ScrappySPJ

INN prerelease pool 29/01/12

2012-01-30T23:19:00.002+01:00

What would you play? I'll post my deck later in the week.

To view images copy the list into MTG Proxy Generator

Abbey Griffin
Champion of the Parish
Intangible Virtue
Moment of Heroism
Rally the Peasants
Voiceless Spirit
Smite the Monstrous
Bar the Door
Break of Day
Gather the Townsfolk
Lingering Souls
Sanctuary Cat

Deranged Assistant
Dream Twist
Memory’s Journey
Murder of Crows
Stitched Drake
Nephalia Seakite
Divination
Griptide
Headless Skaab
Relentless Skaabs
Screeching Skaab
Soul Seizer
Tower Geist

Brain Weevil
Dead Weight
Falkenrath Noble
Ghoulcaller’s Chant
Markov Patrician
Maw of the Mire
Tribute to Hunger
Victim of Night
Black Cat
Chosen of Markov
Farbog Boneflinger
Fiend of the Shadows
Gravepurge
Gruesome Discovery
Highborn Ghoul
Spiteful Shadows
Tragic Slip
Undying Evil

Ashmouth Hound
Curse of the Pierced Heart
Desperate Ravings
2 Furor of the Bitten
Infernal Plunge
Kessig Wolf
Reckless Waif
Village Ironsmith
Erdwal Ripper
Faithless Looting
Flayer of the Hatebound
Fling
Forge Devil

Elder of Laurels
Festerhide Boar
Gnaw to the Bone
Make a Wish
Orchard Spirit
Ranger’s Guile
Spider Spawning
Spidery Grasp
Travel Preparations
Villagers of Estwald
Dawntreader Elk
Deranged Outcast
Gravetiller Wurm
Grave Bramble
Grim Flowering
Hunger of the Howlpack
Scorned Villager
Somberwald Dryad
Ulvenwald Bear
Young Wolf

Manor Gargoyle
Wooden Stake
Drogskol Captain
Stromkirk Captain
Altar of the Lost
Heavy Mattock
Evolving Wilds

GB Land Destruction (4-1 FNM 9th Dec 2011)

2011-12-10T03:14:00.011+01:00

With two weeks of Standard before Christmas I decided to brew a couple of new offbeat decks. It's not as if I need to worry about trying to maintain my rating anymore, so it's a chance to have some fun.

For week one I decided to try a very old-fashioned strategy that isn't seen very often in modern mtg: LAND DESTRUCTION. I used to love Creeping Mold back in the day, and now with Bramblecrush I get to play a LD spell that kills those pesky planeswalkers!

14 Forest

8 Swamp

2 Woodland Cemetery

4 Birds of Paradise

3 Llanowar Elves

2 Green Sun's Zenith

3 Rampant Growth

1 Mortarpod

2 Dungrove Elder

2 Sever the Bloodline

4 Bramblecrush

2 Maw of the Mire

4 Acidic Slime

1 Bloodgift Demon

1 Grave Titan

2 Wurmcoil Engine

2 Steel Hellkite

1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

1 Rune-Scarred Demon

1 Sorin's Vengeance

Sideboard:

1 Memoricide

3 Viridian Emissary

1 Creeping Corrosion

2 Massacre Wurm

1 Mortarpod

1 Dungrove Elder

1 Sorin's Vengeance

1 Curse of Death's Hold

1 Tree of Redemption

2 Tribute to Hunger

1 Witchbane Orb

This deck is in the style of Conley Woods Magical Christmas Land with quick mana acceleration into land destruction with big threats to put your opponent away. Note that this deck contains 34 mana sources and all of those basically only tap for mana, this means that when you play you must use your threats effectively and you should mulligan most hands that contain no acceleration.

In the sideboard it's important to be able to maintain a decent number of threats after boarding. Hence Massacre Wurm which can both clear an opponents board and beat down over something like Black Sun's Zenith.

(For once I got some playtesting in before FNM that definitely lead to some improvements - I initially had Solemn Simulacrum which were too slow, and I had too many GSZ targets)

We had 28 players at FNM, so we ran five 40-minute rounds (as well as playing I am also the FNM Judge).

Round 1: Alex playing Kessig Wolf Run (won 2-0)

Game 1 I prevent him from ever getting to six mana, and the only relevant creature he casts is Thrun which only delays his demise.

Game 2 is much stranger - I accelerate into threats and start beating down, but don't draw enough LD to prevent him from casting Primeval Titan, which then leads to a second and third (!) Primeval Titan, but I am able to win the race with my Wurmcoils despite his Kessig Wolf Runs by destroying every single red source in his deck.

1-0

Round 2: Graham playing Heartless Summoning / Remember the Fallen (won 2-0)

(This deck uses Remember the Fallen to recur things like Perilous Myr, Peace / Pierce Strider and Wurmcoil Engine)

In game 1 Sever the Bloodline does what it does and exiles his first two Wurmcoil Engines, which leaves him without anything meaningful to recur.

I board in Creeping Corrosion, Curse of Death's Hold and the two Massacre Wurms, and though I get a slow draw I am able to cast Massacre Wurm just in time to stabilise on 5 life, and after the first Wurm trades with a Wurmcoil I have a second to kill his Wurm tokens (he has Heartless Summoning). I am just able to kill him with Steel Hellkite before the Pierce Strider and Blistergrub he has recurs deal me the last five damage.

2-0

Round 3: Mike playing mono-red (won 2-0)

In game 1 Mike mulligans to a slow hand, and conveniently I don't draw any useless land destruction and am able to accelerate into Wurmcoil Engine whilst still on a comfortable life total.

I board out Bramblecrushes and Acidic Slimes for the various removal, anti-aggro and anti-burn cards in my sideboard which is looking slightly awkward when he plays a turn two Shrine of Burning Rage that I now have no answer for (oops). I start racing with Dungrove Elder and as I have more Forests in hand make the decision to tutor up a second Elder with Green Sun's Zenith rather than Tree of Redemption. My 5/5 Elders easily race his Shrine + Koth.

3-0

Round 4: Charlie playing UGR control (won 2-1)

(This is like a hybrid of the GR ramp decks and UR counterburn)

This is a very interactive matchup, where I have to try and use my LD to mess with his three colour manabase and keep him off Titan mana whilst also not running my few threats needlessly into his countermagic (ie playing round Mana Leak where possible - the game do go long).

In game 1 I resolve a quick Dungrove Elder but he has a Slagstorm before I can play my fourth Forest. I am able to Sorin's Vengeance him down to 5 (and myself up to 29) which buys me a lot of time as I've drawn both Sever the Bloodlines. I am able to sucker him into Dissipating I GSZ for 3 as he doesn't know he's already dealt with all the Dungrove Elders in my deck, and with Dissipate gone I can resolve a Rune-Scarred Demon (and search for Wurmcoil) which is too much for him to handle.

In game 2 I don't really get any pressure and don't draw a Sever the Bloodline so when he resolves a Wurmcoil Engine and then Consecrated Sphinx it's all over pretty quickly.

I get an ideal start in game 3 with acceleration into Bramblecrush, then Acidic Slime, then Wurmcoil Engine. Charlie's only answer to the Wurmcoil is double Incinerate, which works out very nice for him as he rips Slagstorm off the top of his library. The game gets rather drawn out and with not long left on the round and life totals about 20-10 in my favour I decide to flashback Sever the Bloodline to remove the Beast token (from a Beast Within) that's is preventing my Acidic Slime and Viridian Emissary from attacking. This turns out to be winning strategy.

4-0

Round 5: Jay playing UW Humans (lost 2-0)

In game 1 I don't draw Bramblecrush or Acidic Slime and am not able to get Steel Hellkite online fast enough to avoid losing to his Swords of War and Peace and Feast and Famine as he makes a Phyrexian Metamorph copy of the Hellkite to prevent me destroying his swords.

Game 2 sees him rapidly killing me with turn three and four Mirran Crusader, and it didn't help that every draw phase gave me an additional mana source after a kept a hand that already had mostly mana sources.

4-1

Final result: 4-1 (8-3 games), 2nd place.

UW Humans took first place (5-0) and I beat the other 4-1s on tiebreakers (they were Solar Flare and two Mono-red decks including my round 3 opponent).

Overall a successful outing for Land Destruction at FNM. Despite this I can't really recommend playing Land Destruction in standard, as with modern magic design it's not really very strong and it doesn't win you many friends.

Next week: SMALLPOX.

11/09/10 Cube Winston Draft

2010-09-12T15:20:00.003+01:00

I think the draft was slightly marred by a shuffling problem that saw almost all the blue cards appear right at the bottom of the pile - consequently both of us thought the other was Blue. I tried for a WB Toughness / Pestilence deck, but though I got Pestilence + Crypt Rats + Evincar's Justice, I didn't have enough black cards.

I built a pretty awful WBg control deck that Matt beat twice, and then changed round to a WRg aggressive deck that was a lot better and won the majority of the rest of the games. (Though Matt's deck still looks better to me).

Matt
Cloud of Faeries 1U
Gemhide Sliver 1G
Sakura-Tribe Elder 1G
Thought Courier 1U
Spiketail Hatchling 1U
Thalakos Seer UU
Civic Wayfinder 2G
Yavimaya Elder 2GG
Snapping Drake 3U
Flametongue Kavu 3R
Thieving Magpie 2UU
Waterspout Djinn 2UU
Wickerbough Elder 2G
Indrik Stomphowler 3GG
Gerrard's Irregular 4G
Krosan Tusker 5GG
Lightning Bolt R
Symbiosis 1G
Pyroclasm 1G
Compulsion 1U
Arcane Teachings 2R
Coastal Piracy 2UU
Overrun 2GGG
Repeal XU
8 Forests
6 Islands
2 Mountains
Crosis Catacombs

Simon
Goblin Patrol R
Basking Rootwalla G
Mother of Runes W
Hearth Kami 1R
Goblin Skycutter 1R
Soltari Monk WW
Soltari Crusader 2W
Defender en-Vec 3W
Hunted Wumpus 3G
Squallmonger 3G
Angel of Mercy
Staunch Defenders 3WW
Elephant Guide 2G
Moldervine Cloak 2G
Arc Lightning 2R
Rhystic Lightning 2R
Threaten 2R
Bound in Silence 2W
Akroma's Blessing 2W
Whispersilk Cloak 3
Grab the Reins 3R
Rod of Ruin 4
Rolling Thunder XRR
Darksteel Ingot
7 Plains
6 Mountains
4 Forests
Rith's Grove

31/08/10 Cube Winston Draft

2010-09-01T16:49:00.008+01:00

One key in Winston drafting is that you will usually end up in three colours, so cards that are only require a single coloured mana are much better than those that require two.

I was a relatively sensible UGr, Matt never really settled his colours and ended up Wgru. Neither of played any black - most of the black cards were BB.

Despite Matt's Fireball AND Rolling Thunder (!) I won the majority of the games (something like 5-2). Having multiple Giant Growths helped a lot.

Simon:
Fireslinger 1R
Waterfront Bouncer 1U
Spiketail Hatchling 1U
Stingscourger 1R
Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch 1U
Man-o-War 2U
Spiketail Hatchling 1UU
Simian Grunt 2G
Hunted Wumpus 3G
Cudgel Troll 2GG
Briarhorn 3G
Wickerbough Elder 3G
Pendrell Drake 3U
Avalanche Riders 3R
Ancient Hydra 4R
Crashing Boars 3GG
Giant Growth G
Remove Soul 1U
Lash Out 1R
Rampant Growth 1G
Invigorate 2G
Compulsive Research 2U
Terramorphic Expanse
Treva's Ruin
Izzet Boilerworks
7 Forest
6 Island
2 Mountain

Matt:
Defiant Falcon 1W
Youthful Knight 1W
Whipcorder WW
Gemhide Sliver 1G
Nightwind Glider 2W
Thermal Glider 2W
Cradle Guard 1GG
Gloomwidow 2G
Voice of All 2WW
Stuanch Defenders 3WW
Roar of the Wurm 6G
Errant Erphemeron 6U
Shelter 1W
Pacifism 1W
Kor Chant 2W
Radiant's Judgment 2W
Fireshrieker 3
Demolish 3R
Tower Above 2/G 2/G 2/G
Repeal xU
Fireball xR
Rolling Thunder xRR
Darksteel Ingot 3
Dromar's Cavern
8 Plains
5 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Island

14/08/2010 M11 Games Day (2nd)

2010-08-15T10:27:00.004+01:00

I played White Weenie at the M11 Games Day in Southampton (or you might call it Boros or Wr Landfall though the only red cards were in the sideboard). The format was three rounds of Swiss followed by a Top 8.

Round 1: Beat Grixis Control (UBR) 2-0.
Game 1 he can't beat a White Knight with an Adventuring Gear as I leave Terramorphics untapped to play around Lightning Bolt. After boarding I have Kor Firewalkers AND White Knights and I win pretty easily again.

Round 2: Beat UW Control 2-1
I get a free win as he has a Deck Registration error and we are playing at Competitive level. He takes game 2 as I have a mediocre draw that doesn't include an answer for his Baneslayer. I have an aggressive start on the play in Game 3, and can Path his Wall of Reverence and still have a Brave The Elements to attack past his Baneslayer for lethal.

Round 3: Lost 2-1 to Mono-Black
I manage to win game 1 with a White Knight (at one point he attacks his Nantuko Shade into it mistakenly and has to let it die as he can't afford the BB to save it), but I manaflood slightly in games 2 and 3 (only four spells in game 3) and lose. Abyssal Persecutor is pretty good against my deck and I never saw a White Knight after game 1.

Top 8: Beat UG Turboland 2-0.
Basically he didn't do much and I pretty quickly goldfished him in both games as my pressure includes either Steppe Lynx or Adventuring Gear plus plenty of Evolving Wilds. As the match took about 15 minutes we play a third game for fun which basically goes the same way, then a fourth which he finally manages to win. I still have lethal on the board despite his Obstinate Baloth, Primeval Titan and Jace TMS when he casts Emrakul.

Top 4: Beat UW Control 2-1.
Game 1 I a get an Adventuring Gear on the table early and so am able to attack through his Walls of Omen. He struggles to find answers, but eventually has Day of Judgement. I resolve a Kor Duelist, protect it from Condemn with Brave The Elements (he has Mana Leak but I can just pay 3) and attack for over 10 damage for the win.
Game 2 I get a weaker draw, but have removal in hand for his assumed Baneslayers / Jace. Sadly he kills me with two Sphinx of Jar Isle.
Game 3 I have a good draw with several aggressive 1-drops (he can't Mana Leak them all) and Sejiri Steppes to attack past his wall. He is able to Day of Judgement when on 2, and has a Wall for my one creature, but when he taps out for Baneslayer I play Kor Skfisher to bounce a Steppe and attack for the final 2 damage.

Final: Lose 2-0 to Bant.
Game 1 I mulligan down to five, and game 2 I keep a sketchy 7 on the play. In both games I get overwhelmed by Fauna Shaman, Knight of the Reliquary, Vengevine and Sovereign of Lost Alara (he never plays a non-rare card other than some basic land).
I should have mulliganed game 2 - didn't draw my sideboarded Pyroclasm which would have been really good as he does things like using Fauna Shaman to get Noble Heirach for more mana or my sideboarded Relic of Progenitus (which lets Pyroclasm kill Knight of the Reliquary as well as taking out Vengevines).
The only incident of note in the match occurs when he attacks with a 5/5 Knight of the Reliquary and I block with a 3/3 Student and a White Knight. He does nothing except say something like 'ok' or 'sure' and then I point out I have 5 points of first strike. He says he wants to Path to Exile so I call for the Judge (got to give him something to do) as we are at competitive level and I think he definitely passed and want to be sure the Knight dies.

