CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 29/09/2011

1.       With 12 players in attendance tonight we split into 3 groups. On table 1 Geoff led 3 players in a game “STEEL DRIVER”, a railway building game that is more about getting shares in the 6 companies in the game for money at the end. A neat mechanism exists whereby each turn the companies are up for auction and players bid cubes to gain control. The amount of the bid is important as these go into the companies coffers for use in the building phase later on. In build order, which varies each turn, players controlling each company build connections of routes between a series of cities on the American map board and they gain share value by doing so. Each company is valued and players receive money for their current share holding. The game last just 5 turns of this auction/build sequence until the game end is determined. At this point a load of coloured cubes are placed upon cities on the board and then, one by one, players take turns to pick up a cube from a railroad line that they control and place it in that company’s box. They are trying to get cubes of different colours as they will form a higher value final dividend for that company. When this is complete the players receive final dividends for each share they hold in the various companies. A highly interactive game which is interesting once you have grasped the sequence of play. Alister managed to squeeze a close victory.

2.       Table 2 saw 3 players on “SETTLERS OF CATAN – TRADERS AND BARBARIANS”, which was played recently. Jerry and Poppy, who known the variant well, soon upgraded their caravan movement to a higher value and were able to deliver goods quicker than Mike, who concentrated on building roads between the 3 cities on the board for use later on. Mike’s progress was further delayed by the others placing barbarians on his routes when he did eventually move commodities. Jerry delivered the most commodities and by upgrading his settlements to cities he was soon able to reach the target of 13 points, with Mike on just 8 and Poppy on 7 points. A clear-cut victory.

3.       On table 3 Tony led a 6-player game of the ever-popular “POWERGRID”, in which the target was to power 13 cities. Players who were experiencing the game for the first time really liked it but experience told in the end and Rob was the eventual victor.

4.       Table 3 reduced to 5 players so they played the Reiner Knizia title “MEMBERS ONLY”. The game is a betting game about predicting how many of the 5 specific events will occur at the end of each round of play. Players are dealt a hand of cards and they will try to predict a number for one of the events and place one of their betting tokens on the board. As an example they could predict that there will be ‘6 or more Cups of Tea’ at the end of the round. They will then play 2 cards to the table display. In this way the other players will have more information of what the probable outcome will be and they will bet accordingly. To add a twist some cards have a “NO !!” icon and if played they negate the category already played, so in our example other players could reduce the ‘Cups of Tea’ count to below 6 and the bet would be lost. At the end of each round the winning bets are scored and marker moved down a scoring track. All losing betting tokens are lost so the players have less to bet with next round. In a final twist the game ends when at least one token has passed the 5 marker in all 5 categories and then only those tokens values at 5 or higher count for scoring. So a player could have 2 token scoring 10 each for a total of 20 but no others below the 4 line and they would be beaten by a player with 3 tokens on the 7 line, giving 21. This means that players need to spread their winning bets on the 5 categories to increase their chances of winning. After a slightly barren spell Lucy got back to winning ways and emerged the winner.

5.       Table 1 and 2 combined to play the quick filler “BALLOON RACE”, a lightweight game about getting balloons to the finishing lines and having the 3 colours on your cards amongst those. Plasters keep their objective secret and they throw the dice in turn and they can move ANY balloon they want. Most spaces move the balloon forward but some move it backwards so giving you the chance to stuff a balloon you are not interested in. Some squares cause balloons to be struck by lightening and return to the start, whilst others cause the balloon to deflate and they cannot move at all until resurrected. To the great surprise of all Mike won the game so a replay was immediately ordered. 

6.       The second game of “BALLOON RACE” was much more competitive with many setbacks incurred on the various balloons but the eventual winner was Alister for his second win of the evening.

