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.

"Why did our Dominion game last 1.5hrs?" forum post on Boardgamegeek gets a big response!

After our first game of Dominion, we were wondering why the game lasted 1.5 hours (the box says half an hour) and we still hadn't finished - there was still at least 8 of high scoring 6-point Victory Cards. So I posted a question on the General forum of Dominion on Boardgamegeek. And blimey did I get a reply! See it here at: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/540511/play-lasted-1-5-hrs-in-first-go

Big thumbs up for "gun camera picture" on Board game geek!

A picture I used in a recently blog post on Memoir '44 that was engineered to look like gun camera footage has received high praise on boardgamegeek after I posted it on there! Many thumbs up and comments - it even got onto the home page!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/754100/memoir-44

Dominion day

Today we cracked open Dominion to have a family play - and once it got going, they were pretty happy with it - it seems fairly complex, but it is pretty easy; everyone starts the same deck of ten cards but over time the players start to gain Action and other money cards and build a deck of their own. When 3 piles of cards are used up or all of the top scoring Victory Cards are finished, its game over - whomever has the most Victory Card amount wins.

Sounds simple, but it is fairly complex in its approach and strategy, but its easy to pick - the girls were fine with it and enjoyed it. The best bit about the game for me is the fact that everyone starts with the same set of cards (7 copper and 3 Estate cards - worth 1 victory point each) and from there you determine your own strategy and overall fate in the game.

The Turn is three phases - play an Action card from your hand (if you have one), Buy another card with the money in your hand, Clean up the cards on the table.

An Action card is one card from 10 piles that can be purchased in the Buy phase - the cost of the card increasing depending on what is can do. For example one of the most expensive cards is Mine which when played allows you to turn a low amount treasure/coin card into a higher one ready for the Buy phase. In the box there are lots of different Action cards, but only 10 piles can be used per game, meaning lots of different combinations to play with.

You can also buy more expensive money to then use later on or in a future turn. Once a purchase is made, used cards and the purchased card go into a discard pile and a new set of cards is drawn from your personal draw pile. Once this is used up, at any point, the Discard pile is shuffled and cards can start to be drawn from it again.

It does sound complex, but it isn't. Our first game last 1.5hrs mainly for rules re-reads and catching up with play and mechanics, but I suspect our next game will be much quicker.

Catan and Martin family game play

 Today proved a great success for getting new people involved in games - our family friends the Martins came over for an evening meal and then a game of Diamant and Eketorp - I thought I'd give them two very different types of games, a slow paced tension builder and a fairly fast paced resource management game.

Diamant proved to be a big hit with them - we were able to play with a full set of players (8) and our guests were surprised at how quick the game was over and how much fun it generated in that time. Eketorp had a mixed review, not bad in anyway, but some preferred Diamant, some Eketorp. All in all a great evening.

On top of that, I bought a couple of Settlers of Catan with my vouchers for Battlequestgames. It looked like quite a promising family game with a quick to quickish play length. It is only for 4 players, but there is an expansion for 5 to 6 players if its a family hit. Time will tell. Hope to crack on with a game of Dominion and Settlers this weekend.

Inter-family games night!

This coming Saturday will be the first inter-family games night to introduce Euro-style and non-mass trash gaming (As I refer to games like Monopoly, Cluedo, Game of Life etc) to our friends the Martins. Apparently it is also going to be a take-away night too, so food and games all round!

I've already introduced two of their family to Zombies!!! as they have an interest in that "field" via the Xbox, so they were interested to find out more about gaming that didn't involve Monopoly or Cluedo. They've also expressed an interest in going to visit Battlequestgames to take a look around and see what it is I'm always on about.

I think the first batch we'll take around to introduce them to the idea is Eketorp and Diamant. Hopefully it will become a regular family thing once every 2 or 4 weeks.

History is changed in the desert sands - this time for the greater good!

So today a new scenario was cracked open in Memoir '44 - this time Roshni and I decided on a desert based one on the desert/snow board. The scenario was set in 1943, with a British dash for freedom being curtailed by a German surprise attack.

Scenario start - the British battalion moving up the road are surprised on three fronts, left, centre and the escape road, with artillery bringing up the rear.

The battle started like a duck shoot - like history dictated - out in the desert with little to no cover, men and machines blasted away at each other - he (or she!) who shot and rolled right knocked off targets all over the place.

Mid way through, the right hand side British tanks and troops attempt a punch through
whilst the left hand side (rather unrealistically!) threw themselves against the German centre
and left to prevent a cut off.

The battle ground on, but the push by the British on the left forced the Germans to a stop and a lack of artillery support meant the right hand British units were able to push up the road and clear out several tank and infantry units. The knock out came with an air strike, destruction of the right side German artillery and their last German infantry/anti tank team! 

Gun camera of a low flying Spitfire with tracer fire scattering German anti tank troops 

and targeting a Panzer unit

With the way clear, the game ended with the road clear for the retreating British units, turning the tide of history! :)