Despite a disappointing end, 2nd was a pretty satisfying result for a tournament full of considerably more powerful decks than my usual local FNMs. As well as the Top 8 Foil Mitotic Slime I won an Intro Pack and six assorted Gateway / Prerelease foils.

Decklist: White Weenie
4 Steppe Lynx
3 Student of Warfare
1 Kor Duelist
1 Kitesail Apprentice
4 White Knight
4 Kor Skyfisher
3 Ranger of Eos
2 Emeria Angel

4 Adventuring Gear
1 Sigil of Distinction
1 Sword of Vengeance
1 Path to Exile
3 Brave the Elements
2 Oblivion Ring

11 Plains
4 Sejiri Steppe
1 Mountain
1 Smoldering Spires
1 Arid Mesa
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Evolving Wilds

Sideboard
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Honor the Pure
3 Pyroclasm
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Manabarbs
1 Combust
1 Act of Treason

PS. Thanks for @saintjw for the loan of a couple of Students and an Arid Mesa.

02/08/10 Cube winston draft

2010-08-05T08:16:00.006+01:00

After streamlining the no-rares cube I had a Winston draft against Matt on Tuesday evening. I beat him 7-5.

Simon: UWr
Spiketail Hatchling 1U
Mistmeadow Skulk 1W
Soltari Priest WW
Rishadan Airship 2U
Nightwing Glider 2W
Phantom Warrior 1UU
Knight of Dawn 1WW
Killer Whale 3UU
Ancestors Chosen 5WW
Sigil of Sleep U
Condemn W
Rushing River 2U
Capsize 1UU
Circular Logic 2U
Thirst for Knowledge 2U
Foil 2UU
Fact or Fiction 3U
Concentrate 2UU
Rod of Ruin 4
Swell of Courage 3WW
Repeal XU
Fireball XR
Izzet Signet 2
Darksteel Ingot 3
Terramorphic Expanse
8 Islands
7 Plains
1 Mountain
(Sideboard: Ray of Distortion)

Matt: RB
Kris Mage R
Martyr of Ashes R
Sickle Ripper 1B
Mogg Flunkies 1R
Foul Imp BB
Boneknitter 1B
Vulshok Sorceror 1RR
Vampire Hounds 2B
Flametongue Kavu 3R
Talrum Mintoaur 2RR
Cateran Kidnappers 2BB
Gravedigger 3B
Hulking Cyclops 3RR
Scoria Cat 3RR
Boldwyr Intimidator 5RR
Vendetta B
Seal of Fire R
Incinerate 1R
Diabolic Edict 1B
Hymn to Tourach BB
Rift Bolt 2R
Smash 2R
Snuff Out 3B
Pestilence 2BB
Evincaar's Justice 2BB
9 Mountains
8 Swamps
(Sideboard: Demolish)

21/08/09 Roborally, Amazing Labyrinth, O Zoo Le Mio

2009-08-24T04:17:00.004+01:00

For once, 'we must play games again soon', lead to actual playing of games!

I went round to Kerry's on Friday evening, where Fee was. Sadly Matt came down with an illness and called in sick, so it was just the three of us. Unless you count the many drunk people that seemed to be continuously walking past Kerry's house.

We started with RoboRally, which surprisingly I had never played before. Normally I can pick up games quickly from the rules, but unfortunately the Roborally rulebook is pretty bad - one of those disjointed rulebooks that put things in a strange order, some rules are just on the additional player aid, and some tiles are poorly explained (from an online review -"expect that a few rules - such as moving onto a turning conveyor belt - will be poorly worded, causing confusion").

We had enough trouble trying to setup the game. The setup recommended by the game (six checkpoints across four boards) is laughably long, so we settled for four checkpoints across four boards. It turns out this was both too spread out and slightly too long. I would guess four checkpoints across two boards might be reasonable. When we had worked out where we were supposed to start and put the flags down the game could finally begin.

I got a reasonable start, pushing Kerry down a pit near the first flag, but then just missed the flag when I got pushed off it onto a conveyor belt. I then had a 'turning conveyor belt problem' which left me facing the wrong direction with a hand containing only one turn but three Move3 cards. This left me little choice but to fly of in the wrong direction, leaving me miles behind Fee and Kerry. As I wasn't enjoying the game I decided to drop, so Fee and Kerry decided to just play to the next Flag. If we had played all four flags I think the game would have lasted all evening!

Fee and Kerry both reached the flag on the same turn, which lead to some interesting maneuvers. Fee was able to push Kerry off the Flag for the win.

For our second game, we played one of my Birthday presents - Ra: The Dice Game. It is basically a Yahtzee style game where you use your dice rolls to acquire Pharaohs, Civs, Niles and Monuments which score pretty much identically to original Ra. Unfortunately Fee hadn't played Ra for some time and Kerry had never played, so the rules explanation made the game seem more complicated than it really was. Luckily it all seems a lot easier once we started playing, and the rules summary cards for each player are excellent.

The game seemed to play very quickly. Fee and Kerry collected monuments, whilst I concentrated more on the Nile, and Fee two sets of three monuments was enough for her to beat me by a couple of points. Unfortunately I now realise that I set the game up incorrectly each Epoch, as I was starting with the Ra on the 4 player space, not the 3 player - this may have made monuments a better strategy!

Though Fee wanted to play Ra again, but Kerry was keen to learn another new game so we tried O Zoo Le Mio (aka ZooSim). This is a quick light blind bidding game played over 5 'years' (rounds) that is let down slightly by some poor components - the colours of the exhibits on the zoo tiles don't exactly match the visitors and the relevant information (the * rating of the exhibits) isn't clearly enough displayed. The animal pictures on the tiles add flavour, but I think the game might actually play better without them. I had a reasonable start, but my best exhibits weren't able to grow in year 4 and I lost several visitors to Kerry. She ended up the winner, while Fee recovered from a poor start to take second (you score points for each visitor equal to the the year, so you need to be strong at the end).

Finally we had a quick game of Amazing Labyrinth. This is a fun kids maze game, where the board consists of movable tiles. On each turn you have to move one row (or column) of tiles, causing the path connections to change and then move as far through the maze as you wish. The objective of the game is to be the first to visit each of the locations you have been dealt. I seem to always do well at this game and won again, a turn or two ahead of Fee.

Then I could have left, but decided to stay a little longer to get a quieter night time bus. So we played a couple of hands of Circus Flohcati (Flea Circus). I won the second with a very early Gala Show for a new lowest wining score record of 36.

Then it really was time to leave.

13-08-09 Beowulf, Munchkin

2009-08-17T23:42:00.002+01:00

I have some friends who can't make the usual Sunday night gaming (though if they all could we'd have far too many players). Every time I manage to get together with them for games we always say 'we must do this more often', but somehow it doesn't work out that way.

Anyway, with me being busy on several Sunday's in August we managed to arrange a weekday evening at Kerry's in Ryde. It was me, Kerry, Bekki, Scott and Tony. Tony was late, so we already had Beowulf set out when he arrived.

Beowulf doesn't hasn't got too many plays recently (nothing has really apart from Race for the Galaxy and Dominion) but everyone seemed very keen to play it. The risking adds a random element that can let someone get lucky once or twice, but you can't really be successful without good judgement on how much to bid and push your luck, and correctly valuing points, gold and cards.

As has happened previously I drop out without playing a card in an early auction whilst everyone else went to about 4 or 5 cards. None of the early auctions are that vital - I try to conserve cards early on and pick up some cheap gold.

I think I always took Scrolls at selection as I think it is vital to try and get at least some gold. Generally Gold seems undervalued, whilst the others tend to overvalue the special cards - especially the cards that just provide symbols - if you played several cards to just gain a card with some symbols have you really gained anything? I take a couple of wounds in the midgame, but everything is under control as I have Discard two scratches and Refuse a wound, scratch or misfortune in my hand.

Everything pretty much goes to plan, I think I am leading in points coming to the final few auctions as I have cashed in five cards for five points and two cards for three points in the Opportunities and still have a very good hand for the final battle with the Dragon. I win that and also have a decent showing at the final totting up of cards and treasure for a comfortable six point win from Tony. Another really enjoyable game of Beowulf, a game that deserves a much higher score on BGG (I rate it a 9 because I am very stingy with my 10s).

After that Scott has requested we play Munchkin. I haven't played munchkin for over 10 years, and this game reminded me why. Over the first five turns I can achieve absolutely nothing, and I decide I would have more fun by dropping from the game. By pretty much unanimous agreement the game is halted about 10 minutes later. Nothing more to say about that really.

02/08/09: Notre Dame, RFTG: RvI

2009-08-03T07:34:00.003+01:00

Only three of us this week, Tony, Colin and me.

We started with another new game from the recent Euro Math Trade - Notre Dame.

In Notre Dame each play drafts three cards from their action deck of 9, each card corresponding to an area of the board and offering various resources. You need cubes to play onto the board, coins to bribe persons and buy VP at Notre Dame and you need VP to win. And don't forget to not let the rat problem get out of hand.

Once three rounds have occurred a period ends and the 9 card decks are reassembled. I started the first period by making two plays into my park. This set me up for plenty of bonus VPs, but meant I would obviously struggle for resources most of the game. Colin concentrated in the Hotel during the first period, which is unfortunate as it's probably the weakest building, and he was the only person to make any coach moves. I think Tony concentrated generally on resources, ending the first period with more cubes and coins than he started with.

During the second period the rat problem intensified. Plague levels had slowly increased to the point where at the end of round 4 or 5 all three us at were at either 8 or 9 in the harbour. The next turn the cards revealed six rats! Tony already had a reasonable presence in the Hospital and was able to kill enough rats in his turn to be okay and Colin used the minstrel to move 3 cubes from his Hotel to the Hospital. I just accepted I was going to 'bust' this turn and didn't worry about it - in fact I went over 9 for most of the remaining turns. This meant I ended up with considerably less cubes on the board than Tony whilst Colin did not have plague problems, but did run short of cubes in hand and had to move cubes around a few times.

For the second and third periods I mostly got points from collecting messages, and I got decent VP from the Master Carpenter (point for every occupied region) . Tony scored big on Beggar King (points for low plague levels) , Master Carpenter and the Mayor (3VP for each region with 3+ cubes) . Colin had a few messages and scored for the Lady of the Court (VP for each cube in the most occupied region). Notre Dame points were split 4/4 each period, everyone visiting twice. Colin purchased 6VP on his first period visit, but ran short of gold later so this was a mistake I think.

Result: Tony low-mid 60s, Simon mid 50s, Colin high 30s

After Notre Dame we played a couple of games of Face for the Galaxy with both expansions (Gathering Storm and Rebel vs Imperium). Goals were on, and takeovers active for the second game. The second game saw a takeover attempt, the first I have seen! I managed a second place in both games - in the first I had Trade League plus several big VP alien worlds and 3VP Alien goal, and in the second a mixed bag that saw me claim 3VP for both first to discard and full house of powers and 5Vp for 3+ explore powers. I still don't really feel that RvI added a huge amount to the game - though it does seem that we shuffle the deck during play a lot less now. I guess that is good, given it's size!

Next weekend: Grand Prix Brighton! (Magic 2010 sealed)

26/07/09: Hacienda, Dominion: Intrigue

2009-07-27T12:27:00.004+01:00

On Sunday evening we had our last 'large' gaming sessions for a while. People have various summer events coming up (GP Brighton, Tintagel) so it'll be a while until we have 4+ players.

Three of my new games from the July Euro Maths trade had arrived - Hacienda, Elasund & In the Year of the Dragon. We decided to play Hacienda (on the symmetric map)

After the rules explanation, Fiona began the game and over the first few turns was able to claim a long chain of land on the top side (she actually found an 8 in a row from her opening hand) , whilst Tony did the same on the bottom. I cut off one side of Tony's land chain and started connecting to markets, even though I know from online play that the winning strategy is to make a huge land chain.

At the halfway stage I was connected to 5 markets and in 3rd place slightly behind Tony & Fee. Colin was in last. In the second half I was able to increase that to 7 markets, but Colin cut me off from the 8th the turn before I was going to claim it. So I finished 3rd behind Tony & Fiona. With their huge land chains they were able to make loads of money and buy lots of Water tiles and Hacienda. Maybe next time we will play the asymmetric map, even though that is supposed to have some overpowered 'sweet' spots.

We didn't really have time for another new game after that, so we played a couple of hand of Intrigue only Dominion. The first was rather attack heavy with Swindler, Minion and Torturer. No Secret Chamber, but plenty of ways to remove Curses - Masquerade, Trading Post and Upgrade.

As is usual for me on a 3/4 split with Swindler in play I bought Swindler/Swindler. Soon the Curses started piling up in everyone's deck. I was purchasing Minions as my other buy after seing Tony use them very effectively several times. Sadly Tony also cast Minion for cards when my hand was Minion/Minion/Minion/x/x and I knew there was a Swindler in the last four cards of my library.

After I got a Minion swindled into a Duke, I decided this was going to be a lowish game, and that I should just be grabbing points. So I did that for the rest of the game, several times just casting Swindler and buying an Estate. This strategy almost paid off, I finished third - 24/23/22/18. I did realise my one mistake afterward - when swindling 5s I should be handing out Torturers - with my weak deck (full of VP & Curses) discarding 2 cards hardly hurts me.

In the second game Swindler had left (we use a 3 card evolution) and the new cards offered more action chain possibilities as they included Mining Village and Conspirator. I tried to set up a chain deck with Mining Village and Courtyard, but it was too slow and I felt like I was still setting up when Provinces started going. I think I should have bought some Scouts, cause Scout + Mining Village seems pretty good in an action chain deck. I must have also mistimed the end of game, I had a turn where I 'went off' including two Bridge and bought a Province and a Duchy, but I should have trashed some Mining Village's along the way, then I would have got double Province. Oh well - third again.

34/07/09 - Dominion: Intrigue

2009-07-25T10:56:00.004+01:00

On Friday evening me Leon and Tony, played a couple of games of Intrigue only Dominion (I only realised it was Intrigue only when Tony mentioned it afterwards.) We played an evolving setup, which included Duke and Harem in both games.

I lost the first, getting too carried away with trying to set up a Pawn + Conspirator deck (after using Steward to trash my Estates) that wasn't really effective. Tony had a more effective Conspirator deck, using Minion to generate income and new hands. But we both lost to Leon's simple plan of buying Duchies and Dukes - he had 6 Duchies and multiple Dukes.

In the second game Torturer was available (though Secret Chamber also appeared), and Tony fell into the Harem trap - buying Harem's from the outset over Gold. This might be a reasonable plan in a VERY attack heavy tableaux where winning scores are often miniscule (ie we had a game with Swindler, Thief, Bureaucrat and Witch with a winning score of 3), but here I think it hurt him. He set up a similar Minion deck to the last game, whilst I concentrated more on Torturer. Mining Village helped to chain Actions together, and with my Gold I was able to buy enough Provinces to win. Leon tried to win with Dukes again, but couldn't buy enough to win - by the end Tony and I were both Torturing him too frequently.

Intrigue only Dominion was quite interesting - some Intrigue cards really come more to life in this environment.

06/09/08 SSE draft

2008-09-06T20:50:00.003+01:00

I decided to go over to Southampton for the last Shadowmmor draft before the Shards Pre-release in a few weeks time.

I took a Prison Term first pick, the next two picks were uninteresting (one was a Elsewhere Flask that I took just to keep options open). A fourth pick Burn Trail seemed like a sign to be in Red.

This time I made sure of getting enough cheap Red guys to use the Burn Trail effectively. Silkbind Faeries were also going round a little to late it seemed, so I was able to pick up a couple and a Power of Fire, leaving me with RW or RU as options going into the final booster, Eventide.

