7th November - Power Grid/Benelux Map

Richard's choice tonight and he chose one of the new maps for Power Grid - Benelux. Full complement of 4 of us and we all knew the rules to Power Grid so just a quick run through of the changes for the Benelux map. The fifth power station is available for purchase if it is ecological. More oil and less coal available and the uranium is a bit restricted too. After that we just had a good look at the map, quite a concentration of cities in the northwest and central part with some good opportunities to build and grow. The game progressed very smoothly, Garry got a bit blocked in and payed to build through a couple of cities to get to the other side of the board, I had built in the north east and thought I was OK and Richard had started on the double city of Brussels. At one point we had four out of five uranium power plants on the top row with uranium being quite expensive nobody went for them.



The second phase triggered when the seventh city was built, Steve had built into my bit at the top with his first cities but that left me spaces to go in the second phase, Richard had pretty well spread all over the centre of the map with Garry a bit hemmed in. Interestingly Richared never discarded a power plant whereas Steve his a couple of times, I changed one and I think Garry changed a couple too. As the game was drawing to its end we were waiting for the third phase to trigger, it must have been close because we were running out of second phase cities to go to. In actual fact Richard built 7 cities on his last go to reach the magic 17 mark, thus triggering the end of the game, but he had built a couple of them on Steve's cities leaving a couple of place where Steve could build. So in the end they both had 14 cities and could power them so it came down to the tie-breaker. Garry had been hanging on for some good power plants and the 3rd phase I think and had left it too late to regain lost ground and as I was third to build there was no place I could go. We were wondering where that 3rd phase card and it turned out to be the next card to be drawn.



So a very enjoyable game and a very interesting map. We still have loads of games from Essen to try out so the European map may be a while before it hits the table.

Final Scores (most money was the tie-breaker, Steve had 7, Richard 9)
Richard 14, Steve 14, Colin 12, Garry 10

31st October - Hameln

Yes, I know, I'm a bit late with this post but better late than never. I was a bit busy over the last weekend playing with my new laptop (early Christmas present from the wife), I have just got to figure out the wireless router now! Anyway last tuesday we played the new Fragor game Hameln. As usual very nice figures, rats, pied piper and cat and the production of the game was much higher than Shear Panic, I think they were produced by Ludofact this time. Richard and Steve had played this last week, albeit with a few of the rules wrong, but this was a first playing for Garry and myself. Hopefully we would get the rules correct this time. The game is played in 3 phases, each phase ending when a pre-determined number of rats infest the houses of Hameln triggering the appearance of the Pied Piper. There are some unusual and interesting mechanics going on, each house is inhabited by a male and a female controlled by different players, and they have the opportunity to produce offspring as an action, said offspring going into the church waiting to be married off. I thought the cat was too expensive, cost 4, remove 1 rat, and in our two games he was only purchased once. I posted on the geek to that effect and within a couple of hours had received an email from Fragor saying that they had played around with the cat quite a bit before coming to the final ruling and that the cat was meant to be used sparingly and would be useful in the final phase, freeing an infested house to score points.



Our games played pretty smoothly and I think there was a mixed reaction to the game, we would play again but it seemed that although there was some interesting ideas here it didn't quite seem to gel. I took onboard the observations about the cat though, I could have freed up a house near the end to score another 5 points and that would have got the win I think.
OK, I have time to grab the results with a gentle push from Garry (he won both games), but the pics will have to wait until the weekend.

Final Scores (with minus points for children gone to Transylvania) most influence is the tie-breaker
Game 1
Garry 15, Richard 15, Colin 12, Steve 10

Game 2
Garry 13, Richard 12, Colin 11 (-1), Steve 3 (-6)

Richards's Post Essen Games Day - 28th October

Richard had invited us over to his place for a Post Essen Games Day. Attending were Richard!, Steve, Jo, myself and Tony who was coming along around teatime. Steve picked me up from Billingshurst and we arrived at Richard’s house in Haywards Heath just after 10. Richard, Jo and Steve were keen to give Through the Ages a go, so that hit the table.

