Start of the Christmas play list!

Christmas holidays....so....

Snow...check
School holidays...check
Work holidays...check
Time for some games...check!

It's getting a bit hard to convince everyone to play a game these days, especially Kavita as a) shes a teenager b) she has loads of homework to do and c) it's probably no longer hip and cool to play games with the folks and the younger siblings but we don't care; I much prefer playing these games as a family than in 2's and 3's. Besides it's good to get a distraction from work once in a while that doesn't involve the television or my own personal vice, the Xbox.

Today we got out a selection of games and picked two to play - the new family favourite Niagara and Citadels which we haven't played in a while. Anita won Niagara with some tactical uses of the river flow to collect that all important pink gem right at the edge of the falls and again with Citadels, although Kavita got 8 locations as well in the same round, Anita had all 5 coloured districts and more gold value cards. In all a great little play and I hope we get to play tomorrow. I am hoping we'll get a game of Aquaretto in as we've had it ages but never played it!

A weekend of gameplay - 3 player Ticket to Ride and Germany changes history!

Blimey what a busy gaming weekend! We tried to get in as many games as possible with Citadels and Dominion on Saturday and Ticket to Ride: USA and Memoir '44 on Sunday. 

Citadels was another great game as usual, big family winner this. I just managed to win this with Roshni just denied an extra 4 points for all 5 colours in her Citadel cards by Anita Warlord destroying one of her coloured cards. 

Then we had another go at Dominion - this time was much better than the last with the game over in about 50 minutes. This time we learned the lessons of the past and used our money to buy more money and then use this to buy victory cards. Although the game is supposed to be only for 4 players max, we managed to  include Maya as a fifth player - she was happy to just buy up kingdom or money cards and randomly attack the rest of us with a Militia card, but as long as she was happy that was all that matter. 

Sunday we started with Ticket to Ride and this time Roshni played with Anita as a team, Maya played alongside me and Kavita by herself. This proved to be interesting as we'd only ever played TtR with 2 players/teams, so Kavita playing was a curveball - as Anita discovered! All of her normal gaming tactics seemed to go out of the window in the face of two rather than one opponent! :-) Kavita won in the end. 

Initial set up - look at those tanks!

Finally in the afternoon, Roshni and I took on our first Soviet vs German Memoir scenario. Wow, this turned into a huge battle! The Germans were on a push for the gates of Moscow with a huge en-masse of tanks and soldiers. The middle and right Russian positions could not withhold the attacks, even with the backup of artillery, and moved back to more secure positions. To the left, brave Soviet peasant infantry tried to hold out with German tanks in one direction and Commissars waving pistols in the other. A German tank platoon split a wedge between the left and centre Soviet commands by taking the bridge over the river. Then German tanks, which had been badly hit, in the centre, took the hills overlooking the city and forced a general retreat to the bottom right of the board. The remaining left hand command were left to their own devices and eventually destroyed by a huge tank advance! 

The Germans take the hills, ready to capture the Bridge!

The left command is crushed!

With German guns firing from the hills, there was little to do, but try to rush them from the right and try to retake the hills, but all was lost with the loss of the Left command and the capture of the bridge over the river! The road to Moscow was open and history changed again! 

With the left, Bridge and hills taken,
little remains but for the Soviets to retreat!

Holiday gaming!

Just because we up sticks and go away on holiday to Derbyshire for a week, doesn't mean we stop playing :) Firstly we had a game of the old favourite Citadels, deftly won by Anita.

Couple of days later we had a play of Zooloretto - not played this in a while - again won by Anita! Both great games to enjoy over a beer, wine (juice for the kids!) and Doritos!

Fancy a game of Dominion? Nope, lets play Citadels!

We were planning to play Dominion tonight, but we decided on a game of Citadels - nice little game; poor Maya got hit badly by a Thief card when she gathered up a stash of gold and lost it all to Roshni!! She was not happy :( Nice little game - Roshni won in the end with two special purple cards that gave two extra gold each at the end.

Birthday treat!

So, birthday finally arrives and I get £40 from Anita for use in Battlequestgames! Yay! Then dad gives me £20 (so again that will be diverted :] ). Off we go into town and I nip into BQGs after my several month exile (to stop me buying up loads and getting into trouble). We had a look around the family games and find Dominion - which plays from 8+ so Maya can play - although its 4 players only, so she'll have to work alongside someone. It looks interesting and a card based game like Citadels, which was a sure-fire hit, so looking forward to playing this.