The cheap red guys became even more of a priority with the first Eventide pick, the excellent Crackleburr - a bomb in the deck I was drafting.

The deck

2 Intimidator Initiate
2 Rustrazor Butcher
1 Riverfall Mimic
2 Tattermunge Duo
2 Noggle Bandit
2 Silkbind Faerie
1 Crackleburr
1 Noggle Bridgebreaker
1 Scuzzback Marauder
1 Outrage Shaman

1 Spectral Procession
1 Cenn's Enlistenment

1 Niveous Wisps
1 Power of Fire
1 Double Cleave
1 Prison Term
1 Burn Trail

2 Manamorphose
10 Mountains
6 Swamps

I won all four matches to win the draft. Crackleburr won several games on his own.

Netrunner deck; Rio de Janeiro City Grid

2008-01-09T01:43:00.000+01:00

Netrunner is the one of most interesting CCG ever created in my opinion. This is one of the decks I still have built.

Rio de Janeiro City Grid
Cost: 1
Upgrade-Region-Random
Roll a die whenever Runner passes a piece of rezzed ice during a run on this fort. On a 1, end the run.

In most Corp decks RdJ City Grid isn't worthwhile, it's just too unreliable. To make RDJ work you need big forts. REALLY big forts. With the addition of 'payback' ice (that you get bits from when you rez them) in the Proteus expansion this became possible.

The deck (50 cards)

Agendas (6)
4 Corporate Downsizing
2 Political Overthrow

Upgrades (8)
6 Rio de Janeiro City Grid
4 Chester Mix
2 Rasmin Bridger
2 Obsfucated Fortress

Operations (3)
3 Off Site Backups

Nodes (1)
1 Bel Digmo Antibody

Ice - Code Gates (7)
3 Misleading Access Menu
3 Quandry
1 Mazer

Ice - Walls (10)
6 Snowbank
2 Data Wall 2.0
1 Walking Wall
1 Glacier

Ice - Sentry (9)
7 Washed Up Solo Construct
1 Fragmentation Storm
1 Data Naga

With this deck the plan is to build three really big forts; R&D, HQ and one subsidiary (this deck is weak against Shredder Uplink Protocol - it can't effectively defend a fourth fort).

Typically you begin by setting up as much defense as you can on R&D and HQ. Then once those are secure setup a sudsidiary fort and try to score a Corporate Downsizing.

When you do, shuffle all the Agendas in your hand back into R&D. With this deck you want the game to go as long as is possible (warning; games using this deck can much longer than normal games of Netrunner). You can't lose due to running out of cards as you have Bel-Digmo Antibody, with Off-Site Backups to return it from Archives should the Runner manage to trash it from R&D or HQ.

More typically Off-Site Backups is used to return Rasmin Bridger or Obsfucated Fortress as these are crucial to the decks long term strategy - to make the Runner pay for runs that will fail. (Obviously RdJ City Grid is also crucial but the deck plays so many of these and the trash cost is so high that it isn't normally productive to trash these).

To make the runner lose bits on each run, each fort needs to have some ice that will cost the runner bits to pass, and the earlier in the run the better. Walking Wall and Glacier are excellent for this with their ability to move themselves. Rasmin Bridger means every ice will cost at 1 additional bit to pass, and Obsfucated Fortress will mean every run will cost the runner in full, even if you roll a 1 after the first piece of Ice!

Data Naga and Fragmentation Storm are there to keep the runner honest, so that they can't assume that all of the Ice is harmless.

This deck has one major weakness - it isn't that good! Even with 9 pieces of ice on a fort RDJ will still fail to stop a Runner 20% of the time. You are relying on the time needed for the runner to regain the bits needed for each failure to score your agendas. This is okay for Corporate Downsizing, but it's much more difficult to score a Political Overthrow.

Given this weakness the deck is only realy suitable for casual play. But as it takes so long to play it isn't really suitable for that either! Still, it was fun to play occasionally and remains an interesting design.

06/01/08: Ticket to Ride 1910, Traumfabrik, For Sale

2008-01-08T20:06:00.000+01:00

The usual five of us met up at my flat for a Sunday evening of games. We decided to start with something “not too thinky” – Ticket to Ride (1910 Tickets + Bonus).

I kept my opening 3 tickets. Two of them were northwestern Cities to Miami, and the other was Salt Lake to a third northwestern City (they were Toronto, Chicago and New York).

On my second turn I claimed Toronto-Pittsburgh, and then I spent the early part of the game connecting my NW Cities through Pittsburgh and down toward Florida. By this stage both of the direct west routes out of Salt Lake City had been taken, but I had a couple of green in hand so I claimed Salt Lake – Helena a few turns later. I then worked on connecting Helena to Chicago and collecting the Purple trains I needed to get down to Miami.

After connecting Helena to Chicago and collecting the trains needed to reach Miami via Charleston I decided to draw more tickets. I hit the jackpot!

Los Angles – Atlanta
Las Vegas – a NW City I’m already in
A NW City I’m already in – Charleston.

I was worried that I might get blocked out of Salt Lake – Las Vegas – Los Angeles, but I made it okay, and then had time to claim Atlanta, Charleston and Miami a couple of turns before the game ended.

With my six (!) completed tickets I scored 140 points and won by about 20 points. Fiona was second on about 120 points. After completing her tickets she decided not to collect more, assuming I had the most tickets bonus won and she ended the game by claiming a couple of 15 point connections. And speeding up the game to try and make me fail my tickets was a reasonable plan too.

I really like how the 1910 tickets and most completed tickets bonus shake up the strategies compared to the unbalanced original. I won by 20 points after making multiple 2 train connections, only two 5 train connections and no 6s! (That would be impossible in the original edition).

After Ticket to Ride everyone demanded more tea. I acquiesced, on the condition that they pick out and setup another game whilst I’m gone. I didn’t want to come back in ten minutes to find them still discussing what to play.

When I returned they were setting out Traumfabrik. I think this might have been the first time we have played five handed.

After Tony wins the first **** director, the next auction is a couple of actors (one a guest star) and something else. The two actors should be enough for first picks at the first turn parties, and that should offer the possibility of finishing a film in time to win the first season best film award. So I decided to bid 11 to automatically win it (in hindsight I might have won with a lower bid – but I would guess that If I’d bid 8 that would have tempted somebody to bid 9 etc).

So my 11 won, and I got a good tile at the first party. All I needed was music (or an Agency) at the final party to complete a film, and I was picking first… There weren’t any. Tony also only needed one tile to complete a film but he was picking last and got Reiner Knizia who promptly got fired! (Back into the box).

So the first season 5 point award was unclaimed. During the second season I was still looking for music to complete my yellow film, but Fiona was also close to completing hers and stealing my 5 points! I bid her up to 11 in the auction with the tile she needed, but she decided it was worth it. Her film scores (4), a good early contender for Worst Film.

During this season Colin completed a Green film for (19)! That looked to make him an early favourite. There was a good chance that it would earn him 25 points of awards (first green, best second season film, best third season film, best green film) – it did.

Though I had lost out on the first film bonus I was aiming for I still had the best collection of actors and pretty high value tiles. The problem was I wasn’t sure where I was going to get any awards. However during the third season I won the **** director and was able to complete a Yellow film for 15. This put me in the lead for Best Yellow and made me a contender for Best Direction.

In the final season I was able to get the Director needed to win best Director – if I could finish King Kong. Thankfully I was able to win the tile needed at the last auction and didn’t have to rely on getting lucky at the party.

I thought Colin had won due to the many awards he won for his first film (and he also won Worst Film), but with Best Yellow and Best Director I beat him by a few points. Other than his 19 his films weren’t worth much, whilst mine were consistently good.

After the game Tony congratulated Colin. Colin pointed out that I had beaten him. Tony: “I’ve given up trying to win…” (Referring to the fact that I’ve won all six games we’ve played since Christmas…).

We ended with a couple of quick games of For Sale. Colin and I continued our trend of doing slightly better then average, with Fee and Tony less successful (Tony forgot there was a sixth auction in the first game!). Colin won the first game, Bekki the second.

Next week I think we’re going to play Aladdin’s Dragons, which I’ve never played before.

29/12/07 - Power Grid, For Sale, Ticket to Ride (1910)

2007-12-30T21:05:00.000+01:00

Five of us met up for games at Tony's house: Tony, me, Fiona, Colin and Rob (down for Christmas).

We started with a game of Power Grid on the USA map. The north-eastern region was unused.

I took the 5 cost plant first turn and Kansas City as my opening city. Rob was on the eastern coast with Tony in between me and Rob. Fiona and Colin were out west.

On the second turn I got 2Oil/Coal-4cities (21?) at cost, and with my relatively favourable turn order bought as much Coal and Oil as I could. A few turns later I also picked up 2Garbage-3Cities for cost, and soon after I triggered step 2.

At that stage I thought I was doing well. All of the goods became very cheap during step 2 - I think this was due to the many Wind Turbines in play. I quickly got a five city oil plant, and then was able to upgrade my garbage plant to 3Garbage-6 Cities (31?). At the time when I bought this the market was 3 lower capacity plants and this one, and after I bought it there weren't any more high capacity plants available until the final turn. I think I got it far too cheap.

So I looked well set for the win. I was almost able to win by connecting to (and powering) fifteen cities the turn before step 3, but Fiona spotted this and expanded agressively into cities I would have needed. So I waited on 13, with plants and fuel to power 15, and step 3 arrived next turn.

There was an outside chance that Rob or Fiona could beat me by powering 16 cities, but the fierce competition for the available 7 capacity plants made that unlikely - Tony and Colin both needed them and had been stockpiling cash.

Final Result
Simon 15 Cities / ~120E
Rob 15 Cities / ~50E
Fiona 15 Cities / ~10E
Tony 14 Cities / ~30E
Colin 14 Cities / ~20E (had sufficient plants for 15 but not enough cash to connect)

A good game, and for once it didn't take too long (just over 2 hours). I can understand the comments on BGG that the USA map is unbalanced for beginners. I think I can see how an opening position on the (expensive) West Coast shold be played, but I don't think the others have worked it out yet.

After Power Grid we played a few hands of For Sale. Whilst there is certainly a lot of luck involved (the auction mechanic can sometimes leave you with no good choices and force you to drop, giving everyone else cheap stuff, and blind bidding is inherently random) there is still some room for strategy and skill, and I think our results bore that out. Colin and I seem to have got the hang of it, whilst Fiona struggles with the blind bidding converting good property portfolios into poor scores.

A striking example of bad play - the following sequence happened (twice!) : too high opening bid followed by pass, pass, pass, pass. So somebody paid for the highest card whilst the others were all distributed for free.

Also Tony has noted that an non winning odd bid of X will costs the same as a non winning even bid of X-1, but hasn't properly thought through the implications of this.

So Colin won two of the three games and I had a first, a second and a third.

We ended with a game of Ticket to Ride with the 1910 Tickets and 15 point most routes bonus. We feel these really improve the game.

I kept Atlanta-LA and Nashville-Vancouver as my opening tickets. With sets like these I feel the best plan is to connect up the 'ends' and then fund a route cross-country. So I claim Nashville-Atlanta first turn, and then start collecting for LA-Vancouver. I get LA-SF, and then a few turns later it all kicks off around Vancouver...

Rob is sitting on my right, Fiona on my left. I can't remember the exact sequence but Rob claims Seattle-Calgary and Calgary-Helena. So my best route in Vancouver is now straight up the coast. So I claim Portland-Seattle-Vancouver. Rob then takes one of them as well, and Fiona is blocked out of the NW cities. She can't complete one of her tickets!

This means she probably can't win - unless she can catch most of the other players with unfinished tickets as well. So she speeds up the game, concentrating on the long routes.

There is a small hiccup in my plan when the green trains I have been saving for SF-Portland become useless when Colin claims that connection. So now I need Pinks, but there are literally none turning up. After a few turns of bad draws of the top I end up taking Locomotives from the display - seems like the only way I'll get that connection.

Eventually I make it, and get across the country fairly smoothly (SF, Salt Lake, Denver, Kansas, St Louis). Next turn I take Destination Tickets and strike lucky - one I've already done and for another I just need to get to Chicago. Luckily I have the trains needed in hand, cause Fiona ends the game.

On my last turn I claim St Louis-Chicago. The 48 points for my four tickets and the 15 points most tickets bonus is enough to take me from last to first. Which came as a surprise - I thought I was too far behind.

Overall a successful evening for me. Clearly the Strongbow I was drinking gave me an unfair advantage!

Games: Mar - Dec 07

2007-12-30T15:41:00.000+01:00

According to the games I logged at BGG this is what I've been playing since my last post:

San Juan 19 - I don't play as much as I used to, but for me this remains the classic two player game.

No Thanks! 9 - A fun filler. It replaced Circus Flohcati for a while, but in turn has been replaced by For Sale. Once everybody knows what's going on it seems like the game is more decided by which cards urn up than the players actions.

Alhambra 8 - Remains a firm favourite of some of my group.

Lost Cities 8 - A regular two-player filler.

Diamant 7 - My game group has got bigger in the last few months, so anything that plays up to six is getting more play.

Power Grid 7 - This is the current favourite 'heavy' game for my group. I don't like it as much as the others (I'd rather play Princes of Florence or Amun-Re).

Scrabble 6 - Ocassional evening games with a friend.

Circus Flohcati 5 - Filler, sees less play now I have No Thanks and For Sale.

For Sale 5 - I really enjoy this. Very easy to play 'just one more game'.

Puerto Rico 5 - Still a great game. Whatever happened to the second expansion that was rumoured?

Torres 5 - Torres seems like it should be a chess-like brain-burner, but it doesn't play that way. One three-player game saw the newbie win!

Ingenious 4 - Two players is fun, three player has seating issue problems. I haven't tried the four-player partnership version.

Jambo 4 - I prefer San Juan.

Apples to Apples British Isles Edition 3 - Fun, but the UK card mix seems a little off to me somehow.

Runebound Second Edition 3 - Multiplayer solitaire effectively and has runaway leader problems.

Blue Moon 2 - I like this but don't really have anybody to play regularly against.
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers 2 - I prefer this to original Carc.

Carcassonne: The Castle 2 - And with two players, I prefer the Castle.

Citadels 2 - Playing in English really helps, and some of the expansion stuff is interesting. One guy in my group really dislikes this though.

Great Wall of China 2 - Okay, but nothing special.

HeroScape Master Set: Rise of the Valkyrie 2 - Mindless dice rolling fun if you're in the right mood.

Hollywood Blockbuster 2 - I really like this, it should get played more.

Liar's Dice 2 - Fun, but somehow the rules regarding bids of 1s seem slightly wonky to me.

Razzia 2 - Useful for large numbers, but not played so much as I have got other games that can handle six (For Sale, Diamant)

Atlantic Star 2 - Okay game that works with six (like Alhambra you just have to accept that it's going to be slighltly out of your control and go with flow)

Blood Bowl: Living RuleBook 1 - A good game but it takes too long, and can get overcomplicated once experienced teams with many skills face off.

Caesar and Cleopatra 1 - Played once, didn't think much of this.

Carcassonne 1 - I prefer H&G

Caylus Magna Carta 1 - Only played once, and that was with the basic rules - which suck. That's a shame, from my online plays I'm pretty certain this is a good game.

Domaine 1 - A good game, but only really at it's best with three players which limits it's plays.

Family Fluxx 1 - Family Fluxx seems to end more realiably than normal Fluxx (probably a function of having a much smaller deck).

Kaboodl 1 - Silly set collecting card game.

Lunch Money 1 - Slilly overcomplicated card game that gets dragged out by the need to keep checking the rules.

Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 2 - The 1910 destination tickets and 15pt most tickets bonus greatly improve TTR.

Tigris & Euphrates 1 - Still a great game.