7.       This final group played “BATAVIA”, which Alister and Roger were playing for the first time. An auction for new cards is conducted each turn and the winning bid is distributed equally between the losing players, so money never leaves the game, it circulates. Thereafter In turn players play cards of one of the 5 nations in the game to gain control over that nation. They then have 2 choices of action, they can either pick up 2 more cards from the deck or move their explorer to a tile of a nation they control  which is face-up on the board and pick it up. This gives 2 benefits; they place a commodity crate of their colour in the warehouse of the goods picked up( of which there are 5 spaces in each), which will be used for game end scoring purposes; they also have the chance to cash in the tiles in exchange for Victory points if they are of different nations, i.e 2 different = 2 pts, 3 different = 6 points, 4 different = 10 pts etc. The number of cards played is the choice of the player but they have to beware of the total cards in play at any one time, as once this reaches 25 the pirates attack and ALL cards of ALL Players of the numerical highest nation at that time are lost and they lose control. An important factor is that once a player has moved their explorer to pick up a tile they cannot go backwards along the display , so they have to look ahead to try and get control of a nation that has the commodity in which they are trying to get control for game end purposes. During the game it is difficult to predict who is winning, which makes for an interesting game, especially as there are several was to score. At game end there are 4 types of scoring these being a) the warehouses for the commodities are evaluated and the controlling player receives the victory points, with ties being shared. b) the player who reached the end tile first receives 4 points. c) the player with the most money in hand  receives 5 points. d) players receive 2 victory points for each nation they control at game end. Roger reached the end tile first and Geoff had the most money. Mike had cashed in a few sets along the way and controlled some of the cheaper warehouses but his total was passed by Alister, as he controlled the warehouses which gave the highest victory points, and he controlled more nations. This completed a treble of wins for Alister, so he voted himself “Man of the Match”.

Games played and Winners were:

Steel Driver – Alister Gittin;

Settlers of Catan – Jerry Jabelman;

Powergrid – Rob Piesse;

Members Only – Lucy Newbury;

Balloon Race Game 1 – Mike Oakes;

Balloon Race Game 2 – Alister Gittin;

Batavia – Alister Gittin.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 29/09/2011

1.       With 9 players in attendance tonight we split into 2 groups. On table 1 Mike introduced Jerry, Poppy and new member Jeremy to “ROYAL PALACE”, the game about enlisting nobles from a courtyard to construct a palace, i.e. Victory Points. Briefly the mechanics are to place your courtiers onto the board at the gate; use your current movement points to move courtiers to various rooms, from a choice of 8; then do the Action associated with those rooms in any order you choose. The various rooms give you gold, or prestige cards or more importantly the seals of the King and Madame Pompadour. Players use these ‘resources’ to enlist a noble for the appropriate cost and they gain VPs for doing so. Some nobles also grant temporary favours (one-off) or permanent favours (each turn), so the choice of which noble to take is important. Players continue with this process until there are 12 or less nobles left in the courtyard on the starting players turn and then one final round is played.  A very clever and different system which was enjoyed by all the players. Jeremy enlisted nobles of low VPs but they gave him increased movement; Mike enlisted those with high VP’s but not too many; Jerry enlisted the most nobles and vitally he gained 2 nobles in the last turn to gain a close victory from Jeremy, with the final scores being Jerry 66; Jeremy 62; Mike 55; Poppy 49.

2.       Table 2 saw Roger introduce 4 players to “FISCHE FLUPPEN FRICKADELLEN”, which was played last week. With only limited knowledge of the game this proved difficult and when Chris Cook arrived the players abandoned it in favour of “EKETORP”. There seemed to be lots of laughter emanating from the 6 players as they elected to battle against each other to gain stone. In Eketorp, players build Viking strongholds upon the Swedish island of Öland. The goal of the game is to collect the most valuable blocks to build your own fortress, either by winning battles on the resource spaces or by stealing blocks from other Vikings. Each turn, new resources appear and the players secretly plan their Viking movements. After all the placements are revealed, the Vikings battle each other for blocks (with the losers sent off to the field hospital to recover). The game ends after a set number of rounds, or when one of the players has succeeded in finishing their fortress. As the owner of the game Chris soon took the lead but he became the target for all the other players. He looked a certain winner with one round to go but Paul sneaked in with a great last round to claim victory.

