CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 21/03/2013

King of Tokyo

Work commitments and cold weather meant that only 6 players made it tonight. Mike, Lucy, Tim, Jeremy, Jon and Kevin started the evening by playing Nottingham. Kevin pleased the Sheriff the most with his set collection to be promoted from Deputy to Chief Assistant at the end of the game. The same players competed as monsters to become King of Tokyo with Jon succeeding as the Kraken by combining his healing ray and poison spines to be the last monster standing. With Tim and Lucy leaving there were four people left to play the excellent El Grande with Mike finishing the game with the most control over the provinces of Spain.

Games played and winners were :

Nottingham - Kevin Shaw;
King of Tokyo - Jon Binden;
El Grande - Mike Oakes.

3 years ago this week only 6 people turned up (possibly due to work commitments and cold weather). Exploding mobster cakes were on the menu again...
1. With only 6 players tonight we stayed together as a group and played 3 games during the evening. First up was a re-run of "Don Pepe", the gangster game which was played last week. With 6 players early losses were inevitable and Geoff was soon down to just one mobster left. However he hung on until the last 3 mobs were left after some serious damage caused by cakes blowing up. Mike had a poor start but by staying in until the end he picked up some regular income, enough to enable him to pass Roger who had already been eliminated. 

2. Game Mike introduced the group to "The Boardgamegeek Game", in which players play the role of a games manufacturer who wish to sell their games in the 6 shops present on the board. They have a secondary objective to collect games from other players to form sets, which will score points at the end. The game is driven by placing tiles in shop windows and then using the roll of 3 dice to determine from which shops the players will purchase their games. Much manipulation of the dice ensues to satisfy this requirement and players can frustrate their opponents by doing this. The lead changed hands several times during the game but by collecting 3 complete sets Alistair scored heavily at the end for a comfortable win.

3. As it was Cheltenham NH Festival week we finished up with a horse racing game called "Turf Horse Racing". This is a betting game which uses a special dice to decide how the horses move. Much laughter arose from the game and it was voted a success. With a storming last 2 rounds Robert swept through to victory.

Games played and Winners were:
Don Pepe - Mike Oakes;
Boardgamegeek game - Alistair Gitting;
Turf Horse Racing - Robert Piesse.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 14/03/2013

Tonight we had 3 tables in play again. 'Lords of Waterdeep' went down well enough to get played twice by Tony, Matthew, Paul and Jon. Tony's hard earned control of the City of Splendours in the first game was quickly usurped by Jon in the second. Roger patiently sat through a lengthy explanation of 'Android: Netrunner' full of Cyber Punk Terminology and managed to steal a couple of agendas before Kevin's Corporation eventually came out on top. Lucy made the most effective use of goods, buildings and ships to beat Mike, Tim and Jeremy in 'Le Havre'. To end the evening Mike, Jeremy, Roger and Kevin bought goods, filled warehouses and loaded ships in 'Before the Wind'. Mike was victorious.

Games played and winners were :
Lords of Waterdeep - Game 1 - Tony Simons;
Lords of Waterdeep - Game 2 - Jon Bradford;
Le Havre - Lucy Newbury;
Android: Netrunner - Kevin Shaw;
Before the Wind - Mike Oakes.

3 years ago this week Tony was the brightest member of the ‘Diamonds Club’, the lads had a blast playing ‘Don Pepe’ and Mike secured a rare win...
1. We split into 2 groups of 4 tonight, playing on 2 tables. First game up was "Bombay", a game new to Tony and Roger. It involved using elephants to transport bales of goods between locations, using a series of linked pathways. The prices for delivering goods fluctuate during the game and the lead changes hands regularly. Mike established a good link of palaces which earned him much gold as other players passed through them and this was enough to secure a rare win for him.

2. On table 2 the lads played "Ad Astra", a space trading game. Chris has played the game several times and used this to good advantage to secure a win.

3. Back on table 1 the four of us played "Diamonds Club", a game about acquiring mines, producing gems from them, and then using these gems to build various features in your own personal garden. These include fountains, orangeries, temples, deer park etc, plus forested areas. The mechanism for obtaining the various gems is quite clever and the scoring options are multi-faceted and it produced a close finish between Mike and Tony, with the latter prevailing in the final countdown.