I also played some Shadowfist during the year, after the release of the new set.

Sunday 25/02/07: Puerto Rico, Citadels

2007-03-01T17:18:00.000+01:00

After a couple of weeks with just the three of us, numbers were back up again this week. Bekki and Colin were both there, and Marleena turned up later.

I though we might get to start with El Grande which I was looking forward to (Tony had bought it the last couple of weeks, and apparently it’s best with 5), but he didn’t have it with him.

Tony suggests Hare and Tortoise which I’m not hugely keen on (and his rules translation is very dodgy) or Princes of Florence, which I love but I know Bekki will hate – far too calculational and too much downtime.

So I suggest Puerto Rico, and then start unpacking it to seal the deal. We replace Large Market, Large Warehouse and University with Trading Post,

We are seated as follows: Colin, Bekki, Fee, Tony, Simon.

The game begins relatively normally, Colin picking Settler (I get Sugar) and then Bekki builds (I take a small sugar mill). Nobody takes a Small Market straight off – in fact nobody takes one at all for a long time, which was part of a trend that continued throughout the game.

There was less building during this game than I’ve ever seen in a five player. Normally towards the end of the game there is very little worthwile to buy any more. I think this time there was still a Harbour AND a Wharf left at the end of the game (or they were bought just before the end), as well as one of the 10 cost buildings.

Part of the reason for this seems to be that nobody is very keen to take Quarries or produce trade goods. I’m the only player to make any coffee all game!

As well as the obvious trading benefit this gives me, I also sacrifice one trading opportunity to ship my only coffee onto the largest boat. This completely blocks that boat for the rest of the game (I’m only making one coffee per craft and it ends the game with four coffee onboard), denying the others many shipping points. (We actually still end by running out of shipping points, but reducing the rate let me build much more than would have been possible otherwise).

I get a decent factory going (everything except Indigo, though its often less due to shortage of goods), and am able to buy and man both Guild Hall and City Hall before the game ends (we run out of shipping points).

I finish a couple of points ahead of Tony who had no large buildings, but plenty of corn combined with Harbor and Wharf gave him lots of shipping points.

Fee also has quite a few shipping points, but she had one of those games where she was just short of enough money to buy a large building (9 doubloons on the penultimate turn, that always annoys) and finishes third.

Bekki managed to buy a large building but had trouble shipping her sugar and indigo and finished fourth.

Colin had an okay position I though at one point, but finished last. I think he made the mistake of getting quarries but not having any coffee or tobacco to sell, so he didn’t get to actually use his quarries very much.

Marleena arrived during the game of PR (and made some very nice cups of tea for everyone), so afterwards we had about an hour and a half for a six player game. That’s too short for Elfenland, and I didn’t bring Alhambra for once. Still didn’t want to play Hare & Tortoise, but I had Citadels with me. It’s like Ohne Furcht und Adel but you can read the cards! (which vastly improves the experience, Bekki seemed to agree).

We didn’t try any of the alternative characters or buildings. I think I’ll have to make some character summary cards before we use the characters (it’s the one useful component the English version is missing).

Marleena had a strong start, getting some good income from being the Merchant and the King. She was the King for like three rounds in a row, and as I was sitting to her right that means I get to pick from just two characters each time, which isn’t great. But I got Warlord three times in a row, and had a red Building, so it wasn’t too bad.

Then Marleena got assassinated and soon after Fee had a strong turn where she built three one cost buildings with the Architect, and was then able to be the Bishop (who can’t be targeted by the Warlord) next turn, and got to eight buildings the turn after, again making her immune to the Warlord. She finished first.

Marleena was second and I think I finished third. I only built five buildings, but they were one of each colour for the three point bonus, and included the 8 point Dragons Gate.

I’m not sure what order Colin, Tony and Bekki finished in. I think they had problems with getting robbed and stabbed.

Pub Quiz next week. We are the reigning champions (more 30 point bonus rounds on stuff I know probably required for us to win again).

Sunday 18/02/07 : San Juan, Tigris & Euphrates (Princes of Florence)

2007-02-20T18:11:00.000+01:00

For the second week running it’s just Tony, Fee and me. Last week we were able to play Princes of Florence. It’s not at it’s best with three, but seeing as I hadn’t played it for over a year I wasn’t going to say no!

Tony won Princes by a couple of points: he bought mostly Jesters and Recruitments at auction, and bought several extra profession cards. I bought mostly Builders and Prestige cards. In the end Tony’s late game large works gave him a 2 point victory over me. My 19 points of prestige cards (least empty spaces, most buildings, two large buildings) weren’t quite enough.

I wasted a couple of early actions I think, so much so that I only actually completed two works. Early on I should have just concentrated on scoring the works I had, rather than buying stuff to try and make them better. I had forgotten how hard it is to hit the late game work requirements when you don’t have any jesters.

Fee was competing with Tony for the Jesters and Recruitments, but unlike Tony she was playing her works early (indeed after the fourth turn she had no profession cards in hand). This wins her a few early best work bonuses, but generally you don’t get as many points playing that way. At least by competing with Tony she was making their money management tricky, thus boosting my chances.

As neither of them had much interest in competing with me for Builders or Prestige cards my money management was relatively simple. I think both my works were for points (maybe with an odd hundred florins), and I still had a little left at the end.

Princes of Florence is a great game. I must try to play it more this year.

This week both Tony and I have brought Tigris and Euphrates, another classic game that we don’t play anywhere near enough.

Still Tony doesn’t want to jump straight into such a hard game (probably a wise move) so we start with a quick hand of San Juan. Tony and I are pretty strongly violet (he is convinced it is the best plan), whilst Fiona is building many production buildings. She gets a Guild Hall and a Palace, but it’s not enough to beat my City Hall plus Palace.

The main difference being that I had a Quarry whilst she didn’t have a Smithy, and I was able to get down a couple of one cost violets for ‘free’ (I know they’re not literally free unless you have Carpenter as well). The Guild Hall players should really be looking to close the game out with 12 builds, but Fiona’s income wasn’t as good ( a function of being the only player heavily invested in production), so she only finished with 10 builds.

After this game Tony starts explaining how the violet plan is so much better than Guild Halls, and that the game is therefore slightly broken. I try to convince him otherwise, but despite the fact that I have played the game about ten times more than him, he apparently knows more than I do. That’s annoys me.

After San Juan we unpack T&E, and Tony reminds Fee of the rules whilst I take a loo break. He does his usual effective job. I get back just in time to repeat some of his gibberish regarding the scoring of external conflicts into actual English.

The game gets underway with me giving Fee a few basic strategy tips (Green and Black leaders are the most obvious to play early, remember to support your leaders with Temples etc). I have a glut of opening Green tiles so I start my own kingdom in the bottom right of the board. The plan was to make a monument, but it turned out to not be necessary.

I also have my Black leader in this kingdom, and join with the lower central treasure. At this point this kingdom is quite close to an external confict with Fee’s central kingdom, and I still have a glut of Green and Black tiles in hand. So I deliberately keep my kingdom a little weaker than hers, until she attacks, and I have enough for the tie in black to win that conflict. That ends the external conflict and breaks up her kingdom, so that soon my Green leader boots hers off as well.

That basically gives me enough Green and Black points for the game. I pick up some Blue and Red points throughout the game, and as my Green leader never gets displaced I get 5 of the 8 treasures collected for quite a confortable win (my score is 8/9/9/12)

Fee got most her leaders booted off midway throughout the game, but just re-entered her black leader in the empty bottom left corner and spent several turns getting a couple of cubes per turn in the colours she was weakest. And she also picked up a treasure relatively simply in the top right hand corner to end the game (I wanted the game to end, so I was helping).

Tony has a couple of strong colours, but is very weak in black and another colour (green?) and finishes last. He complains that he got dreadful draws (which might be true, he did change a load of tiles a couple of times), but I think he overstates his bad luck. In particular I think he got loads of reds but didn’t make the best use of them. He may have forgotten that you can remove leaders from the board (at one stage he had a four temple leader in red – I think he could have removed it, tried to kick off my green or black leader with an internal conflict then completed a B/G temple).

After T&E there’s time for one more quick game, something a bit longer than filler, but not too long. Whilst some groups can play Puerto Rico in 45 minutes we’re not one of them, so it’s San Juan again.

I want to try and win with a Guild Hall strategy this time, but after building an early Prefecture my counselling attempts aren’t helpful (though I do build Silver), and quickly Tony, and then Fiona have Prefectures as well.

This game is a little odd. Everybody builds a mixture of violet and production and eventually Tony and Fiona find the Guild Halls. But because they aren’t huge Halls the scores aren’t that high, and I’m keeping pace just with a couple of Monuments (I also have Library & Silver). I close with a Triumphal Arch, but lose by one card on the tiebreaker to Tony.

Sunday 04/02/2007: Pub Quiz, Super Bowl XLI

2007-02-06T17:53:00.000+01:00

As it was the first Sunday of the month, it was the pub quiz at The Prince of Wales. We had a larger team than usual: Fee, Marleena & Luke, Jim, Colin, and me.

Normally in quizzes the bigger the team the better, and you want people to know about different stuff, so as to have a chance on all the questions. Colin, in his first pub quiz appearance, definitely added some new areas of knowledge to the team (for example Dr Who’s home planet is Gallifrey).

The first round is fairly easy, and we get 17 (each round is 20 questions).

The second round is slightly harder and we get 13, leaving us in fifth place on 30 points (there are nine teams)

After a strong third round (16), we had moved up to fourth on 46 points. First place is on 51 – they’ve been in the lead ever since the first round when they got 19.

Each month there is also a bonus round that is handed out at the beginning. This month it is a sheet of thirty ‘thumbnail’ size pictures of famous people (mostly actors, a few music and sport).

To me this kind of thing is very simple. 28 (!) of them are obvious, there’s just two that I spent most of the evening thinking about.

No 29 is a woman wearing pink with untidy mousey blonde hair. She’s singing. Eventually I realise that it’s Suzi Quattro.

No 21 is a young looking woman wearing a yellow rain mac. I have a couple of unlikely ideas (who seem too obscure, based on the other people), and then I decide it’s a young Jane Fonda. Colin isn’t so sure.

Reading out the answers, I have all the first 20 correct. No big surprise. No 21… is Jane Fonda. Yes! Numbers 22 through 28 are correct, and I’m pretty confident Suzi Quattro is correct. It is! Now I think I’ve got all thirty in the bag, but can’t avoid the nagging feeling that maybe I’ve made a hideous mistake somewhere…. No, I got 30!

This gets me a big cheer from everyone on the team, and many congratulations are sent my way.

The final scores are announced in reverse order. With the 30 points from the bonus round we have 76, and when fourth place is reached with a score of under 70 points it is apparent most teams didn’t do quite as well on the bonus round as we did…

Sure enough, the team that had been leading throughout finish second with 74, and we have won. This is only the second time ever (the first was a couple of years back, before I was on the team).

After the quiz, it’s home to watch the Super Bowl. Historically I’ve always been an AFC fan (I first become a fan of American Football during the NFC’s winning streak in the 80s), and Tony Dungy deserves a Super Bowl, so I’m supporting the Colts.

After the opening kickoff is returned for a Chicago TD, the first quarter is strewn with errors. In the pouring rain that’s not completely surprising.

As well as the many turnovers during the first half the Chicago secondary completely blows the coverage for a 55yd touchdown. Still, by this stage the Bears had already scored a second touchdown, from a decent drive that included a 50+ yard run, and it looks like they might make a game of it.

Sadly it’s not to be. The Indy offence is totally dominating the Chicago defense with a short passing game, and having established the pass, they are also able to run with some success. The only thing that keeps the game close is the Colts inability to convert all of their yardage into points. Several times they get into good positions but have to settle for field goal attempts. Vinatieri misses a 36 yarder (!), another is fumbled by the holder, so they enter half time only 16-14 ahead.

At half time I cook Burgers for Lucy and me, so I’ve no idea if Prince was any good.

During a third quarter in which they again dominate possession they extend the lead to 22-17. By this stage they have completely dominated in terms of both possession time and yardage, but it’s still only a one score game!

The thing is the Bears don’t look like scoring even once. In the fourth quarter Grossman has a long pass intercepted, it’s returned for a Touchdown, and that’s basically game.

Eli Manning gets MVP, which was always a dead cert. I was really impressed by Rhodes and Addai, the two Colt running backs, who both had over 100 total yards. And so that's it for another postseason (I don't have Sky Sports so I only watch Football during January).

EVERY SINGLE BOOK I OWN!!!

2007-02-05T00:09:00.000+01:00

This is currently a work in progress!
Created - 05/02/2007
Edited 05/03/2007 (added Science / Tech)

Sci-Fi / Fantasy

Isaac Asimov

The Early Years Vol 1

The Early Years Vol 2

The Early Years Vol 3

Buy Jupiter

Nightfall

The Bicentennial Man

The End of Eternity

The Currents of Space

Earth is Room Enough

The Winds of Change

The Positronic Man (with Robert Silverberg)

Nightfall (with Robert Silverberg)

I, Robot

Robot Visions

The Caves of Steel

The Robots of Dawn

Foundation

Second Foundation

Foundation and Empire

Foundations's Edge

Foundation and Earth

Forward the Foundation

Douglas Adams

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Life, the Universe and Everything

So Long, and Thanks for all Fish

Mostly Harmless

Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (by Neil Gaiman)

Clive Barker

Weaveworld

The Great and Secret Show

Imajica

Greg Bear

Blood Music

The Infinity Concerto

Queens of Angels

Slant

Moving Mars

Eon

Eternity

Darwin's Children

David Brin

Glory Season

Earth

Sundiver

Startide Rising

The Uplift War

Brightness Reef

Infinity's Shore

Heaven's Reach

Kil'n People

Arthur C Clarke

Imperial Earth

Of Time and Stars

Rendevous with Rama

Rama II (with Gentry Lee)

Garden of Rama (with Gentry Lee)

Rama Revealed (with Gentry Lee)

Greg Egan

Quarantine

Permutation City

Axiomatic

Luminous

Diaspora

Terenesia

Schild's Ladder

Jon Courtney Grimwood - Pashazade
Peter F Hamilton

The Reality Dysfuntion

The Neutron Alchemist

The Naked God

Fallen Dragon

Pandora's Star

Judas Unchained

Frank Herbert - Dune
Robin Hobb

Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

Ship of Magic

The Mad Ship

Ship of Destiny

Fool's Errand

Golden Fool

Fool's Fate

Shaman's Crossing

Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon
George R R Martin

A Game of Thrones

A Clash of Kings

Richard Morgan

Altered Carbon

Broken Angels

Market Forces

Woken Furies

Alastair Reynolds

Revelation Space

Chasm City

Redemption Ark

Absolution Gap

Century Rain

Galactic North

Kim Stanley Robinson

Icehenge

The Wild Shore

Red Mars

Green Mars

Blue Mars

The Martians

Antartica

The Years of Rice and Salt

J R R Tolkien

The Hobbit

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

The Silmarillion

Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Dragons of Winter Night

Dragons of Spring Dawning

Dragons of Summer Flame

Time of The Twins

War of the Twins

Test of the Twins

Tad Williams

The Dragonbone Chair

Stone of Farewell

To Green Angel Tower: Siege

To Green Angel Tower: Storm

Otherland: City of Golden Shadows

Otherland: River of Blue Fire

Otherland: Mountain of Black Glass

Otherland: Sea of Silver Light

The War of the Flowers

Shadowmarch

Other Fiction

Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin
Jane Austen - Emma
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility
Iain Banks - The Crow Road
Pat Barker - Regeneration
Pat Barker - The Eye in the Door
Pat Barker - The Ghost Road
Julian Barnes - Arthur & George
Louis De Bernieres - Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Umboerto Eco - The Name of The Rose
Umboerto Eco - Foucault's Pendulum
EM Forster - A Passage to India
Charles Frazier - Cold Mountain
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Jospeh Heller - Catch 22
Joseph Heller - God Knows
Joseph Heller - Closing Time
Nick Hornby - Fever Pitch
Nick Hornby - High Fidelity
Nick Hornby - About A Boy
Jack Kerouac - On The Road
TE Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Ursula Le Guin - Always Coming Home
David Mitchell - Cloud Altlas
William Nicholson - The Wind on Fire

Science / Technology

Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins - The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins - Climbing Mount Improbable
Richard Dawkins - The Ancestors Tale
Richard P Feynman - QED: The strange theory of light and matter
Richard P Feynman - The Character of Physical Law
Richard P Feynman - "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman!"
Richard P Feynman - "What do you care what other people think?"
Richard P Feynman - Don't you have time to think?
James Gleick - Genius: Richard Feynman and modern physics
James Gleick - Chaos
John Gribbin - Science: A History 1543-2001
Brian Greene - The Elegant Universe
Stephen W Hawking - A Brief History of Time
Douglas R Hofstader - Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Brian Penrose - The Emperor's New Mind
Brian Penrose - The Road to Reality
Steven Pinger - How The Mind Works
Karl Sigmund - Games of Life
Bruce Sterling - The Hacker Crackdown
Clifford Stoll - The Cuckoo's Egg

Wednesday 31/01/06: Disposition at Yates

2007-02-01T13:09:00.000+01:00

A change from the normal stuff: The last Wednesday of every month is live Metal at Yates. I’d been meaning to suggest to Matt that we go for a while, so this month we went.

