CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 16/08/2012

1.       7 players tonight so 2 tables were in play. On Table 1 Tony led a 3-player game of “KINGSBURG” a game of worker placement to gain influence in the Council chamber to obtain resources with which to create buildings and train troops. Within each year there are 3 seasons for doing this and in the 4^th season (Winter) the players have to defend themselves against an invading army. Each member of the Council awards different resources so the players have to determine which member to influence to their advantage. This means that there are many alternate strategies to employ, be they economic, prestige, or military, or a combination of all. The game takes place over 5 years, so just 20 turns in all to try and gain the most VPs. In a close finish Kevin managed to gain a victory.

2.       Table 2 saw Mike leading a 4-player game of “CUBA”, in which players use their 5 character cards in any order they choose to gain resources and products, trade in the market, to construct buildings, to produce finished goods or to load finished goods on the ships waiting in the harbour. As all players can obtain similar items there is fierce competition to grab the building tile you want before the other players. Similarly there is a race to be the first to load ships, a good way of earning VPs.   However there are so many ways in which to use your cards there is not room here to describe them all. Matthew was the early leader, mainly by buying votes in parliament so that he could influence the Tax and Duty Laws which apply at the end of each round. Paul built the Cigar factory before Mike did, which the latter found annoying. Mike traded his now useless tobacco to gain a lot of money but this reduced the price of the product so the others bought it cheaply. Roger built a Distillery for producing Rum from his Sugar plantation but was unlucky that the ships arriving in the harbour did not require very much of these goods. The game consists of 6 rounds, with 5 turns in each round, and it is very interactive. Scores were often very close throughout and in the final round Roger had his plans thwarted twice, firstly by Matthew using the building tile which required water, and then by Mike loading goods onto a ship that Roger was going to complete fully on his own for a healthy 10 points ! Paul continued to make good progress with loading his Cigar Boxes onto ships. In the very last play Mike was able to load one final Good for 3 VP in the largest ship, and after the points for game end scoring were awarded this turned out to be  enough for him to secure a rare victory. Final scores were Mike 73; Roger 71; Paul 71; Matthew 70.

3.       Table 1 played a game of “COSMIC ENCOUNTER”, the game in which players are alien leaders and try to establish colonies of their race in 5 of the planets outside of their home planet .To do so the players need to use force, cunning and diplomacy . According to Tom the eventual winner was Tony, “who sneakily did him down near the end”. Nuff said !!

Games played and Winners were:

Kingsburg  – Kevin Ward;

Cuba – Mike Oakes;

Cosmic Encounter – Tony Simons.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 09/08/2012

1.       9 players tonight so 2 tables were in play. On Table 1 Mike led a 4-player game of “VASCO DA GAMA”, which has one of the best game board ever produced. Players purchase Projects to sail to Africa and India, recruit Crew and captains before launching them and then try and navigate them to a selection of destinations. They gain VPs for doing so and the player with the most VPs after 5 rounds is the winner. There are several unique mechanics in the game, the most interesting one being the way actions are carried out. There are 4 ‘Action areas’ on the board, with 5 slots available in each. They cover such things as Gaining Projects, Recruitment, Character Selection and Navigation. Players have 4 Action discs which they place, 1 at a time in player order, in the Action Area of their choice and select an Action Sequence Disc from the middle, numbered between 1 and 20, to accompany it. When all the players have placed their discs the actions are executed in Action Sequence order. Therefore players cannot be sure of getting the desired result from their action. A typical sequence might be Gain money, recruit crew and captains, obtain a project, launch an expedition, but with only 4 actions available these have to planned out carefully.  Lucy launched some high-value expeditions early and stormed into a big lead whilst Jeremy, Mike and Alister built their projects slowly. Mike moved into second place with a couple of small expeditions reaching their destinations but then Jeremy began to gain ground with some large expeditions and good use of the Merchant Ship. After his slow start Alister managed to place several expeditions and overtook Mike, whilst Jeremy began to catch Lucy. Mike made a daft game-losing error by having an expedition ready to place and score 11 points but he had forgot to recruit a captain, so could not launch it..stupid boy !!. In a tense final round Alister scored well, Lucy had exactly the correct money to launch her final expedition to gain her several points but Jeremy managed to launch and complete several expeditions in this round so he emerged the winner. Final scores were Jeremy 84; Lucy 80; Alister 74; and Mike a miserable 58. All the players unanimously agreed it was an enjoyable gaming experience.