3.       On table 1 Jerry and Poppy had to leave but Rob arrived so a 3-player game of “SUSHIZOK IM GOCKELWOK” took place. The dice-rolling, domino-collecting game has been described before so is not repeated here. Suffice to say that in a close contest debutant Jeremy won his first game in which the final scores were Mike 5, Rob 6 and Jeremy 7. Congratulations Jeremy and welcome to the club!

4.       Table 2 reduced to 4 players to play “NIAGARA”, as it was a quick game to play. The game is about sailing your canoe down the river to collect various jewels. However the flow of the river is unpredictable and canoes often overshoot their intended target and are swept over the waterfall, much to the amusement of the other players. Alister had a cunning strategy (which is not revealed here) and won the game easily.

5.       As Table 1 were still involved in their game the same players played another game of “NIAGARA”. Alister employed the same strategy as before (no longer a secret) but still claimed an easy victory.

6.       On table 1 Mike introduced 4 other players to “TRIBUNE”, based in ancient Rome. For each game a Victory Condition card is chosen and for our game we used the easy beginner option that listed 7 conditions  of which any 3 had to met. These include things like 4 different faction markers, 3 legions, 25 dinari, 8 laurels etc. Players place their followers on various parts of the board so that they perform actions to obtain cards, and maybe take over control of one or more of the 7 factions in the game, taking the spoils from doing so, and try to reach their objective. Some very clever mechanisms are involved in this process and the quality of the components and the game play are first class. In a close finish most players had achieved at least 2 of their objectives when Paul claimed a win by getting his third objective. All players agreed that it was a good game and worth repeated play.

Games played and Winners were:

Royal Palace – Jerry Jabelman;

Eketorp – Paul Bulpin;

Sushiwock im Gockelwok – Jeremy Hurault;

Niagara Game 1 – Alister Gittin;

Niagara Game 2 – Alister Gittin;

Tribune – Paul Bulpin.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 15/09/2011

1.       Only 7 players in attendance tonight so we split into 2 groups. On table 1 Mike introduced Rob and Roger to the strange game of “FISCHE FLUPPEN FRICKADELLEN”. The object of the game is to obtain 3 different fetishes. These are purchased from the Fetish Dealer, with each level requiring different commodities, such as 3 of a kind; 4 of a kind, 5 of a kind. To obtain the commodities the players move their playing piece around the board to visit either Merchants which sell the commodities, or by going to a Trader, where they can swap commodities, normally on a 2-for-1 basis. There is a clever market pricing system, in which the price the player pays to buy at is reduced one level for each token present at the merchant. In this way if there are say 3 tokens present and the price is 50, the player can buy at 3 levels below, i.e. 20 each. They can then sell these at a different merchant who will buy that commodity at the higher price and make a profit. However, whenever a commodity is sold its market price drops, making them cheaper for the other players. The movement system is either by foot or by ferry, and with the latter players can move quite a distance in one turn. There are some tokens available which players can use to either enhance their own turn, or thwart opponents, e.g, an extra 2 movement points this turn, or Closing a particular Merchant shop, so plenty of interaction. Mike and Roger soon gained the commodities they wanted to obtain the first fetish. Rob meanwhile had been obtaining several pairs of different commodities so that later in the game when he visited the Fetish Dealer he was able to collect the 1^st and 2^nd token in adjacent turns, putting him in the lead. Roger was close to getting what he wanted for a 2^nd fetish but Rob closed the merchant he was about to use!. Money became tight for a while as the players moved around the board to get to the Merchant that bought the commodities they had at the time. In the end Mike and Roger got their second fetishes but Rob was well placed to move in for the 3^rd, and winning fetish.

2.       With Freya finally turning up for the long-awaited game of “SMALL WORLD” Tony led the group on table 2. Paul started the game but had to leave early so the 3 remaining players started a new game. The game has been reviewed before but briefly each player selects a ‘faction’ to play with, each of which has different abilities to populate and control various regions on the board, for which they score. Eventually they will put their faction into decline and choose another faction to play in subsequent turns. Some of the powers of the factions can be far-reaching so the situation can change rapidly. There are many combinations of factions available, which makes the game very replayable. The long wait paid off for Freya as she emerged as the victor!!

