CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 21/04/2011

1.       Due to Easter Holidays we had 6 members attend this week, so we played on 1 table only. 5 of us started with “SAN FRANCISCO”, the game about rebuilding the city after the great earthquake of 1906. Tiles representing 3 different categories of building are placed randomly in a grid of the city and the players try to place their ‘building rods’ such that they surround a tile and claim the points for rebuilding that part of the city. On each players turn a contract card is turned over which dictates how many players will get to place a rod and the basis on which the contract is resolved. This will be one of 3 methods, either by the playing of Influence cards, by the playing of Cheques, or by the use of ‘auction chits’. The twist in the game is that when a bid in the Influence cards is revealed any ties means that the players are eliminated from that auction and the resolution passes to the next lower bid. So in a 5-player game the bids of 9, 9, 6, 5, and 3 will result in the player bidding 6 winning the auction. If the auction card indicated 2 players will get to place a rod then the bidder of 5 will also get to place. The cheques are resolved by players simply adding cheques to their bids until every one bar one has passed. The ‘Auction chits’ are chosen secretly and revealed and if one player is the only one to choose a particular category of tile they get to place a rod. If more than 1 player chooses the same category they resolve it by secretly bidding up to 5 cheque cards and the highest total wins. When a tile is built it is turned over and the relevant points on it are awarded to the builder as Prestige Points. Furthermore one of the ‘bonus cards’ is turned up. These enable players to gain more money or more influence points or to move building rods. They are resolved by bidding in the same way as above, or sometimes every player gets the chance to perform the action depicted. The bonus card is placed on a grid on the board, in which there are 12 spaces and this dictates the length of the game, which ends as soon as the last card is placed. Kevin started out with an early lead by building some low values tiles and Lucy soon caught him up by doing the same. Mike waited for his chance to build the more prestigious Town Hall tile for which he received 10 points and closed on the leaders. Some spirited bidding by Geoff and Roger meant that they soon closed the gap but the amounts being bid were rising all the time, so those who kept money back were able to win the later auctions. Despite a late effort Lucy couldn’t quite catch Kevin who held on for the win by 3 points by building a tile late on.

2.       Paul had joined us by this time so 6 of us played “7 WONDERS”, the card game that has been reviewed recently. Mike and Kevin were beaten up on the Military front, both scoring -6 points in that category. Mike never recovered but the others all scored well in different categories and the final scores were very close, these being Paul 50, Kevin 49, Lucy 48, Roger 44, Geoff 40, Mike 29.   

Games played and Winners were:

San Francisco Kevin Ward;

7 Wonders Paul Bulpin.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 07/04/2011

1.     Due to absences we had 8 members attend this week, so we played on 2 tables of 4 players each. Table 1 started with “ZOOLORETTO”, the boardgame version of the very popular card game Coloretto. The theme here is that players are trying to fill the compounds in ‘their’ zoo with animals of the same species, of which there are 8 in the game, or to add vendor stalls for the benefit of their customers. In turn order players have a choice of one of 3 actions, they can either add a tile to the lorries that deliver to the zoos, or they can perform a financial transaction such as disposing of unwanted animals, remodelling their zoo, buying animals from other players, building an extension to their zoo, or they can take delivery of the contents of one lorry and place them in their zoo. Taking the last-named action ends their participation in the current round. Each player’s zoo has 3 compounds of different size and players place their animals or vendor stalls as they wish. Once a compound is filled the player immediately receives 1 or 2 coins, useful for later on, and the compound will score victory points in the Game End scoring.  Sometimes if they have acquired a breeding pair the player can have babies of that species to help fill their compound. Any tiles gained that cannot be placed are placed in a player’s barn , from where they can be purchased by other players or used by the owning player to remodel their zoo to better advantage later on. The game ends once tiles are taken from the last pile and after completing the current round the players add up the VP’s of their compounds and their vendor stalls but they subtract any points for items still in their barn. Luke was undone by have several species in his barn at the game end and this is reflected in the scoring, the result being Jerry 28, Poppy 27, Mike 22, Luke 19.

