CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 08/03/2012

1.       11 players in attendance tonight, including new member John Bradford.  On table 1 Tony led a 5-player game of “BIG CITY”, the game about constructing various buildings in various plots in a city and scoring VP’s for doing so. The initial city plan is constructed from 6 of the 8 boards in the game, on which are printed numbers for each group of 10, i.e 11-19; 21-29; 31-39 etc. Players are dealt 6 cards, 1 from each of the groups 1-6, and they use these in combinations to build the various buildings, which can be 1, 2 or 3 in size, if they have the required card combination. The buildings score different points, plus a bonus if certain conditions are met. 2 other features drive the game, the first being the Tramcar line. Players have the option on their turn to construct up to 2 lengths of the line, and for any player who constructs a building that is adjacent to the line their VP’s for that build is doubled. The second key feature is the Town Hall, of which there is only one building (not surprising is it? ). When this is constructed then other Special Building like Banks, Post Offices and Cinemas can be built, if they meet the required criteria. A further option the players have is to increase the city plots by adding another board but they score no VP’s for this. The city builds up impressively with the plastic moulded pieces and scoring happens in bursts. Alister secured an early lead by building the Shopping Mall and scoring 30 points for doing so. Other players built Businesses and Residences, some along the tramline to double their score. Tony opened up the ‘second phase’ by building the Town Hall and he caught Alister up by building the second Shopping Mall, and despite minor bursts of scoring by the others he was never headed and won comfortably in the end.

2.       Table 2 saw 6 players playing “INFINITE CITY”, see review for 10 February 2011 for a fuller description. The eventual winner was Jerry in a close finish. 

3.       On table 1 7 players played “BOHNANZA”, the bean-planting game. See review of 5^th January for details. Due to the large number of players the game took longer than usual. Much laughter ensued, mainly due to Tony (hereafter known as Betty) and his interaction with Donna. Trading was ferocious between the players, with many cards being kindly donated as they tried to gain a competitive edge. In a very tight finish Alister won with 12 points, with 3 players on 11, one player on 10 and one on 9. Huge fun, despite the time taken.

4.       Table 2 were in the middle of a game of “DOMAINE” when Jerry unfortunately spilt beer all over the game, so it was abandoned. The 4 player took up “MOSAIX” instead, a dice game in which the faces are covered with the symbols of Circles, Triangles and Crosses. Players throw 4 dice and from the resultant throw they arrange the dice into a sequence which they enter on their own personal 7x7 grid. They are trying to get as large a group of one symbol as possible for scoring purposes but as their grid fills up this becomes more difficult to achieve. A lightweight game of 20-30 minutes, for which the winner was Jerry, to make him feel better about the mishap with his game.

5.       The session ended with Kevin leading 9 players playing the new party-style  game “THE RESISTANCE”.  At the start of the game players are dealt cards which gives them an identity of whether they are a Spy or a Resistance member. They keep this information secret from the other players until the game leader calls for ALL players to close their eyes, then he calls for the Spies only to open their eyes so that they can see who the other Spies are, and then everyone closes their eyes again. Then the first of 5 missions begin with the Leader selecting a number of players to go on mission 1 and the whole group then vote simultaneously whether they are happy or not with the selected crew. If they are, the mission goes ahead with the nominated crew. These players then decide by secret vote whether the mission is successful or not. These votes are collected by the Leader who then reveals them and announces the result. If the Spies win a Red counter is placed against the Mission, if the Resistance win a Blue counter is placed against the Mission. The next player becomes the new Leader and the process is repeated for subsequent missions until either side gains 3 successes.  Armed with limited knowledge about who was selected for a mission and what the outcome was the players try to deduce which players are on ‘their side’ and try to gain the overall victory for their team. Our first game took about 20 minutes and fined with a 3-0 win for the Spies so we were able to play a second game and this time the outcome was much closer but the Spies still defeated the Resistance.

Games played and Winners were:

Big City – Tony Simons;

Infinite City – Jerry Jabelman;

Bohnanza – Alister Gitten;

Mosaix – Jerry Jabelman;

The Resistance – The Spies win.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 01/03/2012

1.       A lot of absentees this week meant that only 7 players turned up. On table 1 Rob led Kevin and Jeremy in a 3-player game his own production called “MINECRAFTMANIA”. No information available yet as I didn’t play it but the new players seemed to like it. The eventual winner was Jeremy.

2.       Table 2 saw 4 players playing “NAVEGADOR”, see review for 23 June 2011 for a fuller description. Mike made good use of the market early on but Freya was keen on building ships so she did most of the navigating and gained several blue tokens as a result. Roger spent most of his time colonising and Alister came good late on after a sluggish start with a neat combination of colonies. We let Freya get too many blue tokens , 6 in total, and they were valued at 7 each at game end, giving her  42 points towards her total. Final points were Freya 97, Alister 84, Mike 65, Roger 62. 

3.       On table 1 3 players played “51^ST STATE”, a new game to the club. The game is about rebuilding the USA after the country has collapsed. New powers try to take over the country, establishing new orders and creating a new country. No further detail here but Rob was the eventual winner.