2.       Table 2 saw 5 players in a game of “TICKET TO RIDE – EUROPE”, which as been reviewed before. In a close finish that was decided by the winner of the Longest Route card for 10 points the victor was Matthew Bulpin, who was making a rare appearance at the club because of school holidays. Well done Matthew !

3.       With the arrival of John and the departure of Jerry we were still 9 players and as it was Lucy’s birthday we granted her the wish to play “THE GREAT DALMUTI”. This multi-player card game about getting rid of your cards as quickly as possible has been reviewed before. Fittingly Lucy won the first round, and the second game was won by John. Lucy did well in the third game so she was declared the overall winner.

4.       We split into 2 tables for the final session. On Table 1 Jeremy led a 3-player game of “SOBEK”, the card game about collecting sets of items along the banks of the Nile, which was reviewed recently. The game is played in a series of rounds with the winner being the one with the most points or the first to get to 100. Normally 30 points in a round is considered a good score but Mike was fortunate enough to collect 2 large sets which scored 82 points in round 1. In round 2 things were a bit tighter as John and Jeremy gained early sets. But again with a lucky draw Mike managed to score large collections again and scored heavily with another 70 points so the game ended quickly. A rare moment indeed for Mike to win a game.

5.       Table 2 saw 6 players in a game of “MUNCHKIN” which was also played recently. Silly monsters trying kill each and much back stabbing from the players led to lots of laughter. Time ran out before the finish was it was agreed to nominate Donna as the winner.

Games played and Winners were:

Vasco Da Gama – Jeremy Hurault;

Ticket To Ride Europe – Matthew Bulpin;

The Great Dalmuti – Lucy Newbury;

Sobek – Mike Oakes;

Munchkin – Donna Harris.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 02/08/2012

1.       We only had 4 tonight so we played just 2 games. The first game was a new one from Jeremy called “NORENBERC”, a game about buying goods in one of the 5 guilds in the game with a purpose of being selected as the Guildmaster’s favourite at the end of each round. For doing so the player receives the current head craftsman token and a crest for game end scoring. The price of goods produced by the various guilds is different each turn but you can see what the prices will be for future rounds , so it’s a case of “buy low, sell high” to make money. In addition to the goods there are also Townspeople tokens which are ‘lodging’ at the guilds so if you pay the appropriate price in goods you can add these townspeople to your set collection for game end scoring. After 4 rounds of buying, selling, and collecting there are a series of scoring phases carried out to determine the winner. By collecting lots of token for several guilds, rather than just concentrating on a couple, Jeremy was able to score regularly. The final scores were Jeremy 39; Jon 24; Roger 18; Mike 17, a comprehensive victory. A nice looking game, with good components..

2.       At Mike’s request we played a couple of stages of the cycling game “DEMARRAGE”, as the Tour De France had been held recently. Mike explained the game by using an easy first stage over flat roads and cobbles, to get the basic movement mechanics across to the other players. Players have 4 cyclists in their team, each of varying ability. After initial set-up for a stage they move in a defined sequence using one of 3 methods, these being the sum of 2 cards ; the sum of 2 dice;  or a mixture of 1 dice and 1 card. Certain terrain hazards have to be overcome and the trick to good scoring is to get your cyclists working in a group so that they can slipstream each other and move as one, thereby saving their cards for individual breakaways near the finish. Mike won the first stage by getting3 of his 4 cyclists to finish in the top 8. However on the second stage, which involved a stiff mountain climb he struggled to keep up and 3 of his cyclists finished near the back. Jon won the second stage by getting a good group to finish high up but over the 2 stages Mike was the overall winner.

Games played and Winners were:

Norenberc  – Jeremy Hurault;

Demarrage – Mike Oakes.

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.