4. On table 2 the lads took on "Don Pepe", a game of gangsters trying to grab the most money before everyone finally dies. The gangsters are all seated around a table and they play various cards which enable them to knife, shoot or drug their opponents to eliminate them. During this process they earn money from illegal enterprises. The unique feature of the game is that players can make a cake and send it round the table. When their turn comes round again the cake explodes and any adjacent gangsters are killed. However players can either move around the table or send the cake further round the table to avoid being removed themselves and exposing other players to the danger, so the game is highly interactive and very amusing. Despite having only one of his gang remaining Richard managed to manoeuvre his cake to eliminate his opponents and win the game by having the most loot.

Games played and Winners were:
Bombay - Mike Oakes;
Ad Astra - Chris Cook;
Diamonds Club - Tony Simons;
Don Pepe - Richard Piesse.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 07/03/2013

Tonight we had 3 tables in play which was encouraging.

Jerry explored, traded and colonised most successfully to become the ‘Ambassador to the Galactic Council’ ahead of Matthew and Tony in Starfarers of Catan. Jeremy put his (and Mike and Roger’s) dice to best religious, military and civil use to gain the most fame for his French family in Troyes. Kevin used a Corn and Temple strategy to beat Paul, Lucy and Tim in Tzolk’in, a Mayan themed worker placement game with a twist. Roger was declared the winner of Roll Through the Ages – The Bronze Age having built some impressive monuments and avoiding the disasters that had befallen Jeremy, Mike and Kevin.

3 years ago this week Geoff was on top form, the Piesse Brothers were running late and Caylus was the main event…
1. Whilst we waited for the late arrival of the Piesse Brothers 4 of us played the short game of “Hey, That’s My Fish”. A simple game about collecting fish from a large ice flow. However as players collect fish they form holes in the ice which can leave other players isolated ( or should that be “ice-olated” . Roger ran away with the game in the end by having a “whole shoal” to himself.

2. With the arrival of Chris and Alistair 7 of us played “Incan Gold”, a game of collecting treasures. It involved brinkmanship deciding when to bale out of the mines due to impending disasters. Chris didn’t and perished, Alistair was more prudent and narrowly beat Richard.

3. When Robert Piesse arrived we split into 3 groups, one of 5 to play “Caylus”, and the other 3 played a variety of small games. Caylus is a resource management game about building various parts of a castle and is quite involved…a proper gamers game .It took over 2 hours and Chris was always in a leading position and held it until the end, despite a late surge by Alistair and Mike to close the gap. Richard claimed he might have won if there had been one more round…hmmm, maybe next time ??

4. On the other table Geoff introduced Maria to the game of “Oregon”, about building farms, ports and churches in the state of that name. He duly won but only narrowly from Roger.

5. Geoff then explained the card game “King Lui”, whereby players take food items from the proliferation on display but they must be careful not to eat more of an item than the King does, as that would be rude, wouldn’t it ? If they do hey won’t score for that item so the game is all about keeping a balanced diet. Geoff’s prior knowledge enabled him to win.

6. The small group then played a quick card game “Coloretto”, and interesting set-collecting game which is popular within the hobby. Maria was hustled by the other two and Geoff gained a narrow win over Roger.

7. The larger group played a second game of “Incan Gold” to finish up the evening. Mike blew his chances when failing to get out of the mine in time and lost a lot of treasure. Chris gained a win by just one point in a tense finish.

8. On the other table Geoff introduced another card game called “Archaeology”, a game about achieving expedition goals. In another tight finish Geoff beat Roger by one point to claim a fourth victory of the evening !!

Games played and winners were:
Hey That’s My Fish ! Roger Skull;
Incan Gold game 1 Alistair Gittings;
Oregon Geoff Williams;
Kings Breakfast Geoff Williams;
Caylus Chris Cook;
Coloretto Geoff Williams;
Archeology the Card Game Geoff Williams;
Incan Gold game 2 Chris Cook.

Well done Geoff on a 4-timer !!

