CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 26/07/2012

1.       After last week’s “feast” of an attendance of 16 we had “Famine” this week, with only 6 turning up, so we split into 2 groups of 3. On table 1 Jerry, Poppy and Mike played “HAWAII”, which was played last week. By placing lots of tikas in his domain all of Jerry’s 5 villages scored and he managed to get kahunas placed for all 5, which yielded 45 points on their own. Therefore it was not surprising when Jerry romped home by a large margin from Mike, with Poppy third.

2.       Table 2 played “MUNCHKIN” the card game about entering a dungeon and killing monsters with silly humorous names. Some co-operation is required to defeat these monsters so you are not alone. The eventual winner was Jon.

3.       Table 1 decided to play “ON THE UNDERGROUND”, one of Poppy’s favourites. Mike started well by linking several articles for 3 points each, plus a few stations. He also managed to complete a loop with one of his lines, scoring 3 points for doing so. Poppy began to catch up as the cards went against Mike , with Jerry some way back, However this all changed in the last third of the game, with Jerry’s expert planning reaping plenty of points such that he was only 4 points behind Mike when the last round started. To Mike’s dismay Jerry was able to complete an article link for 3 points and then get another line to a terminus for 2 points to sneak victory by one point. 

4.       Table 2 decided to play “TICKET TO RIDE EUROPE “for their last game. Competition was fierce with not many points separating the 3 players. Kevin thought he had the longest route until he was told track belonging to other players did not count for him !! With Jon and Richard both having routes of 32 trains the 10 points for this feature were gained by each, which meant they overhauled Kevin. Final ticket scoring went in Jon’s favour , as he completed all 3 tickets , whilst Richard failed to complete one of his, so Jon won by some 20 points margin for his second victory of the night.

Games played and Winners were:

Hawaii – Jerry Jabelman;

Munchkin – Jon Bradford;

On the Underground – Jerry Jabelman;

Ticket To Ride Europe – Jon Bradford.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 19/07/2012

1.       We had a bumper attendance of 16 tonight so 3 tables were in play. Rae Dunn and Rob Piesse led the latecomers on Table 1 with a series of short games for 5 players. The first of these was “MAORI”, a tile laying game where players try to complete islands of different sizes, some of which yield palms, huts, shells and boats, which affect game end scoring. The tiles are placed in a matrix which eventually fills up and then games end scoring occurs. Players score for their islands which contain the items mentioned above and there are bonus points for the owner of the largest collection of each. A nice little filler, and the eventual winner was Rae.

2.       Table 1 then played “ALHAMBRA” the game about building a beautiful palace with tokens bought from the marketplace, some with walls which also count for scoring purposes throughout the game.  The unusual thing about the game is that there are 4 currencies in it and as tokens are bought they are replaced by new ones so there are always 4 available but in different currencies and different prices levels,. Scoring occurs 3 times in the game and points are awarded to the player with the most of each type of building in their palace, plus the length of their contiguous wall. Lots of competition to gain control of a type to get those scoring points and the need to have the right amount of money in the right currency is the crux of the game. The eventual winner was Jerry.

3.       The group then continued with “SCREAM MACHINE”, the card game about a Theme Park, which was reviewed before so is not repeated here. As it’s one of Rob;s favourite games it was not a surprise that he emerged as the einner.

4.       Table 1 then played a club favourite “DOMINION”, about which little needs to be said, except that the winner was John.

5.       Table 1 completed their evening with another favourite, the ever-popular “7 WONDERS”, and this time the winner was Rob.

6.       Whilst all this activity on Table 1 was going on Mike led a group of 5 on Table 2 playing “HAWAII”. This game was reviewed last week so is not repeated here, Paul learned from his experience of the previous week by building Spear Huts and a God who rewarded Spear tokens so he kept scoring 6 points most turns, which gave him a healthy lead. Donna did her best to keep up by visiting the islands in her boats, whilst Richard managed to secure the fruit to score his irrigation tile. Lucy kept taking the tiles that Mike wanted so this meant that whilst she also kept in contention Mike was left hopelessly last…again !!  Paul almost lapped Mike and kept his lead to the end.

7.       With Lucy’s departure the group of 4 decided to play “HAWAII” again as we had it all set up and the new players knew the rules. This game was much closer and Richard scored well early on. Mike bought some boats this time and managed to visit the island which gave VP’s so he actually took the lead for once. The God tiles were always expensive and very few were used, with Richard the only one to do so. This proved to be a great benefit as he scored 30-odd points in the game end scoring and secured the victory from Donna and Paul, with Mike in last place once more.

8.       On table 3 Tony held court for the whole evening in another outing for “ECLIPSE”, this time for the full 6 players. All seemed to enjoy it but once again the game did not complete in the time available, so no winner was declared.