Oh and later a few friends came around for some birthday drinks and I got another £20 - this time specifically in Battlequest vouchers! Nice!

Citadels and more Citadels...and goodbye to some games

Today was another Citadels day - with the heating system on the fritz, it was a case of dragging the table in front of the coal fire and sitting down to a couple of healthy rounds of this classic game. It has now become so popular, it is outdoing Zooleretto as our favourite game! First it was a standard round then we introduced about 10 of the * expansion Location cards - these provided a new healthy mix to the available locations and more excitement to the game. We planned a game of Eketorp but we ran out of time.

Also we've decided to sell three games, Mystery of the Abbey (played once), Bonanza (never played) and The Queen's Necklace (played a few times) - hopefully to plough the proceeds into a new game or two.

Don't play a game for years and suddenly do two at once!

Amazing what a play of a game can do to your opinion of it lol. As today was a rain off for doing anything outdoors, Anita suggested playing a game - Citadels because she likes it so much! Now we were more up on the rules (apart from me finding out that you draw two location cards and only keep one at the start of your turn d'oh), things moved faster and play was more fun this time around.
Last game was a draw between Anita and I - this time Anita slamdunked us again - as it usual when she plays lol.

First play of an old game - Citadels

Wow, we've finally got around to playing this game even though we've had it for years! For ages Anita was put off by the name for some reason but finally I convinced the Tribe to give it a go. And by games end they were glad they did because they all, including me, enjoyed it. The game rules described here are for 5 players, the rules differ for less or more players.

The basic premise of the game is to build a Citadel using cards in hand. The first to eight cards generates a Game End event - a term I coin to mean a certain criteria, score or event that concludes the game or means carry on for one more turn. In this case, the turn carries on until the end of the current turn and then the winner is calculated (see later).

The game from the outset seemed  fairly complex, but once the game was running even Maya knew what to do without any aid. The idea of the game is to gain Location cards, money and build places in the citadel. Also each turn every one gains a special character with an ability that might generate extra or cause another to miss a turn.

The turn is divided into several sections. Firstly the character cards are shuffled and the player with the Gold Crown icon (on the first turn the oldest player) takes the top card and places it face down on the table. Then the next card is placed face up. The Crown character then takes a character card they want and keeps it hidden. The cards are then passed and over and over until the last card is placed face down

The interesting aspect of play is that it is not circular, but decided by numbers on the character cards. The crown holder calls out numbers 1 to 8 and the player with that card gets a turn - their character card is displayed on the table to everyone else. Each player then gets a chance to get 2 gold coins or 2 location cards, then a chance to spend their gold on buying location cards and then utilise the special abilities of their character card - the Assassin for example chooses another character to "bump off" as we call it :) This person is not allowed to say anything but misses a go. This system of a non-circular game means the game is very strategic and no one knows who goes next, who is what character etc means game play is very fluid and no one knows what to expect next. There are 8 unique characters with different abilities.

Then at the end of the turn, the character cards are collected, shuffled and then the Turn starts again.

At first the game was a little slow as we discovered the rules, but it soon picked up and even Maya was happy playing. There was one caveat - one character is the King which when played, transfers the Crown to that player. Maya and at times Roshni would base their decision on what character to keep from the collection on  if it contained the King simply because they like Kings, Princess etc.

Apart from that, an excellent 60 mins game!

Game in progress - Anita on her way to win it looks!

Citadels gets a ringing endorsement from Kavita even though

she only has one card in play!

Roshni carefully considers her next move

A Friday night of gaming fun planned

Just been around to invite our neighbours and friends, Andy and Maggie, for a relaxing evening of wine, nibbles and games. Ok it may not sound great, but they are both teachers, a highly stressful job, and next Friday marks the start of half-term (hurray they say!) so it'll be good for them to cool their heels with a free evening of fun, over a bottle of wine or three. Probably introduce them to Ticket to Ride: Europe, then maybe a quick filler like Formula Motor Racing and then finish up with something like Zooleretto or Citadels. Should be a nice evening in!