Good game of Eketorp and Dominion at Brians

 Last night was another good gaming evening at the as-ever good host Brian's house. This time it was with Nigel Heather and Nigel Wood. Firstly it was a game of Eketorp - new to all the players, although Brian had just bought a copy and played a few times with his family. It went down ok, but it is more of a family game than for four adult male gamers I think - Nigel H liked it but wasn't 100% hooked - horses for courses really. Nigel Wood brought Dominion with him - a great card game based on try to win as many Victory cards as possible from a starting deck of 7 which everyone gets the same. 5 cards are then taken from the starting deck and each player in turn decides what they are going to do - with one Action, One purchase.

For example if you have an action card, you can play it then follow its instructions then make a purchase of another card from the deck piles on the table, comprised of coin cards, victory cards and kingdom cards. For example three copper coins of value 3 altogether allows you to buy a kingdom card of up to 3 value or a silver coin card (which by itself has a value of 2 in subsequent purchases). Any purchased cards are put into the discard pile (to your right).

As your turn ends, any cards you have used on the table in front of you are put into discard pile as are any unused cards in your hand. Then you draw 5 more from the deck. As you continue to purchase money cards of higher value (copper = 1, silver = 2, gold = 3), these can then in subsequent turns if they are drawn be used to purchase kingdom cards that can give you advantages during play.

For example - for 5 coins, you can buy the Market. If played as an Action card, on it there is a statement that says Draw +1 card (so take a card from your stack into your hand), take +1 Action (so you can now play another Action card form your hand), +1 buy (so now you have 2 purchases for this turn) and +1 coin (so if you play 5 coins, you now have 6 to buy with). But the clever part is, the next action card you play could be another Market if you have bought two and the 2nd Market is in your hand, either originally or just picking it up. 

So now you have a 2nd Action to play, you can play this Market as well, giving ANOTHER card to pick up, ANOTHER action, 3 purchases and +2 coins.... This chaining of cards is great for allowing purchases of expensive Kingdom cards or Victory cards as well as undermining the efforts of others. 

This is a great, simple to play game, but very strategic in my view. I played this with the family and they enjoyed it but like others more. Like Eketorp is for families, I think this is more for four adults, but I could play against the family again soon and see if that has changed. 

Agricola! Going cheap!

So I was ULTRA tempted to buy Agricola from Andy on Thursday night - it is a weighty game and contains lots of nice pieces and is well made and a great game - I think the family will get on with it well. Only two things held me back - the high price tag £52 and the fact that all of the markers, animals, food etc are just different coloured cubes - a sheep is a white cube and some wood is a brown cube.

How this would translate whilst teaching the game I didn't know - Nigel and Matt who both have the game suggested getting the wooden "meeples" set, describing them as essential. These are essentially carved wooden pieces representing the animals, wood, food etc. So a sheep looks like a sheep, a boar looks like a boar. The only problem is the cost - about £20! On top of the already £52 of which 50% of the cost would be assigned to the wooden blocks that I wouldn't be using anyway, I could not justify the £72 expenditure. For less than this I can get "Railways of the World" or "Fortune and Glory" - two huge box games.

So I thought, oh well, I'll use others and get it cheap some how. I didn't have to wait long! A few days later, I spotted a second hand Very Good condition copy on Boardgamegeek complete with the wooden meeples! For £30!! Bargain - yes please! I ummed and arrred as usual about buying something - then went for it after Nigel Heathers suggested that I do before someone else snaps it up!! Had that too many times in life; so it's on its way now - £37 including postage, not bad at all...

Games evening at BattleQuestGames

 

Another night of games at Andy's Battlequestgames shop on Thursday night - I want to go and play a demo game of Agricola - a game about family in the 1700's - which doesn't sound that exciting, but its a worker placement game in the same theme as Stone Age and Eketorp which I like. It was a good game made better with the carved animal/wood etc pieces. I almost bought it, but didn't and lucky I didn't! See next post.