Matt & I are obviously completely out of the loop when it comes to the current Metal scene – we don’t recognise any of the tracks the DJ plays (apart from Angel of Death), though Matt does at least thinks who knows who some of them are, which is a start I guess. Clearly having Scuzz as your background of choice at home isn’t enough to keep up to date.

Polonium 210
The least heavy band of the evening. I actually thought they had a pretty good grove going on, and really enjoyed the music. Shame about the awful ‘singing’ though, which dragged everything down. (Obviously a complaint that you could level at many bands in this genre: when you can achieve international success by just screaming and grunting, why would you bother learning to sing?)

After Polonium 210 I think the DJ forgot to start playing music again. So it was actually quite nice to have a conversation for a bit. As accountants are usually ‘quite’ busy in January I hadn’t seen Matt for a while, and I can’t remember the last time we went for a drink together.

Apart from the temporary lull it seems the only other place to hold a conversation is on the stairs to the toilets. I am taken aback when somebody starts a conversation just cause I’m wearing my Audioslave shirt. And on the way back down, I bump into Kerry, who seems surprised to see me. Clearly my everyday disguise of a quiet intellectual type is very convincing (actually of course, I am both quiet and intellectual).

Heterodox
An amazing development – the guy fronting this band can actually sing, and really well. A couple of times he holds long notes and he seems to have a decent range. Not so sure about the music, seemed okay, but for me this was all about the guy singing, he was great.

Sentenced to Rebirth
The headliners, and the only band of the evening I’d heard before (there’s four or five tracks on their myspace site). I’d actually quite enjoyed the tracks online, but live it just didn’t seem to work for me. Being the heaviest band of the evening didn’t do them any favours, it just sounded like a bit of a racket to me I’m afraid.

Luckily Kerry came over while STR where playing to chat to me and Matt, so the music was just (very loud) background. She actually remembers Matt from the Squadron – “the guy with crutches” (She doesn’t remember me, but then why would she?) Apart from that her and Matt have something else to talk about, because she lives in one of his old homes, so they can gossip about the neighbours from hell.

Kerry is even nice enough to buy us Sambucas. Which are pretty hideous, I discovered.

Sunday 28/01/07: Beowulf, Acquire

2007-01-29T15:45:00.000+01:00

Five of us were at Fiona’s this Sunday evening: me and Fee, Tony, Bekki and Colin. It seems like Colin might be joining us more regularly.

Tony had; Acquire, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico
I had: Elfenland, Traumfabrik, Puerto Rico, Citadels, David & Goliath, No Thanks!, Zirkus Flohati

We start by playing Beowulf (my idea). This was only our second game (Colin’s first – and he did a good job of picking it up quickly). This game I decide to Risk much less than everyone else, particularly early on, and not to compete in Auctions where I feel I am outmatched.

These strategies pay off. At the first bidding episode, where neither the rewards nor penalties are too extreme I drop without playing a card whilst everyone else bids at least four cards (though some may have been from risks). That might be okay for the person who wins, but seems bad for those who expend four cards and don’t really get much.

I also decide I can’t compete on the first serious major episode, cause I don’t have enough of the right cards. So I drop out, accepting that I’ll take the wound, without playing any cards.

I win the Gold auction for 5pts, and then get a nice bonus at the next major auction. Bekki and I are the last two players left in, but she outlasts me with some lucky risking. When she gets two matching symbols on a risk, meaning I would have to do the same, I decide it’s not worth trying. So Bekki gets first pick… and doesn’t take the 5pts! So I get 5pts for coming second.

I also win the gold auction to remove the Wound I received early on, and the All Iron Shield (and still had enough Gold for first place at Recover Treasures!) With the All Iron Shield I put up a good fight at the Dragon Battle, but again it turns into a showdown between Bekki and I (everyone else had to start risking early). I can’t afford to scratch because I have no wounds and two scratches, so she takes first.

But I am able to retain enough cards to win Death of Beowulf. I finish with 27 points, just ahead of Colin on 25 and Tony on 22. Fee and Bekki were in the teens.

After Beowulf we have enough time for another long game, so we play Acquire which Fee and Tony like, but I am lukewarm about. Anyway, I get an incredibly good start – I’m able to found chains on my first three turns.

Once all the chains have been founded there are four chains on the left hand side of the board, one in the centre, one top right and one centre right. I am strongly invested in the two on the right (I founded them both). These both start to grow, and then Festival takes over the other, giving Fiona and I a big payout. I retain my Imperial shares (so I’ll have the majority when it gets refounded) and reinvest my bonus in the central chain Continental, which gets fairly large, before it is also taken is taken over by Festival.

Given the initial chain layout, it surprising how few mergers there are on the left hand side of the board. The top left chain Luxor is eventually taken over by Festival (I founded Luxor as well, another payout for me), as Festival reaches right across the top of the board, but of the other three, two are still in play at the end of the game – American got fairly large, whilst the one chain ended the game only 3 hotels long!

The Imperial shares I retained throughout the game give me at least a couple more bonuses, and at final scoring I have 12 shares in the 41+ Festival for a score of £47,000. Colin has £37,000, Fee £35,000 and Bekki and Tony somewhere in the 20s.

After that everyone is kinda zoinked, so we don’t end with our usual wind-down filler. Bekki says she doesn’t ever want to play Acquire again – it’s really not her kind of thing, and with the downtime the game can just drag. I don’t really like it that much either.

So two long-ish five player games, two wins. That’s what I call a good evening. Pub quiz next Sunday.

Sunday 21/01/07: Beowulf, Ticket to Ride, San Juan

2007-01-23T11:12:00.000+01:00

I gave Fiona Beowulf for Christmas, and we finally got to play it this weekend. The rules explanation went fairly quickly (once everybody was paying attention), and we were into the game fairly quickly. The game went smoothly for a first game, no major hiccups, though Tony did occasionally slow things down by trying to work everything out.

The quickest way to work out the strategy in any game is just to play, and then play some more. I recently spent 4 1/2 hours playing Caylus with three slow players, only to discover that the strategy I had adopted didn't work, and to come last, just behind somebody who played badly, and a long way off the leaders. To be honest that experience has really put me off wanting to play Caylus again (though I remain hopeful for Caylus Magna Carta).

Our game of Beowulf wasn't that excessively long, about 90 minutes, probably 15-20 too many. I concentrated much more on gold than everybody else, winning several gold auctions, and having most gold at the final event. But I made a mistake in not winning the All Iron Shield, underestimating the competition at the Dragon Battle, and ended up taking the double wound tile. As I was on two wounds already, that took me way out of contention, the final scores being something like Tony 28, Bekki and Fee both low 20s, and I think I scored exactly zero.

Beowulf is one of those games were the scores don't always tell the entire story, usually due to some criticality in the scoring system. In the case of Beowulf one possibility is what occured to me: the two wounds I had coming into the Dragon Battle won't cost me any points, but if I take the double wound tile then I get -20! So I either get a respectable score in the 20s, or a nothing score that puts me last.

I'm pretty certain I had the worse luck in the risking (at one point one of the girls flipped over two matching double symbol cards to give +4 to their bid!), but to be honest that didn't bother me too much. Firstly I feel the luck is acceptable for a light-ish 60 minute game. And secondly I feel that one of the reasons Beowulf gets bad rap for the luck is because it's out in the open. I find that games like Amun-Re and Goa can have huge swings in drawing the right power cards, at the right time, but because the draws are hidden nobody knows when somebody gets lucky.

After Beowulf we play Ticket to Ride. I got Tony the 1910 expansion for Christmas, and it's really invigorated the game. The improved tickets and the 15 point most routes bonus really help remove the complete dominance of the long E-W routes.

Having said that my three opening tickets are LA - New Orleans, Las Vegas - New York and Portland - Houston (I might have mixed these up, but you get the idea). Three East cost to West Coast tickets! So I keep all three and set to work connecting LA-Vegas-Portland, and Houston-New Orleans-New York, and then trying to get across the country.

I had planned to take the southcoast between LA and Houston (thanks to TTR I think of it as a coast despite the existence of Mexico) but these routes get taken, so I have to go through the centre of the country from Vegas. This game actually demonstrated how easy it is to make you routes in four player TTR even when it gets congested. At one point Fee, Tony and I were both trying to navigate through the cities just north of Houston and Dallas, and in the late game Fee, Bekki and I were all going down the East Coast. In both cases thanks to the many alternative and double routes everybody got were they needed to go, despite the congestion.

Still, if I'd not made my cross-country connection I'd have failed all of my tickets for -50 points and my second score of almost zero for the evening!

Instead I complete my three tickets for fifty bonus points and second place. Tony has completed four tickets, which included a couple of long ones to win by some way. Bekki and Fee also had four tickets to also earn the 15 points, but their tickets were of much lower value.

We finshed with a four player game of San Juan. I used to find this very average four player, but it's growing on me. You have to value points over income much more than in three or two player. In particular I'd always be very loathe to ditch a monument, even very early. I build a first turn Prefecture, then Gold Mine and Silver, and that basically all the income you need. After that I build a couple of monuments and a City Hall and still have Triumphal Arch in hand. So the game is basically mine: Tony has raced out with Poor House, but doesn't have many points or a Crane, and Fee and Bekki have merely average positions. I get a late Palace off my Gold Mine to make the scores look really lopsided, but I didn't need it. The 9 point palace just stopped me building a 6 point Victory Column.

Erratic Explosion Domain

2006-11-28T18:48:00.000+01:00

Extended deck

When I went to Gencon during autumn 2005 it was in the middle of an extended PTQ season. As I prefer playing MTG to VS I built a couple of decks to play over the 4 days. One was a slightly unusual Madness build (Thought Courier over Aquameba, Rushing River for bounce, and a couple of unusual tech cards), the other was a Domain deck.

Not owning any Fetchlands or Dual lands my Domain deck had a budget feel [aside: this was exagerated when I got a warning for marked sleeves during the PTQ. So anybody watching the top table would have seen that on turn three all I had in play was three different unsleeved basic lands - what a Noob!]

I owned the Deeds and Restraints and all that kind of stuff, but had to scrape around, borrowing several of my win conditions, and decided on both using Living Wish, and running an Erratic Explosion / Draco kill. (The following deck was untested and based on my underpowered collection: both the maindeck numbers and the sideboard cards could be improved)

9 Forests
5 Island
2 Swamps
1 Mountain
1 Plains (18 land)
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Etched Oracle
1 Bringer of the Black Dawn
1 Draco (9 creatures)
4 Collective Restraint
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Holistic Wisdom (8 enchantments)
4 Lay of the Land
3 Rampant Growth
3 Living Wish
1 Erratic Explosion
1 Tribal Flames
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Allied Strategies
1 Wandering Stream (15 sorceries)
3 Evasive Action
3 Wordly Counsel
2 Insidious Dreams
2 Putrefy (8 instants)

SB: 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Blinkmoth Well
1 Silklash Spider
1 Meloku, The Clouded Mirror
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Loxodon Heirarch
1 Meddling Mage
2 Destructive Flow
2 Lobotomy
1 Putrefy
1 Wandering Stream
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ground Seal

This deck won me an eight man GPT, and got me a top 8 of a PTQ. And it was a lot of fun running one of those rogue decks that you hear players talking about between rounds. My third round PTQ opponent, as we chatted whilst shuffling for game one, mentioned that somebody was chucking was chucking Draco at people. I didn't tell him it was me. :)

G/R Anti-Affinity

2006-11-21T13:37:00.000+01:00

Mirrodin/Kamigawa standard deck

In the last few years the only local tournaments I've attended have been pre-releases for the release of a new block and county championships. As I'm not exactly keeping up with recent releases building standard decks for the county champs hasn't always been easy.

This deck, mainly comprised of commons and uncommons was able to take me to a Top 8. The plan was to beat Affinity decks, and I defeated three in the swiss rounds. If only I'd kept playing the Affinity decks (there were four in the top 8, and the final was an Affinity mirror match) I could have been County Champ!

4 Hearth Kami
4 Tel-Jilad Chosen
4 Viridian Shaman
4 Orcish Artillery
4 Vulshok Sorceror
1 Glissa Sunseeker
1 Arc-Slogger
1 Molder Slug
1 Kumano

4 Shock
4 Electrostatic Bolt
4 Volcanic Hammer
1 Pulse of the Forge

11 Mountains
7 Forests
2 Shivan Oasis
3 City of Brass

U/G/R Threshold

2006-11-19T16:21:00.000+01:00

Invasion/Odyssey standard

This was a deck that I played in a tournament for fun. It's not the worlds best deck, but it does have Millikin in it :)

4 Werebear
4 Millikin
3 Call of the Herd
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Centaur Chieftain
4 Beast Attack

4 Lay of The Land
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Fire / Ice
4 Aether Burst
4 Fact or Fiction

10 Forest
2 Islands
2 Mountains
3 City of Brass

U/B Upheval / Zombie Infestation

2006-11-19T10:20:00.000+01:00

Invasion/Odyssey standard deck

The release of Odyssey was an odd time for Type 2 (standard). The American States championships would normally showcase all of the top new decks, but that year there was a Standard Masters event at the next Pro Tour, so all of the top pro teams were keeping back their best decks.

One of the decks that did break out from States was the combination of Zombie Infestation and Upheval. This is the version I played to a couple of tournaments. It was stupid good against control decks - by running Counterspell, Memory Lapse and Disrupt, you always won counter wars, and I managed to find room for main deck Mana Shorts!

4 Opt
3 Sleight of Hand
2 Disrupt
4 Counterspell
4 Memory Lapse
4 Fire / Ice
4 Repulse
2 Exclude
2 Mana Short
4 Fact or Fiction

3 Upheval
3 Zombie Infestation

3 Underground River
4 Shivan Reef
2 Shadowblood Ridge
10 Islands
2 Ancient Spring

At the San Diego Masters all the pros showed us we should have been playing Psychatog in our U/B decks, not Zombie Infestation, oops!