Through The Ages



This game by CzechBoardGames was advertised for Essen as Civ-lite or Civilisation the card game. Richard started to set-up while Jo, who had read the rules, started to give us the run down, we decided to play the basic game just to give us a feel for the mechanics and play, actualy winning the game wasn’t so important. Going through the rules took about an hour. The game doesn’t have a board as such just a place to lay out cards and keep track of various points. I won’t go into the rules in any depth here, it would take too long, suffice to say once you have played a couple of turns it easily falls into place, certain aspects of the game weren’t relevant in the basic game, mainly military activity and territories. The components for the game aren’t what I would call absolutely of the highest quality, the cards are a bit on the thin side and the small glass beads that you use are a bit fiddly for large fingers.



The basic game only plays through Age I and that took us about 150 minutes. I know that I said that winning wasn’t a priority, but you know how us gamers are and I think winning the game did figure in some of the moves :) (basically that means I didn’t win). The game ends when you have gone through the Age I deck of cards and that came upon quite quickly at the end. Meaning I hadn’t noticed I wouldn’t get another turn. I could have improved my score if I had noticed.....really!! but winning wasn’t the priority, remember errr hem!! Anyway I quite liked it, although we couldn’t play it on a Tuesday evening it would take too long, have to wait for another day long session, and the advanced version is obviously going to take much longer I would think.

Final Scores
Steve 61, Richard 45, Jo 44, Colin 35

Blue Moon City



Jo had purchased Blue Moon City, another Renier Knizia game, and was keen to give it a go. It had been a getting a good buzz at Essen and on the Geek. Richard put some pizzas on and Jo gave a run down on the rules. After fuelling up on pepperoni pizza and sausage rolls we started the game. Basically you are trying to rebuild the devestated Blue Moon City by moving your dobber around the tilhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.bold.gifes that make up the board and attempt to build on one by playing cards from your hand. Each tile has different requirements to build it and provides various rewards when it is completed, dragon scales, crystals and extra cards basically. Each other completed tile that is orthoganal to the tile that is being scored provides extra benefits (more crystals, dragon scales or cards). If there is a dragon on the tile when you build you get a dragon scale straight away. As you collect crystals you can get to the central tile and make an offer to rebuild the obelisk, this involves paying crystals to the bank and you put a marker on said obelisk. As more markers are put on the cost to build increases, when a player has 4 markers on it they win the game. The cards are values 1-3 in different colours, each colour has a different special ability, enabling you to move the dragons around the board, or using cards of a different colour to pay for a build, they are all pretty well depicted on the cards and you get used to quite quickly.



The components for the game are very good, nice thick tiles and the cards have very appealing artwork on them. You are reliant to a certain extent on what cards you draw, but you can discard 1 or 2 cards at the end of your turn so you can then draw 4 (you draw 2 anyway). I like the game, it’s easy to understand and sets up quickly, good for non-gamers and has a bit of strategy in it and plays in about 60 minutes. Steve complained about the cards he kept drawing until he realised that 2 brown cards could be used as a 3 of any colour, which obviously made his cards a lot better. I got 2 offers on the obelisk pretty quickly and then concentrated on getting a presence on a few tiles to benefit when they were completed. I managed to get enough crystals for 2 more offers but couldn’t get the card that enabled you to make 2 offers in one turn, so I had to wait a turn and hope that nobody else had enough crystals and the right card to make 2 offers, nobody did so I got my fourth offer on the obelisk and won.

Final Scores
Colin 4 offers

Richard was very pleased with a game he got from Toys R Us and that was next on the table, albeit only briefly.

Loopin’ Loiue
I won’t go into too much detail because this game is obviously in every hardcore gamers collection. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, the excitement was too much. Steve rated this game very highly and tried to win as quickly as possible to get it off the table, and he did.

Winner
Steve

Null & Nichtig
We weren’t sure what time Tony was going to join us so we had a couple of hands of Null & Nichtig. We had played this trick-taking cardgame last tuesday and found it good fun. Lots of opportunity for stuffing someone’s score, also for getting your own stuffed too. Richard had obviously been thinking about it because he went from coming last on tuesday to winning.