3.       The 6 players then combined to play “MODERN ART”, this time the board game version, not the card game version which was played last week. The basis is still the same, you want to have bought works of art by an artist who has some popularity when a round ends. 5 artists are in play but only 3 will score at the end of a round, so choosing which card to play is vital, as is the amount to you bid at auction. Money is kept hidden at all times and the final total gained determines the winner. Money flowed between players, but sometimes into the bank and it was difficult to predict a winner. However Tony had a strong hand in the artist Karl Gitter in the last round, with which he made loads of money, and this led him to victory with Mike in second place.

Games played and Winners were:

Fische Fluppen Frikadellen – Rob Piesse;

Small World – Freya Freestone;

Modern Art– Tony Simons.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 15/09/2011

1.       Only 7 players in attendance tonight so we split into 2 groups. On table 1 Mike introduced Rob and Roger to the strange game of “FISCHE FLUPPEN FRICKADELLEN”. The object of the game is to obtain 3 different fetishes. These are purchased from the Fetish Dealer, with each level requiring different commodities, such as 3 of a kind; 4 of a kind, 5 of a kind. To obtain the commodities the players move their playing piece around the board to visit either Merchants which sell the commodities, or by going to a Trader, where they can swap commodities, normally on a 2-for-1 basis. There is a clever market pricing system, in which the price the player pays to buy at is reduced one level for each token present at the merchant. In this way if there are say 3 tokens present and the price is 50, the player can buy at 3 levels below, i.e. 20 each. They can then sell these at a different merchant who will buy that commodity at the higher price and make a profit. However, whenever a commodity is sold its market price drops, making them cheaper for the other players. The movement system is either by foot or by ferry, and with the latter players can move quite a distance in one turn. There are some tokens available which players can use to either enhance their own turn, or thwart opponents, e.g, an extra 2 movement points this turn, or Closing a particular Merchant shop, so plenty of interaction. Mike and Roger soon gained the commodities they wanted to obtain the first fetish. Rob meanwhile had been obtaining several pairs of different commodities so that later in the game when he visited the Fetish Dealer he was able to collect the 1^st and 2^nd token in adjacent turns, putting him in the lead. Roger was close to getting what he wanted for a 2^nd fetish but Rob closed the merchant he was about to use!. Money became tight for a while as the players moved around the board to get to the Merchant that bought the commodities they had at the time. In the end Mike and Roger got their second fetishes but Rob was well placed to move in for the 3^rd, and winning fetish.

2.       With Freya finally turning up for the long-awaited game of “SMALL WORLD” Tony led the group on table 2. Paul started the game but had to leave early so the 3 remaining players started a new game. The game has been reviewed before but briefly each player selects a ‘faction’ to play with, each of which has different abilities to populate and control various regions on the board, for which they score. Eventually they will put their faction into decline and choose another faction to play in subsequent turns. Some of the powers of the factions can be far-reaching so the situation can change rapidly. There are many combinations of factions available, which makes the game very replayable. The long wait paid off for Freya as she emerged as the victor!!

3.       The 6 players then combined to play “MODERN ART”, this time the board game version, not the card game version which was played last week. The basis is still the same, you want to have bought works of art by an artist who has some popularity when a round ends. 5 artists are in play but only 3 will score at the end of a round, so choosing which card to play is vital, as is the amount to you bid at auction. Money is kept hidden at all times and the final total gained determines the winner. Money flowed between players, but sometimes into the bank and it was difficult to predict a winner. However Tony had a strong hand in the artist Karl Gitter in the last round, with which he made loads of money, and this led him to victory with Mike in second place.

Games played and Winners were:

Fische Fluppen Frikadellen – Rob Piesse;

Small World – Freya Freestone;

Modern Art– Tony Simons.