2.       Table 2 played “RHEINLANDER”, a game where players match cards in their hand with tracts of land adjacent to the River Rhine to form duchies. They expand these territories so that they can subsequently build castles, cathedrals and cities to improve their score. Because the game is based around a river players can build along both banks and from several parts of the river so attacks often take place to either stop an opponent advancing or to take over control, from that opponent.  As players become more powerful they can build bastions to defend their areas, they can build churches which enable them to add bishops to the board and the players with the most bishops can become the Archbishop, which grants even more power! Of course the other players will no doubt launch a counter offensive to take this away from you. The game end scoring was very close, with Allister winning on 39 points, Kevin and Roger tied on 38 and Geoff came 4^th.

3.       Table 1 played the card game “BOHNSANZA”, in which they play cards to populate fields of beans which they eventually sell at market, the bigger the filed the higher the reward. The way to get a bigger market share is by trading with then other players for bean types that they require, and this is quite frantic and interactive. The game is played in 3 rounds, with fortunes fluctuating throughout. A very close game ended in a tie, the final scores being Luke 12, Mike 12, Poppy 11, Jerry 10.

4.       Purely by coincidence Table 2 decided to play the “BEAN TRADER”, which is the board game version of the card game played on table 1. Players acquire contracts to supply certain types of beans to the various German cities depicted on the colourful board, for which they will receive money. The problem is that they have acquire these beans in different cities, and the prices of the products tend to rise, and then they have to play a certain number of cards to move from one city to another along the various routes in order to sell the beans they have purchased and take the reward. If a player ends their move in a city in which another player is present they can trade beans with each other, adding to the commercial flavour of the game. There is a neat method of the way in which the cards that have been played are replaced back in your hand, which adds interest to the game. A good conversion of a card game but it does take longer to play than the card game, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The eventual winner was Allister, as he had the good fortune to deliver two high-value contracts early on, which meant he had the money to buy more products in subsequent turns and thereby deliver more contracts.   

Games played and Winners were:

Zooloretto Jerry Jabelman;

Bohnsanza tie between Luke Williams & Mike Oakes;

Rheinlander Allister Gittins;

Bean Trader Allister Gittins.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 31/03/2011

1.     10 members attended this week, so we played on 2 tables. Table 1 started with 4 players in “SHADOWS OVER CAMELOT”, a co-operative game with lots of wonderful bits and great presentation. Different from many of the games we play because the players have to work together to defeat the game, but perhaps one of the players has been secretly dealt the Traitor card and they are trying to make the team fail. The 7 quests include such things as Finding Excalibur, locating the Holy Grail, defeating Invading Armies, conquering Black Knight etc and players play cards and move their pieces to enable this to happen. The game system ‘plays’ siege engines to try and defeat Camelot so sometimes players have to play cards to counter this, providing of course they are not the Traitor!! As a result of resolving any conflict swords are placed on the famous Round Table, these being coloured Black or White. If at any time there are 7 Black swords on the table the team has lost, but for every victory they add White swords to counteract it. This all adds up to a neat gaming experience. The team of Lucy, Kevin, Luke and Tony were ‘seiged-out’ of Camelot, but nobody was a Traitor so there was no clear winner. However  Luke was declared the winner because of his contribution.   

2.       Table 2 saw 6 players playing “SHARK”, which has been played a lot recently. Jerry and Poppy were playing it for the first time. Paul quickly built up a strong holding in 2 of the 4 shares in the game, which he then sold to avoid major losses if the share price tumbled. Mike had a balanced portfolio which gave him regular income each time any share rose in value. Roger bought heavily into Yellow shares which then to his dismay crashed. At game end Mike thought he had finally won a game, only for Paul to declare greater wealth and snatch victory. With 6 players the game took longer than expected so maybe it plays better with 4 players.

3.       Table 1 played a 4-player game of “SEISMIC”, in which players place hexagonal highway tiles to build long, complete sections of highways, scoring points for each tile as well as bonus points for the ending "intersection" tiles in their routes. Scores aren't tallied until the end of the game, because at any time, earthquakes can occur, destroying tiles along the most-built direction leading out from the central "San Andreas" tile. Players constantly need to be claiming as many long roadways as possible while ensuring that their highways aren't the ones that are going to be destroyed if and when an earthquake occurs. Much laughter seemed to be generated by the players involved and it was Luke who smiled most at the end as he was the winner.

