Gaming in front of an open fire

An open fire as in cosy, coal and logs and not in the guns n bullets variety. Anyhow we decided to crack open a few games with our backs to the lovely glowing fire. Firstly it was all time family favourite Zooleretto. It was a hard fought game between myself, Roshni and Maya. This time we used the proper "Remove an animal depending on the number of players" - we removed Kangaroos and Flamingoes. This made the game go so much better as we didn't end up with a surplus of animals each at the end. There was still room to make plays for each others spare animals and even run out of animals before we'd completed Pens. The game felt much much better. Roshni won in the end.

Then came a couple of games of Mayas all time favourite, Diamant. This involved all accept Kavita as she was doing homework. Such an easy concept yet devilishly addictive - it requires a combination of luck and nerves to make sure you outwit your opponents yet come out with enough gems to make the effort worthwhile.

Maya won the first round, whilst Anita won the second.

More online gaming - joined Yucata

After a full get together with David during a lunch break last week, he's introduced me to another couple of online gaming websites - one to me that stood out was Yucata - a German game site that supports English. I joined it as it had quite a few games I've wanted to play - including Stone Age and Fearsome Floors :)

Meeting of minds

Finally managed to meet Dave Estall today, another boardgamegeek-er who is literally based around the corner from work. He'd said about popping in during lunch as he often works at home; and today I happened to be walking past as he was parking up. Great to meet another gamer offline - he kindly invited me around - saying the next time he'd be working from home was at lunchtime this Friday, so I'll make the effort to pop over. Hopefully we'll be able to get some quick games in during these up and coming cold and wet Winter months!

Trying to set up a VASSAL game...

Hmm, not since last weeks Memoir game have I had an opportunity to play a game with anyone - and I'm still trying to set up a remote M44 game with Matt via Vassal. He should be downloading the files today and hopefully we'll be able to set up some games in the near future.

Breakthrough at Kiln! Memoir '44 star player Roshni wins again!

Breakthrough at Kiln - December 1941, after the German attack on Moscow had ground to a freezing halt, Russian forces tried to cut them off; in this scenario Roshni as the Germans had to break through the heavy defensive Russian lines to a frozen river in the south. They also had to make a feint to the left to draw Russian forces off, aware from the breakthrough.

The start, heavily entrenched Russians prepare to hold off the 

German drive to the frozen river to the South

A push is made for the Russian trenches - badly hit Germans 

still manage to force the Russians to retreat 

Flee!! Out of the blinding snow, German tanks rumble on!

The German troops, biding their time, then push out 

of the city ruins and charge the trenches

With the right hand Russian defences broken and the centre tank forces 

destroyed, there is nothing stopping the German forces successfully making for 

the river as History dictated.

Quick lunch time play of Niagara

Whilst working at home today and the girls being off for Dwali, we thought we'd snatch a quick game of something at lunch time. Seeing as Kavita hadn't played Niagara yet, we thought we'd settle for that, although Anita was tired and opted for a snooze instead. Kavita quickly picked up the rules and we were all dashing about picking up gems. But before I knew it, Roshni had formulated a strategy and had grabbed 5 purple gems and won in a double canoe dash for the finish line! We were just about to start a new turn when I thought Hang on - has she won?! and it turned out she had! lol

Gaming day jolly!!

Yay! Monday was a day of getting together with my best mate Matt at his place whilst he had the place to himself for a few days to play games, eat pizza and drink beer! It was also an opportunity to introduce him and his game-aspiring daughter to Euro gaming :) I had brought most of the games with me to try and squeeze in as much as possible.

Firstly we played Diamant as a good introduction. This went down a storm - very popular as it is very easy to learn but difficult to master - Hannah, Matts daughter, got the idea straight away and loved it - eventually winning the game.

Next out of the bag was Zooloretto - obviously it took a bit to explain the rules, but the game proceeded quite well, with only a few references to the rules - this game has a great system where although it is a fairly complex game, say compared to Diamant, there is no text in the game to get confused with; no cards to read or text to ponder over. Again highly enjoyed by all - and again won by Hannah. :)

It was time then to drop off Hannah to her grandparents; after which Matt and I explored the contents of 7th Fleet and Gunslinger, just to get an idea of what ye olde '80s punch counter games were like - actually Gunslinger looked quite attractive to play and if I'd known the rules we'd have given it a go.

So we had a go at Back to the Future the card game - I've played this a few times solo play, so this was a good chance to test out the rules with two of us. The concept of how to play took a bit to understand (even for me and I'd played a few times!) but after getting into the swing of it, it was a great game - won by Matt in the end.

Next was Niagara - Matt loved the idea of the plastic discs acting as the flowing river and there was much merriment in pseudo-Mexican voices. The ending was full of tension as we both had our fill of gems, me 5 different coloured gems, Matt his mixed collection of 7. We just needed to get one more gem each to the finishing line. With our last paddle cards and the end in sight, we raced for him - Matt pipping me to the post!! Another game lost! :)

Next was Memoir '44 - actually two games of Memoir as it was so popular with Matt. The only unfortunate thing I found was that set up took too long and was actually a bit confusing with two people on opposite sides of the table whilst looking at the map in the book. Something to consider in the future. But the games went off really well - the first an American attack against heavily entrenched German positions - including several elite German tank platoons; leading to a win by Germany that followed the course of History. Then it was another try at an Omaha beach landing, this time with Matt as the Americans. This turned into an unmitigated disaster for the Yanks as one after another unit and platoon were destroyed or mown down on the beaches of France.  Notch one up for me! this would turn out to be my only win of the day...

Finally we had a game of Last Night on Earth - and as I'd not played this before, game play proceeded a little slowly at first as Matt read the rules, counters were punched and cards were shuffled. The scenario we took was Get Petrol and Keys for the Truck! or something like that. This involved my humans searching for petrol and keys whilst fending off the undead! Unfortunately one character after another died and then the Sun set and it was game over man game over! A good game, if not 100% my cup of tea in its mechanics. Perhaps another couple of games will win me over.

In all, a hugely successful gaming day/night! Cannot wait to do it again!