Final Scores after 2 hands
Richard 67, Colin 48, Steve 35, Jo 18

On The Underground



Jo had decided to call it a day and Tony finally arrived, we gave him the choice of the next game and he chose the JKLM game On the Underground. Yet another game about building/laying track/tunnels/canals yada, yada, yada. I must admit my hands are getting quite calloused with all the track laying and tunnel/canal building, and some of them just don’t appeal that much to me. This variant has you digging tunnels for the London Underground and moving the passenger around to various destinations as designated by a deck of cards. The map depicts the stations with 1 or multiple connections between them, you place your track (looked very like roads from Settlers to me) and then move the passenger. As an aside I don’t think the underground companies are going to make much money with 1 passenger....anyway. There are multiple ways to score points, joining track to national railway lines, connecting to a terminus, joining 2 tourist spots etc.


After you have built your track the passenger moves and for each line he moves over the owner gets 1 point. There are two types of station, gold and silver, he will always move to a gold station if he can, then onto a silver station. If there are only silver stations he just moves to one of them. I found it OK, not one I would choose or wish to own a copy of, but will play it if someone else chooses it.

Final Scores
Richard 40, Steve 40, Tony 39, Colin 33

Taluva



Lastly on the table was a game that had got rave reviews for the bits and the very pleasing look, but was it a good game? I hadn’t managed to get a copy of the english rules, but had managed to piece together the gameplay from several very good reviews and some input into Google Translator. Basically it is a very simple game, on your turn you play a tile and then build one of your buildings. Each player has 20 huts, 3 temples and 2 towers. You can either add a tile adjacent to the tiles in play, or cause a volcanic eruption, which means laying a tile on a higher level. You must place the volcano on the tile on another volcano with the lava flow going in a different direction, this means you can’t just place your tile directly over just one other tile. You can destroy buildings, but cannot wipe out a complete settlement i.e. there must be at least one building of a settlement left in play.
When you place a building you can either, place a hut on level 1, build a temple on an existing settlement of at least 3 hex size that doesn’t already contain a temple, build a tower on an existing settlement at level 3 or higher that doesn’t already contain a tower. There is one other move and that is expand your settlement by choosing a terrain type and putting huts on all the hexes of that terrain type adjacent to a settlement, 1 hut on a level 1 hex, 2 huts on a level 2 etc, and that’s it really. Placing the tiles is tricky, trying to protect your settlements by not giving any opportunities for your opponents to erupt all over them and gaining height to build those towers.



The winning conditions are when any player has built all buildings of two types, or if the tiles have run out, the player who has built the most temples, if tied, the most towers and if still tied the most huts. Tony had expanded one settlement and placed lots of huts in it, leaving him with only 1 hut left. This gave him a dilemma as he couldn’t get a 3 hex settlement to place his temples. It looked as if the rule where if you cannot build in your turn you are eliminated from the game may trigger. He placed the hut anyway. We were down to 1 or 2 tiles and Richard was looking to place his last tower, we realised that if he did that he would have built all of two types of building, oh, realises Tony I did that last turn. So in the end from the possibility of being eliminated Tony claimed the win. I liked the game a lot, simple but with quite a depth to it, and it does look great!!

Final Scores
Tony winner (built 2 types of bulding)

It was about 9.45 now and we decided to call it a day. A good day of playing the Essen releases, and we still have loads to go!!!

Haywards Heath to Essen - There and back in a day

As I mentioned before I went to Essen in 2003 with Richard in his TVR, we did it in a day. Very tiring but quite a buzz, well it was for me anyway, I wasn't driving! Well, this year he did it again, this time taking his sensible car and a couple of friends. You can read all about his trip here.

Richards Essen Trip 2006

Well worth a read, even if it's for the curry :)

Tuesday 24th October - Gheos

Here we are and the first session post Essen, Garry couldn't make it courtesy of a cold he picked up in Germany. So it was just Steve, Richard and I. Steve had chosen Gheos, one of the games I purchased at the show. This is basically a tile laying game with a bit of Euphrates and Tigris thrown in. The tiles form continents and islands on which you establish civilisations.


