Essen 2006 - Day 1/18.10.06

3.55am pouring with rain and Garry arrives to pick my up for the short drive to Gatwick. No problems checking in although we se our 6.20am flight to Cologne is listed at 5.55am. No panic we have arrived with plenty of time. We soon link up with Jo and the flight goes smoothly arriving in Cologne around 8.40. Grab our cases and proceed to the train ticket office, Jo is in charge of train tickets recommending that we reserve our seats for the return journey on friday. It’s now 9.08 and the ICE train for Essen is leaving at 9.12 on platform 2, we manage to board in time and arrive in Essen around 10.20. A short walk brings us to Hotel Korn our base for the next couple of days.


Garry and Jo departing the ICE train at Essen

We check in and dump the cases as the rooms are not ready yet and ajourn to a local Starbucks for some coffee. We sit outside in the morning sunshine and just chill out for a while. Jo had told us about a games shop he has visited before but can’t quite remember the location, so off we go for a pleasant strong around Essen. We look round for a while but no luck, we ask a couple of people who direct us but we still can’t find it. We do however find a nice department store called Mullers which has a games department that puts english games shops to shame. Quit a range of ‘proper’ games including Null & Nichtig and Relic both of which I was planning to buy to I pick them up.


Coffee outside Starbucks at Essen


We were all pretty whacked so made our way back to the hotel and had a shower and rested for a couple of hours. Meeting up again at 3pm we had another destination, Garry had found out where Toys R Us was and we visited for a while, again a very good selection of games. Jo did manage to locate his games shop.......it had ben turned into a 1 euro store!!!


Cold beer and hot coffee

It was a lovely sunny afternoon and all the open air cafes and bars where buzzing. Time to relax with a beer (or coffee for Jo) and just watch the people pass by. After a nice meal of pasta we decided to call it a day and some serious sleep time in to be ready for a long day at the Messe tomorrow.

Essen and New Message Board

The message board developed some problems so I have replaced it with another one, hopefully this will work better. Please feel free to comment or post your thoughts.

Essen is nearly upon us now and the excitement is building, I have got to pack this weekend, well I say pack I shall be taking minimul stuff in a big case to leave room for all the games I hope to get. Garry is picking me up at 4.00am Wednesday morning for a 6.20am flight from Gatwick airport to Cologne. Jo is meeting us at Gatwick, then from Cologne we take the ICE train into Essen, should arrive there about midday. So a nice leisurely afternoon and evening before we hit the Messe first thing on Thursday, ready for the 10.00am opening. I have been following the Essen preview on Boardgame News and have printed out the checklist of games from Spielbox online which will be a big help. I will be taking lots of photos throughout our trip and will have, hopefully, a full report after we get back.

Richard on the other hand is going to do Essen in a day, leaving from his home in Haywards Heath at around 1.30am on Saturday morning, going through the channel tunnel and driving through europe to arrive at Essen around 9.00am. Then blitzing the Messe and leaving about 4.00pm for the drive back. I did this a couple of years ago, and while fun, is really tiring. Anyway I have badgered Richard to write about his trip so we should have a report from him too.

Next report will be post Essen, see you all then.

Tuesday 10th October - Big City/Cronberg

This is the last session before Essen, and unfortunately because of work commitments, Garry couldn't make it. Richard had chosen Canal Mania for his choice this week and because that was a game of Garry's he had to make another choice. He chose Big City, a game dating from 1999, my one playing was over 2 year's ago. So Steve, Richard and myself sat down to refresh ourselves with the rules. Basically there are 8 gameboards, each board divided into squares with a number, each representing a neighbourhood of a city. There are 8 corresponding decks of cards with 1-8 on the backs and the numbers of the squares on the front. So on you turn you can either add a new neighbourhood (only after City Hall has been built), build a building using cards from your hand, add trams (only after City Hall has been built), exchange as many cards as you like from your hand or pass. There are also 2 parks that can be build and 2 factories. The buildings score points depending on there type and the location in which they are built. One interesting feature is City Hall, the game can't fully develop until it is built, but the player who actually builds it gets zero points and everybody else can benefit from the new position first. Steve had no qualms and built it fairly early. After City Hall the trams become a nice feature enabling double points to be scored if a building is adjacent in a lot of cases.



Steve built the tram line out on a new neigbourhood and Richard immediately built a factory there, diminishing the value of any buildings in the vicinity. The church (there are 2) can only be built on a square with a double number (33, 55, 88 etc.) and only if it is the last square left in a neighbourhood, this scores a nice 15 points. I managed to build both, tempting someone to build on the penultimate square of a hood by placing a tram nearby. All the bits in this game are first class, the buildings are really good. Our game took just over the hour.

Final Scores
Colin 126, Richard 108, Steve 80



We had a bit of time left so we finished off the evening with a game of Cronberg. This game was web published by the designer before getting professionally produced. Basically an easy, fast tile laying game. In your turn you either lay a rhombus-shaped tile or place one of your pawns on an intersection between tiles. If the pawn gets surrounded by tiles it gets scored, or if there is a space that can't be filled it gets scored at the end of the game. A good filler with a bit of thought required, obviously from my score you can see this bit passed me by.