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 27/09/2012

1.       6 players tonight, which included Dave, a visitor from the Bath Games club, so we split into 2 groups of 3. Table 1 saw 3 players playing “VILLAGE”, the new game which was played last week. Dave and Jeremy were playing the game for the first time and both enjoyed the experience. Mike and Dave took the early lead by going travelling whilst Jeremy was visiting the market almost every turn to pick up Customer tiles for game end scoring. Mike was ‘killing off’ his members hoping to be the only one to get 5 of his family in the Village Chronicle and to stop the other players matching it, but Dave sent a member travelling and he died quickly and that gave him a 5^th entry, so eroding a 5-point margin for Mike, which proved crucial in the game end scoring. Jeremy made a late entry into travel to close the gap and his Customer tiles totalled 19 points so things were close at the top. In the final countdown the scores were Dave 49; Jeremy 45; Mike 41, so those extra 5 points Dave got for his 5^th death proved vital.

2.       Table 2 saw Kevin, Paul and Jerry playing a game of “AGRICOLA”, the game where players select actions from a multitude of choices to construct their farm, and populate it with animals or grow vegetables, They increase the size of their family to create more workers, to increase production, but these folk require feeding so players need to take account of that fact, by killing cattle, or making bread, if they have the resources to do so. This is all driven by a card system which meshes several mechanics together in a brilliant way. Jerry was ‘beaten up ‘ badly in his efforts and did not bother to total up his negative score but the other 2 finished very closely, with Kevin just edging Paul out by 31 points to 29.  

3.       All 6 players got together for the final game of “7 WONDERS – LEADERS”, the variant which adds a twist of players selecting a Leader card to add to their display ( if they can afford it) from 4 initial cards dealt to them. These cards add various powers which affect the subsequent game play. As always with this game there was the frustration of the right resources not being available from your neighbours , in this case Glass was in short supply. Paul built up a vast military strength, aided by his leader of Julius Caesar, but his other leader generated him a load of cash throughout the game giving him 9 victory points in the end , which proved crucial. Dave had to suffer the ignominy of finishing behind Mike, the perpetual loser, and the final scores were Paul 65; Jeremy 61; Kevin 58; Jerry 51; Mike 48; Dave 46.

Games played and Winners were:

Village – Dave the visitor;

Agricola – Kevin Ward;

7 Wonders – Paul Bulpin.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 20/09/2012

1.       7 players tonight so we split into a 3 and a 4. Table 1 saw 3 players playing “CARCASSONNE”, in one of its many variants. From the scores I was given it seems as though Jerry dished out a thrashing, as the final scores were Jerry 205; Lucy 170; Roger 48.

2.       Lucy had to go after her game and with the non-arrival of Richard and his friends Jerry and Roger played a 2-player version “CARGO NOIR”, the black market smuggling game which has been played before, Jerry was in sparkling form again winning with 125 points to Roger’s 105.Well done Jerry !!

3.       On table 2 Mike and Paul introduced Kevin and Jon to the game  of “VILLAGE”, the game in which players have a family of 11 meeples which they ‘manage’ through their lives to perform certain jobs or activities to gain Prestige points. The game was played last week so the description is not repeated here. Paul once again tried to get plenty of his family into the council chamber and the Church. Mike trained Craftsman with a view to get good harvests, whilst Kevin was the only one to go travelling early on. Jon collected lots of influence cubes, so he was able to have a second go at the Market, which enabled him to build up an impressive number of customer sales. When the mass took place both Mike and Paul failed to get their novice monk drawn from the bag, whereas Jon was lucky each time so he built up a strong holding in the Church, which scored him PP regularly each turn. Meanwhile Kevin continued on his travels and turned lots of grain to Gold, which he used to buy PP’s via his high position in the Council Chamber. There was a late rush to get family members to die to occupy the final spots in the Village chronicle. Kevin managed 5 to score 12 PP, whilst Mike managed 4 to get 7 PP. In the final scoring we discovered that Jon had accrued 24 points for his customer tiles, as significant total. Kevin scored 18 for his travel exploits whilst Mike and Paul only picked up small pockets of points.  Final scores were Jon 76; Kevin 68; Paul 48; and Mike 42, in his usual last place. Both newcomers to the game enjoyed it, although it took nearly 3 hours to complete and we couldn’t fit in another game.

Games played and Winners were:

Carcassonne – Jerry Jabelman;

Cargo Noir – Jerry Jabelman;

Village – Jon Binmore.