4.       Freya departed, so 3 players remaining on table 2 played “DOMINION”, a club favourite. We played the Village Square configuration and Alister romped to an easy victory by acquiring 3 provinces in successive goes near the end. Final scores were Alister 61; Mike 37; Roger 36.

Games played and Winners were:

Minecraftmania – Jeremy Hurault;

Navegador – Freya Freestone;

51^st State – Rob Piesse;

Dominion – Alister Gitten.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 23/02/2012

1.       With Mike a late arrival 7 players commenced with the popular “7 WONDERS”, the most-frequently played game in the club. You are all familiar with the mechanics of the game so no need to repeat them here, suffice to say the winner was Lucy.

2.       The players then split into 2 groups of 4. On table 1 Jerry introduced Poppy to the game of “OREGON”, see review of 15^th December 2011 for details.  Jerry was always in the lead and despite a slight closing by Mike and Roger mid-game Jerry was never headed and he won comfortably.

3.       On table 2 Kevin introduced 3 other players to the game of Agricola but this was abandoned after some 30 minutes as the explanation was taking too long. The group decided to play “INFINITE CITY” instead and this coincided with Mike and Roger being available from the other table, to make up a group of 6. The game review of 10 February 2011 explains it in more detail. Much back-stabbing went on in this game with Mike trying to restrict Rob and Kevin, whilst Lucy annoyed us all by building Plazas, which meant we had no choice where to place our next tile. In a close finish sadly Rob won with 18 points by pinching one of Mike’s Silver tiles, with 3 other players tied on 17 points, one with 16 and Mike trailed in last with 14.

4.       Lucy departed, so 5 players played “MONTGOLFIERE”, the game about ballooning trying to reach the moon, see review posted on 19^th January 2012. A highly interactive card game in the lightweight category. We played 3 rounds and the scoring was very close but to the surprise of everyone Mike emerged the victor in a close finish with 29 points, 3 players had 27 points and the last player 26 points. That makes 3 wins for Mike in 2012, maybe the ‘good times are back’!

Games played and Winners were:

7 Wonders – Lucy Newbury;

Oregon – Jerry Fabelman;

Infinite City – Rob Piesse;

Montgolfiere – Mike Oakes.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 09/02/2012

1.       Despite the snow warnings 10 players turned up but we split into the surprising groups of 3 and 7 players. On table 1 Jeremy introduced Mike and Roger to the game “BURGUNDY”, in which players use the pips from their 2 die to execute various actions on the board. From a starting position of 1 castle on the riverbank they are trying to expand their princedom by the acquisition of  tiles representing various terrain types (farms, mines, river, buildings etc) and placing them on adjacent spaces on the board. Upon doing so they might gain various bonus placements or victory points or goods tokens, but like many games you can’t do everything. Although the actions available to the players are based upon dice rolling there is a feature whereby by playing worker tokens the player can add or subtract 1 to /from a dice roll to suit their purposes, so it’s not all down to luck. A very attractive board, nice components and a mechanism that is fairly easy to pick up after the first few rounds of play. Mike was the slowest to start scoring VP’s but then he had a storming round and leapt into the lead, with Jeremy and Roger some way behind. However by completing certain types of terrain first Jeremy was storing up VP tiles for game end scoring so it was obvious the lead would not last. Roger struggled a bit mid-game but was catching up near the end but Jeremy continued to outscore the other 2 and he eventually claimed the win. Definitely a game to play again.

2.       The reason for the unusual player split was that the other 7 players wanted to play “SHADOWS OVER CAMELOT”, the co-operation game about saving the kingdom of Camelot from the evil clutches of “The Traitor”.  The game was reviewed on 31/03/2011 so is not reviewed in detail here. The game resulted in a collective win fopr the team as eventually Camelot was saved from the Traitor, who turned out to be Kevin.

3.       On table 1 Jeremy had to leave early so Roger and Mike played a 2-player version of “DOMINION” whilst they waited for Camelot to finish. Mike gained the early VP cards but then struggled to get enough Treasure cards to buy more. Roger started to gather up the final few Province cards and looked likely to win but the final countdown showed that Mike was the winner, a rare sight indeed !!.

4.       At this point the group reduced to 5 players and we tried the new game “Hunting Party” but we hit what looks like a game flaw after about 20 minutes so we abandoned the game and chose the ever-popular “INCAN GOLD “ instead, as we all knew it. The gremlin cards came out early to make for some low scoring but Mike managed to stay in long enough in one round to gain a haul of 16. In another rare sighting Mike continued to gather treasure at a high rate and he eventually won with 50 points with Roger second on 48. 2 wins in one evening for Mike, no wonder the elements outside were of an unusual nature, the world’s gone mad!!

Games played and Winners were:

Burgundy – Jeremy Hurault;

Shadows Over Camelot – a collective win;

Dominion  – Mike Oakes;

Incan Gold – Mike Oakes.