A close up of the tiles with civ counters

The components are very good, nice chunky tiles with good graphics representing land and water, with clear symbols in bright colours. All the blocks and discs are wood. The manual is clear with good examples of play. The gameplay is fairly simple but has a lot of possibilities. You either add a tile or replace a tile that is already laid. You can then start a civ on an unoccupied continent, or take a block of an existing civ. If you replace a tile this could either lead to a war or a civilisation migrating. There are 6 civilisations (colours) and when you establish a civilisation you gain followers (coloured blocks) of that civ, these can then earn you VPs in various ways. When you have sorted that out you could play one of 3 scoring discs each player has. You get points for each follower you have for civs in play and each follower is worth the number of cups depicted in that civ. Only the player that played the scoring disc actually scores. You then draw a tile from the supply to make your hand back up to two. If you draw an epoch tile then there is another scoring, in an epoch scoring each follower a player has is worth points equal to the number of pyramids on that civs continent, all the players score all their followers.


The overall gameboard

The interesting bit is when you replace a tile and cause a war or migration because the losing civ loses all its followers, and the players with any followers have to discard them. On several occasions in our game 4 or 5 followers were lost at a time. The game ends when all players have played all of their scoring tokens or when a certain number of epoch tiles have been drawn, in a 3 player game that was 7.
At game end all players score again just as if they had played a scoring token. Steve managed to end the game by making a move and then playing the last scoring token he had which ended the game, he scored 20 points for that, then there was the final scoring and he scored another 20 points....ouch, that effectively won him the game.

Final Scores
Steve 78, Richard 73, Colin 53

I think we all enjoyed Gheos, there are a lot of possible moves and plenty of opportunities to screw your opponents. It also plays fairly quickly, which left us enough time to end the session with a short cardgame.

Null und Nichtig (Null and Void)
This is a simple trick-taking game with a twist....well they all have haven't they. Basically there are cards 0-11 in five colours, with 2 zeros in each colour. Each player is dealt 13 cards and chooses 3 cards to place face up in front of him. The player to the left of the dealer leads to the first trick, you don't have to follow suit (colour) and the highest card wins the trick. This is the clever bit, the winner of the trick then picks up the cards in order, starting with his own, and adds them to the cards in front of him by colour, so each colour is in a single stack. You play the 13 tricks and at the end you score points for the top card of each colour stack you have in front of you. Easy uh!! well, it makes you think a bit, I found it easiest to play 3 high cards in front of me at the start and then try not to win any tricks. Never lead with a zero, every one dumps zeros of different colours on you...oh, I forgot if there is a tie for the highest card, it's the one who played it first that wins the trick. I admit I do like trick taking games and this one is very good, I'd like to play it with 5, the maximum number of players, should be a laugh.

Final Scores
Colin 88, Steve 79, Richard 69

Essen 2006 - Day 3/20.10.06

At breakfast our games lists were updated, final purchases noted and last things to check out. We arrived at the halls at 10.15, Jo had stayed at the hotel to catch up on a bit of work, and we arranged to meet him later. The halls were definitely more crowded today, I would hate to be here tomorrow, I should think it will be packed. I wanted to have a look at Ave Caesar, the Pro Ludo reprint was selling for around 20/21 euros. I think that will fill the remaining space in my case nicely thank you so I purchased a copy. We met up with Jo and he wanted to check out the Japanese games on the Japon Brand stand, they had a small stand in hall 4, with very polite assistants bowing every time they give out a leaflet. I didn’t know too much about their games but Jo was ecstatic to find them selling Q-Jet 21XX, a space-themed version of Ave Caesar, and immediately bought 2 copies, one for himself and one for Richard. I purchased Phantom Rummy, a cross between Maj Jong and Rummy, mainly I admit for the artwork, which was really nice.
Fiske had a marvellous colour-coded checklist to work from and he diligently tracked down the best price for each game he wished to purchase, saving one or two euro’s on each one but wearing out a lot of shoe leather.
Time was getting on and we decided to go back to the centre of Essen for some coffee and a snack, so we bade our farewells to the Messe around 3.45. The hotel had let us leave our cases there so we went back to pick them up and fit the final games in. Our train was leaving at 5.36, and we arrived in plenty of time, we saw it on the display then it disappeared, after some enquiries we found out it had been cancelled. I thought the german railway system was perfect, ah well. Not to worry, we eventually arrived at the airport for our short flight to Gatwick. Our adventure to Essen was over, we all had a great time and came back with enough games to keep us playing for quite a while.