It was during the Odyssey block that my Magic playing really slowed down. By the time I decided to play Infestation / Upheval at a Odyssey Block constructed Pro Tour qualifier at Gencon I hadn't played for six months. Despite no playtesting I was in contention for the Top 8 until the penultimate round, when I dropped at 4-2-1, my final loss comming from a game loss rules infraction in game 3 against Bob Maher in a dead drawn position (we'd almost gone to time). I don't know if I'd have been in with a shot of making the top 8 at 4-1-2.

U/G Control

2006-11-19T10:04:00.000+01:00

Invasion/Odyssey standard

The months just after a block rotation have always been my most succesful periods. I wasn't the best player locally (that was Tony Adams), but I wasn't far off, and I was probably the best deck-builder, so before all the 'best decks' were found and readily available on the web I could win with my own decks.

U/G control was born of a realisation that Beast Attack was incredibly strong in a draw-go control build. This deck has loads of card advantadge (Fact of Fiction, Mystic Snake, Beast Attack), ways to fight against Call of the Herd (Repulse, Syncopate, Disrupt), and a very strong late game from Holistic Wisdom and Bearscape. It won a couple of tournaments.

4 Mystic Snake

4 Opt
3 Disrupt
4 Counterspell
4 Fire / Ice
2 Syncopate
4 Repulse
3 Exclude
4 Fact or Fiction
3 Beast Attack

1 Holistic Wisdom
1 Bearscape
1 Tsabo's Web

4 Yavamaya Coast
10 Islands
4 Forests
2 Mossfire Valley
3 Karplusian Forest

Mono-B Suicide Black

2006-11-18T16:30:00.000+01:00

Masques/Invasion deck

This deck evolved from the Big Black deck, over many months. It took a lot of tinkering to make a mono-black deck that worked in the environment at the time - able to fight againt both Fires and Rebels, but this deck had it. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend Nationals Qualifiers with this deck (I was Best Man at a wedding that weekend), I would have fancied my chances.

4 Foul Imp
2 Nakaya Shade
4 Plague Spitter
4 Chimeric Idol
4 Phyrexian Scuta

4 Engineered Plague
4 Snuff Out
4 Tangle Wire
3 Despoil
4 Dark Ritual

4 Peat Bog
4 Rishadan Port
1 Dust Bowl
14 Swamps

Mono-B "Big Black"

2006-11-18T16:08:00.000+01:00

Urza's/Masques standard deck

Another more casual deck that went 4-0 (8-0 games) in a small tournament I ran. This was inspired by a Dave Price Masques block deck.

4 Chimeric Idol
4 Complex Automaton
4 Thrashing Wumpus
2 Masticore
2 Cateran Enforcer

4 Rain of Tears
4 Befoul
4 Snuff Out
4 Vendetta
4 Dark Ritual

12 Swamps
4 Peat Bog
4 Crystal Vein
4 Rishadan Port

Mono-R 20/21/20 RDW

2006-11-18T15:49:00.000+01:00

Masques/Invasion standard deck

This isn't such a serious deck - I threw it together inspired by various Dave Price / Dan Paskins red decks. When I needed a deck to play in a small tournament (unsanctioned or three judge, I can't remember) that I was running I decided to play this. My best deck at the time was Counter-Rebels, but there's no way I'm playing that in a tournament I'm running - it's one of the slowest decks ever.

This deck went 4-0, not losing a game. The transformational LD sideboard (4 Stone Rain, 4 Pillage, 4 Tangle Wire) was pretty effective.

4 Kris Mage
4 Raging Goblin
4 Goblin Raider
2 Firebrand Ranger
2 Rage Weaver
4 Orcish Artillery

4 Shock
4 Seal of Fire
4 Volcanic Hammer
4 Scorching Lava
4 Rhystic Lightning
1 Urza's Rage

16 Mountain
3 Rishadan Port
1 Kelden Necropolis

Mono-W "Grizzly" Rebels

2006-11-18T15:23:00.000+01:00

Urza's/Masques standard deck

I didn't come up for the idea for this deck - it broke out from one of the early european nationals that summer, but it quickly became one of my favourite decks - it's ideal for my preferred aggro/utility style of play.

4 Mother of Runes
4 Ramosian Sergeant
3 Steadfast Guards
2 Fresh Volunteers
4 Longbow Archers
1 Ramosian Lieutenant
1 Defiant Falcon
2 Lin Sivvi
1 Thermal Glider

4 Crusade
2 Seal of Cleansing
4 Parralax Wave
3 Reverent Mantra
2 Arrmageddon

19 Plains
4 Rishadan Port

The high rare count reflects the fact that this was the most serious period of my magic career (I also had a set of Tangle Wires), but Rebels makes a pretty good budget deck. Replace Lin Sivvi with Defiant Vanguard or Nightwind Glider, and replace Crusade and Reverent Mantra with some mix of Ramosian Rally, Cho-Manno's Blessing and Brilliant Halo. Defender en-Vec replaces Parallax Wave (funniest use of Defender en-Vec: preventing damage to your opponents Academy Rector). There's obviously no direct replacement for Armageddon though, and you have to do without Ports, but it's still an okay deck.

Mono-G Aggro Enchantress

2006-11-18T11:08:00.000+01:00

Urza/Masques standard deck

The release of Mercadian Masques saw the printing of Ancestral Mask, a creature enchantment that gave the enchanted creature +2/+2 for each other enchantment you controlled. With Yavamaya Enchantress and Rancor, this was the basis of a pretty good budget aggro deck that I played for a while.

I've always called this 'aggro enchantress' to seperate it from traditional enchantress decks, which were based around drawing loads of cards and 'going off'. This deck was always about attacking the opponent until they were dead. During the first couple of tournaments I didn't even play Argothian Enchantress!

But by the time of the Nationals Qualifier in Poole I had traded for them. This is the deck that went 4-1-1 beating Squirrel-Opposition, Ponza, Replenish and Accelerated Blue to qualify me for Nationals.

4 Llanowar Elves
3 Elvish Lyrist
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 River Boa
4 Yavamaya Enchantress
2 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Masticore

4 Wild Growth
4 Rancor
4 Treetop Bracer4
4 Ancestral Mask

1 Wordly Tutor
2 Creeping Mold

15 Forest
3 Treetop Village

G/R Sliver Beatdown

2006-11-18T10:50:00.000+01:00

Tempest/Urza standard deck

This was the first deck I designed myself and played in tournaments after I left university. It's an agrro deck with plenty of utility (for example playing Mogg Fanatic and Elvish Lyrist over Jackal Pup) - basically the kind of deck that I've always preferred.

4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Elvish Lyrist
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Spined Sliver
4 River Boa
3 Mogg Flunkies
3 Uktabi Orangutan

4 Shock
3 Giant Growth
3 Rancor
4 Incinerate
2 Sonic Burst

4 Karplusian Forest
8 Mountains
9 Forests

Sunday 20/08/06: San Juan, Domaine, Dalmuti

2006-09-07T16:14:00.000+01:00

Everybody seemed mighty relieved at the prospect of actually getting some games in on a Sunday evening. Or maybe shocked :)

Marleena, Fee and me started with a quick game of San Juan before Tony arrived. Marleena picked up the rules pretty quickly – it’s the strategies that take time to master. I got a decent Guild Hall bonus, and was able to win fairly comfortably.

When Tony arrives we start a four player game, so Marlena can play again. This game is a bit silly. Marleena built a Gold Mine towards the end of the previous game, but it didn’t work on the remaining three Prospectors. In this game I build one on the second turn, and it works on the first three Prospectors!! This gives me a huge advantage, and I go on to draw into a Smithy & Guild Hall combo as well. Fiona has a decent violet position as well at the game end, with a set of monuments, but it looks to me like I’ve won, particularly as I closed the game out quite quickly (including a zero cost Indigo build as governor when nobody else could build). The scores were close, 34 to 31.

Tony has one of those games where he doesn’t do anything particularly wrong, but he just couldn’t find anything that would give him sufficient points – Marlena and I had the Guild Halls, Fee had one of the City Halls and I held the other in hand for most of the second half of the game. He didn’t do well on monuments either. Combine this with the fact he began in the fourth seat, and he got to see why I don’t rate four-player as highly as two or three player.

After San Juan we play Domaine. Domaine is a game we played a few times earlier in the year, and we haven’t played it since. It seems like if I don’t bring it Fee asks why I didn’t bring “that knights and castles game” and when I do bring it we don’t play.

We are seated as follows: Tony, Marleena, Fiona, me. We follow the rule in the rulebook which says oldest player begins (though this is stupid as it means Tony always begins – need to remember to do something different next time), and Tony, Marleena and Fee are all able to place their castles by mines in three of the corners of the board. The fourth corner doesn’t have a mine, so I go for a mine adjacent to Marleena’s, with the idea being that I can enclose my castle using some of the walls she plays.

The second round of Castle placing sees Tony and Fee try to claim more mines, whilst Marleena makes the first move to claiming the City with a very central castle, whilst I place mine just off to one side of the city (in what would turn out to a very good position – not sure if this was luck or good judgement).

After the final round of castle placing, I begin the game [we had a discussion afterwards about whether the opening order is properly balanced – it seems to favour the player in Tony’s seat who gets to place castles first and play second].

As always the game begins with everybody making small Domaines containing mines, and expanding to gain adjacent mines. Tony rapidly gets an advantage in income, Fee is also doing well, whilst Marleena and I both spend some time playing Knights in adjacent Domaines.

This side of the board rapidly becomes very crowded. Marleena has the Domaine in one corner, with mine adjacent. Tony is in the opposite corner and Fee is between him and me. Marleena and I have both been playing Knights – she wants to expand into my Domaine, whilst I want to defend my early mine. I am able to claim a second mine (mainly because I get to it before Fee does), before losing my first to Marleena. Meanwhile Tony is expanding into Fee’s Domaine. After I get hit by a traitor card it’s obvious to me that my Domaine isn’t sustainable in the long term, and I start working on plan B.

The alternative plan is this: I have a Castle on side of the board nearest me, and it is the only Castle on that side. All of the Castle on the nearby edges have already formed Domaines. Therefore there is a possibility of making this into a very large Domaine.

This is a plan I have been working towards ever since forming my first Domaine on the congested side of the board. This began expanding towards the centre of the board, both claiming useful squares and placing boundary stones that will help to enclose my other Castle. I even put a couple of boundary stones in the middle of the board early on, in what appeared at the time to everybody else to be a random move. When my expanding Domaine meets up with these Walls, and a few turns later I complete a large Domaine worth about 10-15 points it doesn’t seem so random any more.

As nobody else has completed a Domaine so near the centre of the board, I am then able to expand into the Capital City. This sees me near the winning margin for a couple of turns, but it’s clear this isn’t sustainable – everybody has more knights than me.

Tony has spent the entire game with the best income, and also has some strong Domaines. Marleena has had good income, and managed to achieve a monopoly. I had very weak income most of the game, until I scored that large Domaine, which also gave me good points. Fee has had a bad position most of the game, she never had great income, got squashed between Marleena’s and Tony’s strong Domaines, and spent most of the game unable to really do anything. This can happen in four player games, where each player only has three Castles.

I lose some of my large gains to Fee, but an alliance card prevents Marlena from taking the City off me. I make a mistake on the final turn, selling an Alliance card for money, when I could have protected a couple of Forests from Tony. The money was irrelevant, as Tony and Marleena both have way more than me, although it made no difference to the final outcome.

Tony’get the bonus points for being the richest at game and wins the game, Marleena bonus for also being the richest isn’t enough for her to catch me, so she finishes third. Fee finishes in last place.

Domaine definitely works better with three than four (this is the opposite to T&E in my opinion). I haven’t yet tried it with two.

We concluded with a few hands of The Great Dalmuti. We play with the 11s & 12s removed as there was only four of us. There’s only time for three hands before I have to leave, mainly because we have two Great Revolutions, which delay matters somewhat. Dalmuti is a fun filler, but it seems like I have an unfair advantage, cause I’m card counting, and I don’t think the others are (or not as much as I am – surely everybody remembers basic things like if the Dalmuti has been played). In each of the three hands I retain or improve my position, which is as much as you can ask for in a game of Dalmuti (I was Dalmuti when the second greater revolution occurred).

After this weekend, it's re-enactment events for the next two. Argghhh! I'll be glad when it's winter and we can game every weekend.

What's been going on?

2006-08-20T09:54:00.000+01:00

The quick answer is - not a lot :(

No board games on the last three Sundays due to re-enactment events and a wedding. Hopefully as we move into autumn these interuptions will become less common.

I haven't been able to make the last two weeks of Blood Bowl either, due to commitments on Thursday. The week before that the games started late and I ended up abandoning my game at 11:35pm after turn 7 of the second half. We had to rush the second half just to get that far, and after a TD had been scored I just didn't have the time to play a pointless turn 8 and do the post game stuff. I only went to make (I thought) make up the numbers - as it turned out there was an odd number of players - so to be honest I'd rather not have bothered. The league should be moving back to the normal venue next week, were games can start much earlier again.

It's been such a drought recently that I actually got persuaded to play some Vs a couple of weeks ago. It was okay, but nothing special. Now that Tony has got a set of Enemy of my Enemy (the strongest search card in the game) in many ways the game seems to have moved away from what made it so interesting to me in the first place.

Back when the game started the emphasis seemed to be on combat between the characters - deciding formations and attacks, and how to best utilise your plot twists to get KOs and breakthrough. It many ways it had managed to transfer the gameplay of limited MtG (which is normally much more interesting than constructed MtG) into a constructed format whilst improving it. There were problems with some games being blowout to a player not drawing enough, or the right characters but I could live with that.

In the last few sets the amount of deck searching that is available seems to have reached a ridiculous level, so that now games seem to involve searching your deck for the answer you need to trump the other guys deck. Possibly UDE realise this - one of the preview cards for Heralds of Galactus seems to be a playable extract effect (search your opponents deck and remove a card).

I've played some two-player Puerto Rico on a couple of evenings. Had a couple of games against Matt, the first of which I won easily, then in the second I tried some slightly different tactics, that caused me to fall behind early and I wasn't able to make up the deficit. I enjoyed those games and managed to persuade Fiona to play a couple of games a few days later. I won the first easily as well, and then in the second managed to make a complete hash of the opening turns and fall miles behind again! This time I was able to comeback and win, although Fee missed a move on the closing turn that would have left my large building unmanned. That would have been enough for her to win, but she was tired and didn't spot it.

Sunday 23/07/06: Alhambra, Hare & Tortoise, San Juan

2006-07-24T16:03:00.000+01:00

It seems like ages since I last played some games.

Part of the reason is that it has been ages. The last Sunday evening was two weeks ago, and we had six players that night, and spent most of it playing Apples to Apples. Since then I haven’t managed to fit anything in apart from a couple of games of two player Puerto Rico and a round of Lost Cities.

This week Scott joined the regulars (Fee, me, Tony and Bekki). His favourite game is Alhambra (and the girls seem to love it was well) so we started with that.

I had one of those games were everything went perfectly. I’m pretty certain I’m the best Alhambra player in the group anyway, and I won with a score of 104, almost 30 points ahead of second place. At every scoring round I had a majority in Towers (it really helped that only one Tower appeared before the first scoring round and I was able to grab it), a majority or share-thereof in Gardens, and the longest Wall.

This game was the first time that I actually spent any actions redeveloping my Alhambra. I actually bought a Tower that I couldn’t place to protect my majority, and later when I bought another Tower with no wall, I noticed that instead of simply placing it, I could swap it with my only Manor (I bought it to connect all of my walls), and the turn after place the other Tower, both guaranteeing a Tower majority and extending my wall further.

After Alhambra we played Hare & Tortoise. Only Fee and Tony had played this before, and the rules translation Tony had didn’t seem to be the greatest. Having looked at some slightly better rules translations online we were definitely playing some rules wrong. In particular we were playing that you could move backwards to the next empty Tortoise space. At one point I moved back 16 spaces!!! [The reason for this was that it would let me move onto a lettuce space next turn - the lettuce in front of me was occupied.]

