one
at a time in the next bowls clockwise. The bowl they end up on denotes their
action from the 6 choices mentioned above. However should there be a Trajan
Tile associated with this bowl, and the player has the correct coloured tokens
in the bowl they get to perform the Trajan Tile, take its benefits in VPs and
action. Players need to use Trajan Tiles
to get workers into either Contraction Training camp or Military Training camp
to enable them to use those actions later in the game. There are so many ways
to score VPs I will not list them here but it is worth mentioning that after 4
game rounds the Demands of the People ( Bread, Games, Religion) must be met .
For each missing tile to satisfy this need the players lose a heft of VPs….1
missing = 4; 2 missing = 9; 3 missing = 15, so to ignore this requirement can
be quite costly. The game is played in 4 distinct quarters after which Game End
Scoring in invoked and again there is a plethora of ways to score points. Kevin
struggled early on to understand how the mancala mechanic worked but once he
had done so he moved up swiftly on the VP track. Jon looked strong early on
with a very convincing amount of Construction but then started to struggle.
Jeremy used the Seaport option to good effect to burst into the lead but then
Mike rallied in the final quarter to take a slender lead. In the final Game End
scoring Mike lost some points through not meeting all the Demands and this
enabled Jeremy to gain victory by 5 points. The game took 45 minutes to explain
because of the number of options and then took just over 2 hours to play.
Kevin’s initial reaction was lukewarm but he seemed to accept the game nearer
the end. The others thoroughly enjoyed the game.
3.
Table 3 played a 4-player game of “SETTLERS OF THE STONE AGE”, a variant
on the basic Settlers mechanic with the introduction of 4 Development tracks
around the sides of the board. These tracks enable the players to increase
their player ability in various ways
i.e.Nourishment to feed their people; in Hunting and Battles to capture prey
for food; In Construction and in Clothing to enable travel to distant lands to
gain bonus tiles. The normal Settlers process is employed so roll a dice ,
players get resources if they are adjacent to the number rolled, they trade to
build more nomads, move nomads, create settlements; make progress up the various scoring tracks.
Players will visit the 4 Continents in this game, gaining VPs if they are the
first to conquer a particular land. It’s quite a long game for Settlers but it
is refreshing after you have grown tired of the basic game. The eventual winner
after some 3 hours was Roger.
4.
On Table 2 Lucy left because she was under
the weather so Tony and Allister played the 2-player game of “KELTIS”. This is a larger version of
LOST CITIES and was reviewed on 17/03/2011 so see detailed review there. The
winner was Tony.
5. With
the arrival of Richard table 2 had 3 players so Tony introduced “FORMIDABLE FOES”, a game of Dungeons
and fighting monsters in order to gain the most power. Again your author cannot
offer a detailed review so it will have to suffice that Allister was the victor.
6. Table 2 played the dice game “SUSHIWOK IM GOCKELWOK “to finish their
session, the game about collecting fish heads (positive points) and fish tails
(negative points) in order to determine your final score. Plenty of chances to steal tiles from your opponents.
We played 3 rounds and Kevin was always in a strong position, with Jon and
Jeremy woefully weak. Final scores were Kevin 17; Mike 8; Jon 3; Jeremy 3.
7. Table 3 had reduced to 3 players who
played the ever-popular “SMALLWORLD”. In a close finish Jerry just gained a
victory.
Wasabi – Tony
Simons;
Trajan – Jeremy
Hurault;
Stone Age
Settlers – Roger Skull;
Keltis – Tony
Simons;
Fearsome Floors
– Alister Gittin;
Smallworld –
Jerry Jabelman;
Sushiwok Im
Gockelwok – Kevin Ward.
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