Battlelore from Days of Wonder


Watching a dexterity game manipulating cups


Fragor Games new offering Hameln


Playing Imperial


Jo and Friend


Taking a break


Waiting in vain for our cancelled train


My game purchases


Fiske's Essen purchases


And Garry's

Essen 2006 - Day 2/19.10.06

We met up this morning and had a leisurely breakfast, discussing what games we wanted to buy and things especially wanted to do. We had all printed out lists off of the web, Spielbox had a really good one, and noted all the possible purchases. Fiske, a friend of Jo’s was meeting up with us at the Messe later. We set off for the short metro ride to the halls arriving about 9.45, we soon had our tickets and Jo departed to stock up from the cash machine. We arranged to meet at the Winsome Games stand, Garry wanted to go there first as he had pre-ordered some AoS maps. The crowds were surging into the fair and we plunged in, there was quite a crowd at Winsome because pre-ordered items had to be picked up between 10-12 and the free player mats went in 20 minutes. Jo arrived to claim his copies and we decided to split meeting at the steps by the restaurant, a favourite gathering point, later.


Garry and AoS maps at Winsome Games

It was great just wandering around taking in all the atmosphere, I had only been once before in 2003, doing the round trip from the UK and back in a day. This time we could take more time and take it all in, it really is a paradise for gamers. A lot of english and americans visit the fair, we got talking to a guy from Southampton at the Allgamesfor you stand.
Some of the fantasy role-playing costumes and equipment are something else. Whole suits of armour and chainmail, swords, axes and some great characters in costume selling it all. I tried the weight of the chainmail and boy was it heavy, just imagine wearing that all day!


Garry feeling the weight of chainmail

We started checking out the prices on various stalls, and it was surprising how much some of them varied. Soon it was approaching 12 noon the time we were due to meet Fiske.....and sure enough there he was, he had missed the 9.12am ICE train by minutes and had to wait for the 10.12. It was the first time we had met and Fiske was kind enough to say he enjoyed reading the Billygames blog.


The AllGames4You stand


Garry lost in the AllGames4You

The rest of the day was spent checking out possibles and picking up games we had pre-ordered, I had to get Hameln, the latest Fragor Bro offering, and Metromania. The figures in Hameln are really cute, my wife loves the rats. Zoch Games, who are reprinting Shear Panic, had a giant-sized version on display attracting a lot of people. Garry and I were taught Kabale und Hiebe, a card game from Hans Im Gluck, it wasn’t bad but the cards had special abilities on them so you really needed an english version to play. Jo was really pleased when Garry found a copy of Busen Memo for him, in this game you have to match the left and right breasts of 48 women.


The giant-sized Shear Panic from Zoch


The Kosmos Stand

We managed to grap a table to have a look at Eggert-Spiele’s, Imperial. Fiske reckoned it had a bit of Diplomacy in it, there are loads of bits in the game and the board gets really busy. None of us were that impressed and decided not to buy. We all were lugging around our purchases and as we were flying the baggage allowance comes into play. So we were constantly hefting games to see how much they weighed or discounting them because the box was too big. Ah, and I really fancied Shogun too. The time was getting on to 6pm now and frankly I was knackered. We decided to call it a day and make our way back to the hotel. After a quick shower we were meeting up for dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was when I was going to see how my purchases fitted into the suitcase the crisis arose. Before we had left in the morning I had put my passport and some cash into the case and locked it with one of those combination locks. I put in the combination and pulled.....nothing. I tried again, and again, and again. Doh!! No passort or cash and I had visions of running around Essen on our last day trying to buy a hacksaw. Anyway we had a very nice dinner, during which I explained my problem. Fiske and Garry decided to come and have a look, and after some fiddling and deduction managed to release it......phew, was I relieved!!!
So I was able to retrieve the passport and cash and then try and fit all my game purchases in and see how much space I had left. No problem, room for 1 or 2 more I think. I might have a look at Khronos tomorrow.


Dinner at the Hotel Korn