After my huge move backwards, I had a large amounts of carrots, and was planning to finish in a few large bounds, but it wasn’t clear whether Tony, who had been plodding along in first place would beat me there or not. I the end Tony reached there on the same turn as I did, but he was sitting before me and took first place.

We were a long way ahead of the other three. Although Fee says she really enjoys Hare & Tortoise, I think the game is strategic and calculational enough for Tony & I to have a large advantage. And once the field gets spread out a little, there’s less ‘multiplayer chaos’ than I would have expected. [This may be because we were allowing the large jumps backwards]

Scott, who had made some good moves early on, before losing lots of carrots on an ill advised jugging of the hare, finished third, and Fee managed to finish fourth eventually. Both her and Bekki had problems with arriving near the finish with far too many carrots.

Scott left after H&T, but we didn’t have time for either of the meatier games I had brought (Domaine or Tigris & Euphrates) so we played a hand of San Juan. I had nothing for the first couple of builds, so saved up for Silver, then built a Black Market. I also get a Smithy, so I figure I’m planning for some kind of Production plan, which is fortunate when I find a Guild Hall mid-game.

Coming to the final builds, it is clear the game is between me and Tony. Tony has been going for the violet plan, and has been using both Quarry and Poor House to accelerate his builds (he’s a couple ahead of me, and I’m a couple ahead of Fee and Bekki), and he has a City Hall. I suspect I might need to slip in a cheap catch-up production build to overtake him, but you don’t get much control in four-player. As it turns out Tony, as governor is able to close the game by building a Palace for 25+6=31 points, whilst my Palace leaves my score as 24+6=30. Very close!

It seems likely that after this weekend the next boardgame session may be some time off to various commitments.

Sunday 02/07/06: One False Step for Mankind, Apples to Apples, Alhambra

2006-07-04T16:22:00.000+01:00

A bit of a different Sunday evening this week. I get a text mid-afternoon from Fiona saying Marlena and Becky will be there at six, and can I bring some counters for a game (in hindsight it should have been obvious that this involved playing a Cheapass game).

I arrive just after six, and we spend the next half an hour setting up One False Step for Mankind. It needs so many counters and tokens it’s ridiculous! Scott arrives before we begin, so we end up starting a five player at about quarter to 7, after both he and Fee (who have played before) have read the rules and failed to understand them. I end up speed-reading the rules and run the game more than they do, and I’d never played before. The idea was we were supposed to be starting early so Tony wouldn’t have to wait too long after he arrived about 7:30!

Obviously this doesn’t work (one of the games faults is that it takes too long), so we end up playing for about an hour, and then basically stopping. Fee announces Becky as the winner because she managed to send somebody to the moon! Personally I consider myself a winner at that point, as I’m no longer playing! Not a good game.

With Tony also present we need six player games. That’s a little tricky. We start with a quick round of Apples to Apples, which I win (or Tony won and I came second – can’t remember), and then we play Alhambra. I have Elfenland, which also plays six, but that seems like a game that takes twice as long with six than three players, unlike Alhambra where you’re still selling off exactly the same number of tiles. And everyone likes Alhambra anyway.

I get an okay start and am second or third at the second scoring, but collapse at the final scoring, when my two Towers (which was good for second place at the second scoring) gets overtaken by Marlena and Becky and I don’t manage to connect my wall at all. I finish fifth. Tony gets the majority in Gardens to move through to second place, almost catching Becky who has been leading most of the way. She is in a three way split for Towers with Fee and Marlena and has a good wall.

Alhambra isn’t great with six, but it’s useful to have a game that most people enjoy and can handle that many if needed unexpectedly. Most games wouldn’t (I only had Elfenroads cause it has loads of bits needed for One False Step for Mankind – normally I wouldn’t have any six player games).

Afterwards we just sit around playing Apples to Apples some more, lengthening the game to first to ten. Pete joins us this time, which is good for me, as I seem to have a very good understanding of his warped mind (who else would find Witch Hunts Fabulous, I also got him to pick Electric Chair) and I got four of my seven cards from him! Tony wins though.

I’m not sure how much you can read into the fact that the two most successful players at Apples to Apples were Tony and I, the two most serious gamers. Certainly everyone had fun, and it got very silly at times (some of us had been drinking). An enjoyable change from the norm – it seems unlikely we’ll have six players again any time soon, so it’ll probably be back to more serious gaming next time.

Blood Bowl 29/06/06: Dark Elves vs Goblins

2006-07-03T10:32:00.000+01:00

The final update to the Blood Bowl playtest vault rules have now been issued (as Living Rulebook 5), and they’ve come at a convenient time. With my recent move to Newport I have more spare time, and opponents within walking distance.

The local league meets every Thursday, and has six players. Last week I started a new Dark Elf team with a bad matchup against the Dave’s Norse (I’m not really in a position to take advantage of his armour of 7, as with all of his players having block or strength 4, my players are the ones falling over). I really suffered with the injury rolls (of three casualties two were dead, and I made one out of eight KO rolls), so my team was somewhat depleted this week, with two journeymen required to make up the numbers.

This week I played against James’s Goblins. I get a dream start – I’m kicking to him and roll a Blitz! Two Blitzers are able to get tackle zones on the player under the ball (James had setup without wide tackle zones, and the ball scattered right behind the centre of the line of scrimmage) and after James fails to catch it, the ball scatters to one of the Blitzers who does.

The next six turns sees me slowly move the ball towards James’s end zone. A couple of times he is able to recover the ball, but he’s never able to protect it sufficiently, and I always have enough Elves around the ball to recover it easily. I would stall and score in the last turn of the half, but there is a Bombardier on the pitch (and James had already had one direct hit with throw team mate), making it impossible to get 100% safety, so I score on turn 6.

We both setup in a similar fashion again. This time the ball scatters wide. James throws some blocks, and seems to move everybody else before dealing with the ball and it costs him. He used all his rerolls in the first three turns, and turnovers without a tackle zone on the ball. I run in and pick it up (I still have one of my two rerolls left), then James provides a repeat performance next turn and I score probably the easiest touchdown I’ve ever scored.

2-0 at halftime, and I’m receiving, and the secret weapon players are gone (under the current rules they only play one drive). The second half kickoff is the first time the ball has been in my half, but it doesn’t stay there very long. I walk the ball into the endzone, the Goblins putting up almost no resistance.

The second half plays much like the first with me scoring another fairly easy touchdown. Only two really memorable events ocurred. Firstly, ones of the Trolls gets KO’d by a rock thrown from the crowd, and secondly, James had one turn left after I score for 4-0, and manages to make all the rolls needed for a one-turn, throw team mate touchdown. Very nice, and he probably deserved it. He did have some bad luck with some rolls I think, but he didn’t help himself by not always getting his priorities straight, so that when the bad luck struck, he left me in a good position.

Blood Bowl should be a weekly occurrence now I expect.

Sunday 11/06/06: San Juan, Lord of the Rings: Friends and Foes, Settlers of Catan

2006-06-23T11:20:00.000+01:00

Tony and I went round to Fiona's on Sunday evening. It was still quite light, and the table inside was mess, so we decided to play outside.

We start with a couple of hands of San Juan. In the first game Fiona and I are both into trading (she has Silver and Well, I have built Tobacco, Well, Aquaduct and Trading Post), whilst Tony is the odd man out, though he does have the strong Quarry & Carpenter combo. Fee and I then also both build Prefecture, to make Tony’s position look really bad, but he is fortunate enough to find the final one a few turns later.

I have the sort of balanced trading / violet position where I’m happy to find either Guild Hall or City Hall. I find a Guild Hall, so I close out with all production buildings. Tony doesn’t find a City Hall but does hit Triumphal Arch, a couple of monuments and Palace for a two point win over me. Fiona’s position looks awful but she has a final build City Hall to not lose by too much.

The second game is really weird. I get a first turn Poor House, and then proceed to rapidly build a collection of one cost buildings, triggering the poor House each time. I get to my eighth build four (!!!) buildings ahead of both Fiona and Tony. In addition to all my one cost buildings I have a Coffee for trading and a Chapel that is helping to keep me poor, effectively providing free victory points. Tony is amassing an okay (small) collection of violet buildings, but he has a Palace as opposed to a City Hall or Triumphal Arch, and that means I can close with a score of 22 for a 2 point win. I’ve never seen that strategy work in a three player before (and I’ve only seen it a few times in two-player). My draws during the opening turns were ideal – it seemed that every time the Poor House triggered the card I drew was another 1 cost building.

After that Fee wants to play something that will leave time for another game afterwards. Tony suggests Lord of the Rings (with F&F expansion), I foolishly describe it as a “one hour game” and we managed to talk Fee into it. This game of Friends and Foes proceeds much as the last one, we start with Sauron on 15, are never really in any danger of dying to 8 foes, and manage to skip Helm’s Deep and Shelob’s lair without too much trouble. In fact the four foes required to skip Shelob’s Lair are the last four in the deck, so under the rules as originally printed we would have won at that point. Instead we are playing the variant I saw suggested on BGG where we gain the Watchful Peace card when we kill all the foes. (Note that if we had been playing the official Black Gate variant this also would have lead to a trivial win – three of the last four foes re

The final board is only interesting as we manage to bugger up who is to be the ring bearer on the Mordor board, and I end with the ring, despite being the only one anywhere near Sauron, who is still on 14. Still we still have Gandalf’s Healing and the OOO Feature card, so we were never in too much danger, and sure enough we get near the summit, I put on the Ring and use Gandalf to automatically move four spaces, and we reach the summit and win.

Somehow Friends and Foes feels easier than the regular game. I think part of this is due to the fact that with Sam’s new ability and the new Gandalf card ‘Sauron does not advance’ you can effectively cancel three events, rather than just one. Gandalf cards that used to be quite important like ‘double wild’ and ‘draw four cards’ aren’t always needed any more.

Of course the game took much longer than one hour and by the end the light was failing badly (we were playing in the garden), which made it hard to see what was going on, which had a negative impact on the game I think. It’s hard for everyone to be involved when they can’t see what’s going on. Not a great gaming experience.

It’s getting late by then, so the only way we’ll have time for another game is if I stay outside and clear up LotR whilst Fee and Tony go inside, clear some room and setup something else. When I get inside they’re setting up Settlers of Catan.

I’d never played Settlers before, and based on this game I don’t particularly want to again. Trading & negotiation isn’t a mechanic I particularly enjoy, so for me it was just an hour of sitting around, rolling dice, occasionally trading when somebody made an offer that tempted me. My interest diminished even further during the game when it became apparent we weren’t going to finish in time, and I was in last place anyway. Sure enough we didn’t finish. A lame finishing to an overall sub-par evening. And we won’t be able to play for the next few weeks probably (more re-enactment events).

Sunday 04/06/06: Flea Circus, Lord of the Rings Friends & Foes, Starbase Jeff

2006-06-09T16:14:00.000+01:00

Fiona was away again this weekend, but this time Bekki, Tony and I managed to get ourselves organised, and they come round for games on Sunday evening.

We start with a few hands of Flea Circus to get us in the mood. I win the first, Bekki wins the second when I call the gala show early but with poor cards, and I won the third. Over the three games Bekki actually has the highest score, but the rules don’t mention adding the scores, so I win 2-1 I guess? Either way Tony’s last.

After that we’re ready for something more serious, except Bekki wants to play something not too difficult that we’ve played before, cause she’s not feeling up to anything harder (I think she might have got a bit too much sun during the day). We settle on Lord of the Rings with the Friends and Foes expansion. I get out the Lord of the Rings box and then leave the room to make some more tea.

When I get back a few minutes later I find they’ve got as far as taking off the lid, removing the main board, Sauron and the One Ring. That’s it! So I spend the next five minutes setting up the game, and explaining the Friends and Foes additions. We start with Sauron on 15 (as is recommended when playing with F&F for the first time), Bekki is Frodo, I’m Sam and Tony is Pippin. Merry and Fatty get left behind again.

We failed to complete Bree, mainly because we had trouble avoiding get overrrun with foes after some [][] roles on the dice. We avert a complete disaster though, as I have a surfeit of Hiding Hobbit cards, so we are actually able to pay the 7 Hiding required to avoid @@@ on the final event. (Going straight from the Shire into a game board feel really weird the first times you play F&F – you’re so used to having Rivendell goodies when you face the first board in the regular game).

We just survive Moria, fleeing with the power of the Ring, just before things get too bad. At this point I as Sam, am incredibly corrupt (about 6 or 7) mainly because I keep taking damage to kill foes (I’m Sam after all so it seems best I do it), whilst Tony as Pippin has barely been corrupted at all.

During Isengard our plan is to clear out the Foes so we can skip Helm’s Deep & hopefully Shelob’s Lair. Killing off the foes is easy enough, but requires a bit of thought to make sure you end the board with exactly none in play. You wouldn’t want one to appear on the last turn and be unable to kill it, letting all your hard work go to waste. We avoid any such mishap, and are able to skip Helm’s Deep. This reveals four new foes, which Bekki, as the new Ring-bearer needs to kill off between boards to let us skip Shelob’s Lair as well. With the power of Gandalf’s Firestorm, this is achevied, and we skip Shelob’s Lair.

Coming into Mordor, nobody is looking too healthy, but we still have plenty of stuff left – enough shields to call on Gandalf several times, my power to cancel an event, and Bekki still has the OOO feature card in hand. It is apparent though that it would be trivial for us to gain a Military Victory – the four foes revealed when we skipped Shelobs Lair where the last four in the deck. I had mentioned previously that Military Victory was apparently too easy, and we all agreed that we would just ignore the foes for the last board (I couldn’t remember what the Black Gate card did exactly).

As it turns out we in fact have more than enough stuff to make it to Mount Doom, as we get most of the way and then I spot that Bekki can put on the Ring & call on Gandalf to take no damage and make the move four squares, which will bring her to Mount Doom, and the OOO card means she can’t die when trying to lob in the One Ring – so we win!

We end the evening with a couple of hands of Starbase Jeff. Supposedly this is a tile-laying / gambling game. It seems like it has some interesting mechanics, but fails to actually turn them into a game. That seems to be the conclusion of my geekbuddies as well, but a surprising large number of people seem to rate the game as one of the best from Cheapass (depending on your point of view that still may not mean much). Perhaps there is something there. Tony seems to always have it with him, so I’ll guess I’ll get the chance to find out soon enough.

Update

2006-06-01T07:35:00.000+01:00

I've been busy at work, and the home computer stopped working over the bank holiday weekend, so it's been a while since I've managed to write anything.

I managed to play a couple of games of San Juan against Matt during lunch hours at work last week, a couple of fairly easy wins.

I couldn't arrange any major boardgame sessions over the long weekend (Fiona away, two of the Matts doing DIY), so went round to see Matt Saturday evening for Beers & Games (Cider & Games in my case).

We started with a two-player Louis XIV. Two player seems a lot more relaxing than four player, as you can just play directly against your opponent without everyone else messing up your plans. And obviously the downtime is much reduced. I managed to complete one more mission than Matt, but he had way more shields, and took the win.

We then tried Babel, which I picked up in a trade recently. It didn't really grab either of us, we both blew some stuff up, got to the end of the Temple Pile, and that was that. Matt won. I suspect there must be a good game in there somewhere (my geekbuddies rate it highly), but I'm not sure I'll find it. I have too many other games I'd rather play two-player, so Babel has hit the trade list.