Final Scores
Richard 24, Steve 14, Colin -4 (Yes you can get minus scores!)

Tuesday October 3rd - Masons

masons_2
Originally uploaded by coljen.

After our Saturday session, which was excellent, Richard has already chosen Canal Mania for next week's game. So tonight on the table was Leo Colovini's latest offering, Masons. Author of such games as Carolus Magnus, Clans and Cartagena, this latest game is about building walls to form cities with houses and palaces in the mix somewhere. But in reality the theme is pretty thin, building walls (wooden sticks) and then houses and palaces (small dobbers and big dobbers), an almost abstract placement game then, with some dice and cards. But having said that it played pretty well, and in just under the hour so we managed to get two games in.



The board is made up of triangular areas, which are divided up into 3 larger areas. Two edges of board are coastal and two are not. There is a deck of guild cards which depict the various method of scoring points, e.g. 2 points for every white tower not in a city or 1 point for tower in a just completed city and so on. There are also 3 dice, one of which is colour of the towers, white, black and grey, and 2 depict the colour of the houses. Each player starts the game with a hand of 6 guild cards. So on your turn you first place a wall on one side of one of the triangular areas, you then roll the dice. This will tell you which colour one of the towers must be on the end of the wall, the tower on the other end is a free choice. Sometimes though there will a time when there are no spaces for towers or only one. You then place a house on each side of the wall, the colours you rolled with the other 2 dice, if you roll a ? you have a free choice of colour. If after your turn there is a completed city this initiates a scoring. Each player can then play 1 or 2 guild cards from his hand and score as they indicate and draw 1 replacement from the draw deck, or you can discard 1 card and draw 2 replacements.
Be aware when you initiate a scoring, everybody scores, and they may score more points than you if they have the right cards. The game progresses until there are either no more towers, houses, palaces or walls left, then there is one more scoring and the player with most points is the winner. So, how did our games go, as Steve was the only one to have played before, Garry, Richard and I just plunged in. Some cities were quite quickly formed and scored, with some larger ones appearing later in the game. You have to have the right cards in the right situation, no good having city cards if there are no cities likely to be formed and no good having non-city cards if cities are being formed all over the place. The scores in the two games reflecting our grasp of this concept. :)

Final Score (game 1)
Steve 143, Richard 120, Colin 118, Garry 117



In the second game the scores were much lower, showing how different this game was from the first. A lot of isolated walls and towers to start with and Garry capitalised by playing the card which scored each wall not in a city. I had all the white towers not in a city which is why I kept playing walls separately. This game was so different from the first, yet just as enjoyable. All in all a good game, not rich in atmosphere, a bit dry but makes you think, plays quickly and looks pretty good.

Final Score (game 2)
Richard 89, Garry 83, Steve 75, Colin 68

Garry's Games Day - 30th September (pt 2)

Canal Mania is another game about laying track, oops sorry, building canals across England. Although there are elements of TTR (fixed routes and card collecting) and AoS (moving goods cubes), the game does stand on it's own merits. Garry ran through the rules, and after a few questions and clarifications off we went. Basically there is a deck of cards representing straights, locks, aquaducts, tunnels and surveyors (wild). This deck has 5 cards turned face up. Each player has his own set of canal tiles, with limited numbers of each , so you have watch what you build in case you run out of the kind of tile you need to complete a contract (route) There is a deck of contract cards of which 5 are turned face up, these display 2 towns or cities with maybe a third (via) and a number which is the maximum number of links it must be completed in. You can only have 2 contracts at a time. There are 2 types of terrain, clear and difficult. You can build stretches and locks on clear and tunnels and aquaducts on difficult. It takes 1 card to build a lock or stretch and 2 cards to build an aquaduct and 3 for a tunnel. In addition each player is dealt an engineers card, these have special abilities that can be used in your turn. Things like draw 4 build cards instead of 3, build a tunnel with 2 instead of 3. Each players turn is in 3 phases. Phase one take a contract, or exchange your engineer with someone elses, or discard the 5 face up build cards. Phase 2, take 3 build cards or build on the board. Phase three, move a goods cube. You can also take a face down build card instead of any of these phases.
Certain build cards have coloured symbols on them and if they are chosen the player immediately puts 2 goods cubes onto the board on whichever colour the symbol is. There are limitations where they can go, connected cities first, then connected towns, unconnected cities and unconnected town.
The victory condition for a five player game is the first to 40 points, the round is then finished and 2 more rounds take place, finally moving any goods left on the board. Our game was very close again with Richard and Jo tied for first place yet again. This time the tie break, having the youngest engineer card, went in Richard's favour.
In spite of the obvious comparisons to train building games I think Canal Mania has enough going for it to make an enjoyable experience in it's own right. The production quality is right up there with the big boys and it's a very pleasing game to look at.