4.       Table 2 reduced to 4 players and played a couple of quick games of “GIRO GALOPPO”, a family horse racing game which uses cards to move the contestants.  A race takes around 15-20 minutes, and the first game was won by Paul, the second game by Geoff.

5.       Table 2 then played a 4-player game of “DURCH DIE WUSTE”, the game about extending your camel trains into the desert to try and connect to water holes, which have VP’s of 1-3, to connect to Oases, which have VP’s of 5 each, or to enclose a series of spaces, which will be worth 1 VP each at game end. Game turns are simple enough, consisting of choosing 2 camels from the general supply and extending your ‘network’, but there are certain restrictions about where you can place, Players will often thwart your plans, leading to frustration. Paul was obviously on good form as he enclosed 2 large areas which gave him 18 VP’s at the end, Roger had collected lots of VP’s from Water holes, whilst Mike and Geoff were some way behind. Paul eventually won from Roger by 4 points.

6.       Table 1 finished their evening with 2 quick games of “GIRO GALOPPO”, the winner being Kevin and Luke, so surprisingly Lucy was winless for once !!.

Games played and Winners were:

Shadows over Camelot Luke Williams;

Seismic Luke Williams;

Shark Paul Bulpin;

Giro Galoppo -1 Geoff Williams;

Giro Galoppo -2 Paul Bulpin;

Durch die Wuste Paul Bulpin;

Giro Galoppo -3 Kevin Ward;

Giro Galoppo -4 Luke Williams.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 17/03/2011

1.     11 members attended this week, so we played on 3 tables. Table 1 started with 4 players in “CHAOS IN THE OLD WORLD”, a game with lots of bits which has been reviewed before. The winner was Robert.

2.       Table 2 saw 3 players playing “LAST TRAIN TO WENSLEYDALE”, a railway game where the aim of the game is to move stone, cheese, and passengers from the Dales to the major trunk routes served by the North Eastern Railway and the Midland Railway. Valleys play a large part in dictating where you can build track. Once you have built a line you must acquire second hand engines and rolling stock to move the goods and passengers that your line connects to. Such a line quickly becomes unprofitable and it pays to have one of the two major companies take it over from you. With 2 of the players playing the game for the first time it was no surprise when Tony emerged victorious

3.       Table 3 played a 4-player game of “KELTIS”, a card game where each player is trying to lay down cards in front of them in either a descending or ascending sequence. The cards are in 5 colours and for each card laid the player advances one of their markers along the track for that colour. The track shows victory points to be gained at game end and at the start the positions are negative points, so you are encouraged to build in all 5 colours. Along the tracks there are hidden counters which when turned over reveal a bonus situation , which either be gain VP’s immediately, or Move another marker along its track, or keep a diamond for game end scoring. The game plays quickly and it’s not exactly straightforward which marker to move each turn. You want to get out of the negatives, but you also want to be the first to get those bonus tiles. Despite a slow start Mike managed to pull clear in the last few rounds to win from Jerry

4.       Table 3 then played “ON THE UNDERGROUND”, which was played a few weeks ago and Jerry and Poppy both liked it. Pamela was new to the game and Mike offered her help with understanding it. This proved to be a fatal error and everything went right for Pamela and she forged clear of the rest from the start. However Poppy made a late challenge by moving the Passenger over her lines in successive turns and close the gap to just 1 point at the end, to leave Pamela with a narrow victory..

5.       Table 2 played a 4-player game of “PUERTO RICO”, a club favourite. In a very close finish Richard had 49 points, with the runners-up on 47 and 45 points.

6.       With the departure of several players at 10.00 p.m. 3 players were left to play “MONTEGO BAY”, the game about obtaining barrels of rum to load on ships and thereby gain victory points. Due to a mistake by both Mike and Roger a ship was left in the harbour for Geoff to score and from what looked like a a hopeless position Geoff swooped through to win on the very last turn. 4 points covered all 3 players.

Games played and Winners were:

Chaos in the Old World Robert Piesse;

Last Train to Wensleydale Tony Simons;

Keltis Mike Oakes;

On the Underground Pamela Simons;

Puerto Rico Richard Piesse;

Montego Bay Geoff Williams.