Games played and Winners were:

Maori – Rae Dunn;

Alhambra – Jerry Jabelman;

Scream Machine – Rob Piesse;

Dominion – John Binmore;

7 Wonders – Rob Piesse;

Hawaii Game 1 – Paul Pulpin;

Hawaii Game 2 – Richard Harris;

Eclipse – to be continued next week.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 12/07/2012

1.       Down to just 7 players tonight. On table 1 Mike had arranged with Lucy to play “LE HAVRE”, a favourite of both of them, and Paul decided to join us. We played with the Special Building for the first time and that made this interesting game even better. As usual Lucy wiped the floor with the others, she seems to be able to construct a series of buildings which inter-relate so she always had the right resources to generate enough food, or power, or to build more. Paul made a valiant effort for his first outing as he got to grips with the game mechanics. Final scores were Lucy 143; Mike 112; Paul; 96.

2.       On table 2 4 players tried out the new game of “ECLIPSE” under Tony’s leadership. It appears to have loads of pieces and takes a lot of table space. The 4 players did not complete their first game and they agreed to continue it next week.

3.        With Lucy departing Mike and Paul decided to fill in the end of session with a 2-player game of “DOMINION”, using one of the defined combinations of cards. Paul generated plenty of money so he was able to buy Provinces quite readily and his use of the Militia frequently reduced Mike’s hand to 3 cards so he couldn’t buy. Paul won easily..

Games played and Winners were:

Le Havre – Lucy Newbury;

Domimion – Paul Bulpin;

Eclipse  - to be continued.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 05/07/2012

1.       It was a strange night in the club. From entries on the Guild in BGG we knew that Jeremy and Jerry would not be arriving until 8.00 so 5 of us played “SURVIVE”, which was played on 14/06/2012. Everyone except Paul had played the game before but that did not stop Paul from winning. The great delight was everyone picking on Tony to ensure that his meeples were constantly under threat from the monsters. Once Paul had landed 3 of his meeples he also became a target but the card play and dice rolling favoured him and he managed to escape most of the time. Mike thought he had a chance of winning as he approached an island with a boatload of meeples , only for the other players to move Sea Serpents in the way and that thwarted hi plans. The final top 3 places were Paul 17; Mike 13; Jon 12.

2.       With the arrival of the two J’s there were now 7 players but Kevin expressed an interest in playing the 2-player game “A FEW ACRES OF SNOW”, so he and Tony decided to do that, but without bothering to make a report on it. This left the other 5 players at the mercy of Mike explaining the new game “HAWAII”.  There are so many ways to score VP’s in this game they are too numerous to describe here so I will give a précis of the game. The central board represents Hawaii, within which there are 10 areas containing various types of tiles, such as Huts; irrigation;boats; surfers; hula dancers; fruit; tikas; kahunas and Gods. There are 4 islands off the coast of Hawaii which can be visited by boat, and these provide certain benefits. Each player has their own development area (their realm) and they are trying to construct villages containing these tiles, in a sort of grid system, and each tile in a village must be different. By building horizontally they can either construct a long village or they can build vertically and construct a series of small villages. The way in which they obtain these tiles is unique. Each turn the players receive ‘income’ in the form of FEET, which are used to move to the various areas; SHELLS, which are used to pay for purchases of the tiles; FRUIT, which can be used as a substitute for either of the above. In a turn order, which changes every turn, players decide how many feet to spend walking to an area and they then ‘buy’ the tile of their choice using shells or fruit. If they pay the base price it is placed in their area on side 1, showing the benefits to be obtained. However if they are prepared to pay double the price they place it on side 2, which gives increased benefits. Some tiles give immediate VP, whilst most give VP’s at the end of a round, or at Game End. Each round there is a target to be achieved for the total of price token gained. At the end of the round the players compare their totals and VPs are awarded for 1^st and 2^nd place, with all other qualifiers receiving the same for 3^rd place. The game is played over 5 rounds and then Game End scoring takes place, which can be quite substantial. For a village to score it must ‘reach’ the nearest Tika; if it does not do so then it is removed (another consideration). The interaction comes when other players buy a tile you were seeking, pushing the price up for any remaining tile of that type. If no price tokens remain players cannot stop on that area, which is very frustrating. Furthermore you sometimes run out of feet so cannot move to where you want so you have to pass for that round, which changes the player order for the next round. A strange game which is difficult to explain quickly but once you have a couple of rounds out of the way it flows nicely. Jerry built a spear hut early on and a God tile that also rewarded spear price token so every time he bought something for a spear token he gained 3 VP. This enabled him to build up a lead which the others could not pull back. The other players built various villages and with their game end conditions met they scored well, so much so that the 4 players were all covered by a margin of 7 points. However Jerry still had enough Game End conditions of his own to pull away for a clear victory. With hindsight we should have taken spear tokens ourselves to deny Jerry such a lucrative points earner, but that comes with experience, and I’m hoping that repeated plays will ensue for us to do just that.

Games played and Winners were:

Survive – Paul Bulpin;

Hawaii – Jerry Jabelman.