Final Scores (Richard wins on tiebreak)
Richard 61, Jo 61, Colin 53, Steve 51, Garry 40

Here are a few pics as promised: First Railroad Tycoon





This is the end position



And Canal Mania - this first one is the end position

Garry's Games Day - 30th September (pt 1)

P9300030
Originally uploaded by coljen.

All the Billygamers including Jo gathered round Garry's for a day of gaming. On the table first was Railroad Tycoon, a game that Richard brought back for me from last year's Essen. I had played it once before, Richard and Jo I think had played once, Steve 3 times and Garry not at all. The board was all set up when Steve and I arrived, Richard and Jo had misread the time and arrived at 10 instead of 10.30. Anyway after a run through the rules, obviously for Garry and I think we all needed a refresher, we started around 11.15. For those that have played this game before you will know there are some optimum places to start on the map. Northeast around New York there are plentiful opportunities depending on cube distribution, the Bluegrass triangle of Lexington, Louiseville and Cincinatti and Charleston and the Southeast are all nice. Obviously cube distribution will dictate to a certain extent, but the auction for first player was hotly contested, I won it for 5K, and chose the card that lets you build open rail links for free. Garry(green) started just north of the bluegrass triangle, Richard(red) in the BT, Jo(yellow) wasted no time in building out of New York to Philly and Baltimore and Steve(purple) built from Baltimore to Washington. I (black) built from Washington to Richmond next turn effectively boxing Steve in. Jo started building down the east coast not leaving me much room so looked at Mobile and saw a nice line of black cubes on Jackson, Memphis and St. Loius. With a 4pt bounty for 1st delivery to Mobile that's where I built next. Steve moved his attention to the BT and muscled in on Richard's area. As the game progressed Jo had tied up the East coast, Richard and Steve where vying for the area in the centre and Garry, was beavering away around the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Wheeling area.
I did manage to get the 10pt bonus for the New Orleans to Minneapolis link, but was falling behind. Garry, Jo and Richard were pulling away with Steve and myself chugging along behind. Garry reached a 6 level train and revealed his RT card to claim 6pts. Richard had the Chicago hotel and was gaining points from that, he had pretty well tied up Chicago! The game end trigger was 16 empty city markers, Steve urbanised one to try to extend the game further but in the end we had 16 and had to try get as many points as possible in the last round. As I said Garry had attained his RT card, Richard had the 2pt per link into Chicago card (6pts), Jo had built the Wester Link, which he didn't do, Steve had largest railroad (most links) for 6pts, and I had most money which I was nowhere near. The shares issued told a story too, I had 8, Garry had 13, Richard 6, Jo 3 and Steve 13. The scores were very close in the end with 2 tiebreakers to separate Jo and Richard needed. So the game lasted a very enjoyable 3 hours and 20 minutes and these were the final scores.

Final Score
Jo 65 (11 links, 38,000), Richard 65 (11 links, 9,000), Garry 51, Steve 46, Colin 45

After a short break for some very nice lunch courtesy of Garry, Canal Mania , the new Ragnor Bro. game was lined up. See part 2 when I get round to it. There will be a page of pics with a link in part 2 as well. See you all then. :)

Tuesday 26th September - Heart of Africa

P9260020
Originally uploaded by coljen.

All present this session and Steve chose to go exploring in the Heart of Africa. I think he was the only one to have played before and that was only once I think. Knowing we were going to be playing this game I looked it up on the Geek. There seemed to be a difference in playing time, 60 minutes on the Geek and 120 on West Bank Gamers. Also there was quite a discussion about rules queries. As it was the rules explanation took about 20 minutes and in the end the game lasted around 150 minutes. Well, what is the game about? Predictably it's about placing your traders in areas of Africa and trying to secure the areas with the richest resources in them. Neutral traders are seeded on the board at the start and they can be fought to drive them out, as can other players. Four pairs of tiles are revealed at the start and the first pair are auctioned. Each tile has a action point value and most times a special action symbol on it. Each player starts with 12 influence blocks, these can also be used to purchase actions. The winning bidder puts his blocks into a common pool and then either uses the tiles he just won or keeps the special action on them for later. The tiles let you do various things, moving neutral traders around, adding traders of your own etc. After that you add up the points you have from your traders on the board and move your dobber on the scoring track. The influence blocks in the common pool are then divided up among the other players, rounded down, any left remain until next turn.
Personally I found the game a little dry, and some reviewers on the Geek commented the game could lead to analysis paralysis, we didn't find this but I could see it happening. Steve stormed into an impressive early lead with the the rest of us lanquishing well behind. I must say that Steve said the victory condition was the first to 42 points, which he thought the game would end too soon and suggested we play to 50 points, which we did. As the game progressed the scores closed up and Garry then Richard took the lead for a while, in the end Steve was only 12 points away from winning and was able to amass 14 points in his turn to take him over the 50.

Final Scores
Steve 54, Richard 47, Garry 41, Colin 34