We then played a game of Incan Gold - a revamp of Diamant, but last time I played I didn't get on with it. But this time around, with 4 of us, including someone else who had Diamant, it played much better and I enjoyed it. 

The Vicar comes around for...a beer and we discuss board games

We had a good evening last night - the Vicar/Reverend, Hadge Hughes, from our Church that we recently started going to (it's a long, but good, story) came around for a visit just to say hello, talk about general stuff, get to know us better, talk about him and his life (very varied and full - with a good smattering of the arts) etc. It was a good night which everyone enjoyed. At one point we turned to talking about this blog and the games we play. Not sure if we got the idea across of how good euro games are, but he seemed intrigued. We offered for him and his wife to join us for a game some time; maybe we can introduce some new people to the wonderful world of euro gaming.

Good - but long! - game of Stone Age with Brian and Nigel

I was invited by Brian around for a game of something whilst Andy was running RPG games at Battlequest. We were joined by Nigel Heather and we all had a look at Eketorp which interested them both as it look strategic enough to be interesting but light enough to jump in and play, so it may well be on the cards to play at the next meeting at Brians house or at Andys BQG game night.

We'd also discussed about having a game of Stone Age which Nigel had played before but Brian hadn't - after a round up of the rules and setting up of the game, we were off and the game proceeded swiftly. In the end Brian won with a crushing 216 points - far ahead of Nigel and way ahead of me (last again lol); beginners luck?? Enjoyed by all, but unfortunately it was let down by one aspect; it took much longer than the 60~90 mins to play as stated on the box - more than 2hrs+ We couldn't figure out why either, no long decisions were being made and we all had a good grasp of the rules. Maybe with four players, this time will be more accurate? Perhaps at the next play we'll find out if we have four players.

Lots of Galactica!

Eventually I took the plunge and bought Battlestar Galactica - riding on a popular wave of family opinion at the moment as everyone is loving watching the series - at the time of writing, Anita and I have finished the show but the girls are coming up to watching season 4.5 or the Final season. I bought the game with some remainder Battlequest vouchers plus a little extra. Although complex looking, I found the rules fairly easy to follow. I did some test rounds by myself to get used to the mechanics and then invited Roshni and Maya for a test round or two.

Then I was lucky enough to be invited to a game at the gamers circle run by Brian who frequents the BQG boardgame nights. With Brian was Ruth, two Nigels and Andy of battlequest. Added to the base game was part of the Pegasus addon, but we left off the New Caprica board piece as there was a lot to get used to for the other players, let alone me! :)

It was a great game, 6 players - so it lasted a good 2+ hours and it turned out, along with Nigel who was an established Cylon Leader - a "6" Model, there were 4 Cylons or Cylon activated players!! Ruth whom I thought was acting suspicious actually turned out to be Human.

So a few days later, Anita, Maya and I played a few rounds, with Anita as Helo the Admiral, Maya as Starbuck and me as Tom Zareck the President. We did a reasonable job in destroying a base star and out running a Cylon attack armada but we succumbed to a lack of food! It is very hard for the humans to win this game, which is what makes it so exciting. Anita loved it enough to want a game next week, but with an insistence that the other two play to ensure finding out who the Cylon is (it was her and I clocked it, so off to the Brig she went...) is made harder...

Good fun all round - by your command!

Battlequest board game night....Cargo Noir and Red November...and BSG!!

Another great night at Andys place with some cool company and some cool games. I saw Battlestar Galactica was in play and really wanted to get involved but they were already running with a full crew. Still it looks like a great game and one I'd love to get hold of. I had brought over our copy of Cargo Noir - which Andy and a guy called Julian had a go of. It was a good game, although I tripped over the rules a few times - have to remember when in company you can't just gloss over things you can't remember. :)

Afterwards it was a game of Red November with Andy, Nigel and a few others - the idea is that Red November is a co-op game where problems keep breaking out on the submarine and your gnomes have to run about and solve them; fires, flooding, all whilst air, fuel and pressure run out or build up. It was a good game and we almost all made it, but a few were killed off and then it all came apart. Good little game.