Down to some Saturday gaming!

Today was a day of some good gaming; firstly of Cargo Noir, our new Days of Wonder game we got from Andy at Battlequest - a game based on criminal families and cargo smuggling. Now depending on your sensibilities will depend on if you will like the theme of this game; remember, it's criminal families smuggling items of ill repute, such as guns, cigars, gems, ivory, cars etc. The idea of the game, which seems fairly fast paced, but does take about an hour and a half to play, is that each family has three cargo ships to start with and 7 coins. The 'board' is based around several ports throughout the World each with differing numbers of spaces to hold illegal goods, such as New York with three spaces, Rotterdam with 4 and Cape Town with 1 for example. There is also Macao, a general trading port with 8 spaces for items and the Casino.

There are also a series of cards with purchase amounts on them with victory points as well. A typical turn revolves around resolving the cargo ship events of the previous turn, selling your items in your family cargo area (a card display in front of the player) and finally re-establishing where your ships will go this turn.

The game actually starts on the 3rd phase of a pre-first turn; all players get a chance to send their ships out to locations around the world, to the casino and/or to Macao. After this the game begins with phase 1 - resolve the previous ship placements - a ship placed at the casino wins 2 coins from the casino; a ship placed at Macao allows the owner to gain one random coin from the bag or to swap an item from the eight listed for one in your warehouse and any ships at a port wins the cargo there for the coins they agreed to pay for it (see phase 3) unless they are in competition with someone else (see phase 3), otherwise they have to decide if the cargo is worth upping the stakes again the competition (paying at least one more coin) or pulling out and using the money elsewhere.

In phase 2 of a player turn, the player decides to cash in any cargo for victory cards. There is a two-tier scheme for cashing in, mixed and similar. A chart indicates how much 1, 2, 3, 4 etc mixed cards are worth and how much 1, 2, 3, 4 etc similar cards are worth (more!). A player can cash in say 3 jems, 2 cars and a cigar box for x number of points which can be used to buy typically criminal items - villas, night clubs, dive bars, right up to a Principality!

Finally in the 3rd phase, the player then re-designates where their cargo ships will go for the next turn, placing bid amounts down for cargo or attempting to outbid other players for more precious cargo they want.

It's a great game of bid and outbid, forcing opponents out of the bidding process whilst trying to be a high roller in the criminal underworld with purchases of illegal goods and items. There were several queries we had about the game even in our third play - such as according to the rules when cashed in, items don't go back into the bag but we found we were running out of items 2/3rd of the way through; amongst others. I'll question this and others on boardgamegeek to find out how to play the game better. Check on the forums at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/90305/cargo-noir

All in all a good game; we played it twice - with 3 then 5 players ranging from 8 to adult and was enjoyed by all.

We also had another game of "7 Wonders" 5 players which again was just thoroughly enjoyed - a real hit game. Anita won for the first time with a crushing 59 points, just hedging Roshni out (with 57) as she had -3 for Military Victories.

End game for Cargo Noir - my family (bottom) wins!!

Preparing for a gaming Saturday and teaching Joy and Andy - the Boss - about Niagra

Whilst preparing for Saturdays gaming, I was asked by Joy, the boss's wife, to teach them Niagara, a game they bought on recommendation from us. It was good to sit down and go over the rules again and help someone else to understand the game, because it also re-enforces your own understanding of the rules and irons out any game play problems of your own. Also I introduced her to 7 Wonders and instantly she was interested - she said she'd love Civilisation on the PC and this reminded her of it. I explained the basic concept and how the 7 card system worked and the rotation of the cards after each time a card is chosen. Looks like they may well be buying another game...

New games after Gasman visit!

 After a visit from the Gasman regarding our central heating playing up, and now the possibility of a £700 bill, we went out to town and I visited Battlequestgames with everyone. I spied Andy had Cargo Noir in stock which looked very interesting and being by Days of Wonder it would mean it was a great game. So we got that and the original Fluxx and an interesting little game for Anita and Maya called Tantrix Discovery. Andy also gave me a copy of Nuts to evaluate which looks fun - players play as squirrels defending their nut caches from other players.

Back to back gaming - 7 Wonders proves to be very popular

7 Wonders proves to be enormously popular still - Anita asked for another family game of this and we sat and played two games back to back, I won the first, Anita the second. The shear combinations of win strategies is what makes the game great - do you go for a purely scientific route and don't build your Wonder, or build the Wonder (And get the rewards for doing so) but loose out militarily and suffer between each age from your stronger neighbours, or go down a Civilian route and build Baths, Gardens, Town Halls and Temples to bolster your final victory points? Each time we go for different strategies with differing buildings, materials, Guilds and military structures. Maya loves getting the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for some reason whilst the big Victory Point amount (15) for the Pyramids is a big favourite amongst everyone. A cracking game all round. Cannot wait for the add on later this year which adds Rulers and Leaders and apparently Rome/The Colosseum as a Wonder. 

A great Sunday of games!

Sunday was a great afternoon full of games - we didn't expect to play so many! Firstly it was a go of Fluxx: Pirates - Roshni, Maya and myself introduced Anita to the game, which she really enjoyed and even won!! Then it was two games of 7 Wonders back to back, with firstly Roshni and I coming joint first with 52 points and then Anita winning with 42 points. Then Anita and I played Ticket to Ride:Nordic, which surprisingly I won with 113 points! It was basically because Anita kept taking small destination tickets after completing her 3 main tickets, whilst I kept taking small and medium which were mostly complete because of my existing routes. Still a win on Ticket to Ride is a win!!

Now we have 91 and we're off on holiday to Devon, taking games with us!!

This week we all went off with my mum for a short break to Devon - we packed a whole load of stuff and of course a mass of games - driving over 300 miles to Ilfracombe and staying in a beautiful log cabin. Over the holiday, we played several games, including Apples to Apples; the ever popular party game which provided many laughs as usual as we tried to find funnier and sillier red cards for the green adjective card to impress the judge.

Then we played a game of 7 Wonders - ever popular at the moment - followed by one the next day.

Finally we played the new game Isla Dorada - an odd game where the players act as a team and vote with cards as to the direction the team will take around an island. The catch is other cards the players have give points if certain villages are visited and there is a Curse card which give negative points if a specific village marked on the curse card is visited. A good game that requires some thinking ahead for each step to ensure you swing the group direction to your way of thinking to get to the locations you desire; the only down point is the names of the villages which are a little hard to read, even for me, let alone for younger players; now this can slow down a game and if any thing can damage the fun factor of a game, it's slowing down of a game for checking and rechecking rules or if something on the board is not clear.

All in all a great holiday away added to by a great clutch of games. Also before going, we picked up Fluxx: Pirates but more on this later.

Yay! 90th Game!!!

The Bradshaw Tribe now own 90 games! We purchased Isla Dorada from Battlequestgames today because it looks like a great family game. More indepth later!