We finished with a game of San Juan, I got an awful start, everything I tried to do to get back into the game Matt countered (ie I build a Tower, his next build is Chapel), and couldn't find decent VP buildings. With some really tight play at the close I am able to force Matt to use his Crane to build both the City Hall and Triumphal Arch, to only lose by 13 points! (funniest thing all evening: Matt picks Builder, and build a Prefecture. I also build, and then Prospect. Matt says "well I have a Prefecture, so it's obvious what I do here", and picks Councillor. I keep both cards, Matt says "aren't you discarding one?" and I point to the Prefecture I built when he did! - he was so happy to supposedly have the Prefecture advantage, he didn't look at what I was doing).

After that I've had too much to drink for more games, so we sit around watching Scuzz until it's time for my bus.

Finally, last night, I was supposed to go round to Fiona's for some Carcassone: The Castle, and then "we might go the pub late on" (it's open mic night, and if you go late you miss the really awful singer), but it didn't quite work out that way. She & Pete got dragged to pub for dinner, so I met them there, and we ended up playing drunken Carcassone in the back of the pub at 11. And I won twice, which is unheard of for Carc.

Tuesday 23/05/06 Carcassone the Castle, Gin Rummy (& San Juan)

2006-05-24T18:08:00.000+01:00

Fiona was eager to play some Carcassone the Castle, but we didn’t manage to fit it in last weekend, so when my plans to go to the cinema fell through, we managed to fit a few games in.

In a huge break with tradition I absolutely ran away with the first game. I got an absurdly lucky sequence of roads to begin with (the crossroads with a well in the centre, followed by three road ends!) and am able to pick up several bonus tiles. Fee looked like making a comeback when she scores 24 with a Tower x2 tile, but I still win comfortably.

Normal service is resumed in game 2. Fee has a pair of Market bonus tiles, and easily wins the Keep bonus for the win.

Game 3 looks close, but I’m relying on a large road network, with a Well (I have an Incomplete Road bonus tile, so I’ll score it even if it doesn’t complete). But just before the end Fee is able to also get a Meeple onto it, and I’m not able to get a second on before the game end. That’s about 20 points gone, and I lose.

After that I teach Fee Gin Rummy. The rules are pretty simple (for anyone who has ever played any game of Rummy before) , even if they gameplay isn’t (you really need to make some effort to remember what the other guys been doing). I blow the first hand by knocking with a score of 10 far too late, and Fee is able to undercut me. She wins the next as well, but I then get three large wins, including a very early Gin that catches her with about 40 points in hand, to take the first game (game is typically 100-up).

The second game goes the other way, I take an early lead, she then catches up, and after a few hand we both have scores in the 70’s. She takes a small win to take her into the 80’s, and in the next hand she gets a very early Gin, to take the game.

We have time to close with a quick game of San Juan before I leave. I get a poor start, don’t see any six-pointers, and Fiona doesn’t make any mistakes to beat me by about 10 points.

Introversion

2006-05-24T17:32:00.000+01:00

Everyone who knows me would tell you that I’m a quiet, reserved person. There is a reason for this.

My name is Simon, and I am an introvert.

Anybody who wants to know what that really means should read the following article.

I can still remember reading that article for the first time (I found it via a link on Neal Stephenson’s website) and thinking – “wow, that’s me” (but not exactly, I can actually get along fine with some extroverts who I like in a 1-on-1 situation – I create a void that they will quite happily fill, and they’re either too self absorbed to notice that I’m just listening without contributing to the conversation, or are aware that I’m quite happy to just listen).

I hadn’t realised until recently how my behaviour online mimics my behaviour ‘in real life’. In a large social group (such as BGG) I’ll tend to stay on the sidelines just listening. Despite the fact that I’ve been reading BGG daily for two and a half years now I have made approximately 167 posts - an average of a post every five and a half days!

Conversely I’ll eagerly get involved in a discussion about somebody’s blog. From reading their blog it feels like I know them, and I’ve no problem having a discussion on an interesting topic with somebody I ‘know’.

Sunday 21/05/06: Louis XIV, Ticket to Ride, High Society, San Juan

2006-05-23T09:51:00.000+01:00

For the first time in what seems like ages we have a regular Sunday night of games. (me, Tony, Becky and Fiona at Fiona’s) Happy days!!!

We start by trying to learn Louis XIV. I think I do an okay job explaining the rules, considering there so much going on, and we didn’t have any serious rules problems or queries during the games, although people’s heads were exploding during the game trying to take in all the possibilities.

As I would expect with a first play of a game with so much going on (and Tony’s playing slowly as well, including a couple of long thinks followed by moves which are instantly retracted – god, that’s annoying), the game goes on for a long time (over 2 hours), and starts to drag a bit for Becky and Fee towards the end.

Fee comments that she doesn’t mind games that are hard work if they are fun, but it was obvious she was getting bored by the end. I think Tony and I find games like this fun because they are hard work, but that not obviously going to be the case for everyone.

Tony seems to be winning (he completes two difficult missions in the second round, which gives him a couple of strong powers), but as with Goa (also a Rudiger Dorn game) at the end, despite all the gameplay, and Tony’s endless thinking the scores are in fact incredibly close. Everybody has completed six missions, so it comes down to Shields, and Tony just beats Becky and me.

After that we need something lighter, so we decide to play Ticket to Ride (it makes a change from Alhambra). I get an okay set of starting tickets (Portland – Phoenix, Portland – Nashville), until the opening trains all appear in the Southwestern corner, and after claiming Portland – San Francisco I’m blocked out of the direct route into Phoenix. So I have to regroup, and head across the country via Seattle and Helena.

The thing that annoys me about TTR in real-life (as opposed to online) is that the little cards are so fiddly. Optimum play often involves collecting a load of them, which are awkward to hold, the colours aren’t the clearest, and somebody has to go to the trouble of constantly replenishing the display of wagon cards available, and passing cards to those who can’t reach them. Tonight that person was me – it does keep the game flowing, but leads to one mistake when I make my move too quickly, taking cards when I should have claimed Oklahoma City – Little Rock, that would have cost me if Fiona had stolen it (she didn't).

After this possible detour is avoided I’m able to complete my route into Nashville. It’s clear that I should be able to get into Phoenix from Denver without problems, so now I decide to concentrate on collecting set of wagon cards to score some 15point connections. The key moment (as it turns out) comes when I decide not to block Becky. She has Los Angeles – El Paso – Houston, and then claims Miami – New Orleans. (she already has Miami – Charleston. I could have (& should have) blocked Becky by taking Houston – New Orleans, but I mistakenly thought “blocking is rarely effective in four player”. This is incorrect reasoning – at the time Becky and I probably had the best positions, so I should block Becky, as she is in fact my direct opponent. (Note to self: do not underestimate Becky just because she displays too much cleavage and is almost innumerate). [Actually, I think I may have underestimated the importance of this play because Becky’s score at the time was incorrect – we discovered she was someway short at the end, when we recalculate the scores]

I end the game as quick as I can (completing a couple of 15 point routes and connecting from Denver into Phoenix), but it’s not quick enough to catch anyone with incomplete tickets – I’m one turn off stranding Tony with –20 points. By the end Becky has completed one large line of routes along the South and up the Western coast, and the 10 point bonus is just enough for her to beat me by a couple of points. Fiona is last, which disappoints her, but she had awful tickets, one semi decent ticket and a tiny 6 point ticket up the Western coast, that you have to complete by claming tiny connections, worth very few points.

Next time I see her I’ll have to explain the plan involving ignoring such tickets and playing to score 15 point routes and finish the game. I’m sure that would have been a better plan in her position.

After Ticket to Ride, to Becky and Fee’s obvious disappointment there isn’t enough time left to play Alhambra. Instead we play a couple of hands of High Society. The first sees Becky spend far too much early on a couple of Recognitions, leaving her very little to actually buy possessions with (she acquires the 3, but that only gives her a score of 12, which can easily be beaten). She ends the game the poorest (after also paying to avoid the Thief and Gambling Debts) and Tony wins.

The second game also starts with a Recognition, which I win. Becky then blows most of her money winning the 9 and the 8, but at least this gives her a total of 17, which she might be able to defend. This game goes long (the last four tiles are 7,10, -5 and the final Recognition), and is very close between Tony, Fiona and I. I win the 7, putting me in the lead, but then the 10 comes up, and Tony and I don’t think we can outbid Fiona, and the next tile ends the game, with Fiona winning. Becky is the poorest by a long way - $7,000,000 – but although I ended up with $32,000,000 I still couldn’t have outbid Fee for the 10, as I only had $1, $6 & $25 left. A good game – I think Fiona enjoyed it a bit too, although High Society doesn’t seem to be her kind of game. And it’s definitely not Becky’s kind of game – as well as too much adding, she seems to be unable to stop impulse buying!

Tony has to leave, but we decide to end with a quick three player game of San Juan. Nobody gets a dominating position, nor does anybody get totally left behind (which can be a problem in three player if both opponents end up doing the same things, leaving somebody odd man out), and the final scores are very close. Becky has twelve buildings for 32 points (Fee and I only managed eleven builds), I have a City Hall and Guild Hall for 33, and Fee has a City Hall and Palace for 35 points. Fee wins!

Now Fiona is away again for the next couple of weekends. Maybe we’ll be able to arrange something for the bank holiday Monday instead.

Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation (& San Juan)

2006-05-20T13:02:00.000+01:00

After my week of suffering I was feeling well enough to pop round and see Fiona for a few games on Friday evening.

We started with me teaching her Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation. The basic rules are quite simple (movement, combat, victory conditions, special movement cases), so we were underway quite quickly. The real challenge in learning this game comes from the need to consider the many possible interactions of characters and cards (some of which aren't even properly clarified in the rulebook, hence I keep the six page FAQ with my copy of the game).

Anyway, I played the Good guys, with Fee the forces of Evil. As this was Fiona's first game, and my first game for ages, we tended towards the obvious moves, rather than cunning bluffs. So I ran around killing stuff with Gandalf, until he was taken out by the Orcs, Fee put the Balrog in Moria etc. My early Gandalf rampage and some good card choices have given me a good advantage, and it looks like Frodo can march unnoposed into Mordor, but I'd forgotten about the Flying Nazgul, who kills him. If I'd remember Fee had earlier revealed the Nazgul, I could have killed it by recasting Heroic Sacrifice with the Magic card.

So Fiona won, and seemed to think the game was okay. It's difficult to be anymore enthusiastic than that after just one game. Maybe it'll grow on her, maybe not. It might be slightly too analytical, although the unknown factors mean you can overthink things - a couple of times I made the mistake of assuming Fiona might work out was I trying to do and react opposing, but she didn't so I ended up trapping myself. Don't overthink this game against beginners!

After LotR we just play San Juan (of course). I can't remember the specifics of the four games, but two were blowouts, and two were actually very close, and I wasn't sure who was going to win, though I both edged them both by a few points. The large victories tend to come when I get a better start than Fiona, cause I'm utterly ruthless about not letting her back into the game, and will often rush out to 12 buildings very quickly for the win (such as one game this evening were my first two builds were Carpenter and Quarry).

The games were generally quite varied - I even won one game by building Well (which is actually an okay building) and both Trading Post and Market Stand (which are usually rubbish), all of which were useful. I guess most buildings do have their uses (particularly in two-player, which lets you try plans that would be unfeasable against more than one opponent). I won one of the games using Tower very effectively, and in another I had an okay Black Market (I found Aquaduct, but had trouble finding Indigo), and a useful Chapel. I've still never needed to build an Archive though, other than as a very cheap violet when Gold Mine wasn't available. It remains the black sheep of the San Juan family.

After four games we decided to call it a night. I suspect if I didn't have a girlfriend at home expecting me we could have kept playing San Juan all night. I haven't done that since playing Magic The Gathering all night at Cambridge. Two player San Juan is really that good!!!

P.S. The first draft of this post contained what could be considered a very revealing Freudian slip :)

No games :(

2006-05-20T12:40:00.000+01:00

No games for over a week - I can't remember the last time that happened. There were two reasons:

a) Sunday was Walk the Wight, a 26.5 mile charity walk across the Isle of Wight. Nobody seemed to have much enthusiasm for games afterwards, I can't imagine why.

b) Ever since then I've had a terrible cold, so I've not been going out during the evenings.

I'm feeling much better now, so hopefully normal service will now be resumed.

Even more San Juan!

2006-05-12T17:38:00.000+01:00

Fiona and I now have some kind of San Juan addiction. It really is a great two-player game. We managed to find time for two more games after her Systema class Thursday evening.

In the first game I start sensibly with a Tobacco, Fiona having no build. When I then also build a Well Fiona decides to drop a Statue. She does know instinctively that’s she not supposed to do that, and sure enough next turn she realises she doesn’t really have any good options. I then build another Tobacco and Indigo, and am able to produce two goods to none, whilst Fiona has a Prefecture. I then have both a Chapel and Palace in hand.

I’d been thinking that it had been a long time since I’d seen a Chapel used effectively, and as I have the Palace as well (which will turn each card discarded to the Chapel into 1.25pts) I decide to go for it. I build the Chapel, and then store a card almost every turn. I’m pretty certain I don’t pick Builder again the entire game, I just dump my hand into most expensive thing I can afford whenever Fiona builds, and then refill my trading from my many production goods. If Fiona doesn’t build, I’m quite happy to trade anyway, even if it will take me over eight cards – just think of it as a Councillor in which Fiona doesn’t get to use her Prefecture.

Fiona builds a Black Market, which helps her with my repeated Production, and also a Poor House, which in theory is a nice combo with Black Market, but she doesn’t seem to get as much use out of it as I expected. Between my Chapel and her Poor House she should be trying to close out the game as quickly as possible I think. This is often a point that it takes beginners many games to understand – in two player don’t play to maximise your score by trying to assemble the perfect set of buildings, play to maximise the difference between your score and your opponents., so you’ll win!

By the end of the game Fiona has a decent collection of Buildings including a set of Monuments and an Arch, and both City Hall and Guild Hall, but it’s not enough to beat quite enough to beat my score, which includes an 11 point Chapel (the highest I’ve personally seen).
A very instructive game, but I don’t think the 11 point Chapel is a scenario likely to come up very often.

The second game I get a dream Violet position - my builds being on order: Prefecture, Market Hall (just before Fiona is about to do the first trade), Carpenter, Quarry, then Hero and Victory Column, City Hall, Triumphal Arch and Palace, before closing out with Chapel and Statue for a total of 50+ points. Fiona has been using Smithy the entire game, and has accumulated the biggest collection of Silver Smelters I’ve ever seen (six), but as expected the Guild Hall plan can’t possibly compete with a perfect set of violet buildings, and I win again.

Afterwards I point out to Fiona that (a) she forgot to Produce / Produce / Trade / Trade, which she needs to do to get best use her many production buildings, and (b) Smithy / Guildhall makes the smaller production buildings more efficient than building lots of Silver. In a way these are the same mistakes as the first game – concentrating too much on assembling the highest score she can, without worrying enough about what I'm up to.

More San Juan

2006-05-09T17:03:00.000+01:00

Fiona was just round the corner with Pete at his mum’s house Monday evening, so I popped round for a few games of San Juan (Fiona seems to be too addicted to SJ to play anything else).

I win the first game fairly comfortably, starting with an early Smithy. I get a Market Hall as well, and am able to Produce / Produce then Trade / Trade (Fiona only having the starting Indigo). I then find a Guild Hall mid-game, and close out quickly with Indigos and Tobaccos for an 18 point Guild Hall. Fiona is going violet, but I was able to prevent her from dropping the Triumphal Arch she had in hand by rushing to 12 buildings - the correct way to win with Smithy.

The second game I get a solid start, with an early Well. I use this income to build several large production units and Monuments, and then find a Prefecture, to counter Fiona’s early Prefecture. Once I am able to pick Councillor without giving Fiona any advantage I do so repeatedly, as I need to find a large building (with my mixture of productions, violets, and monument, any will do). I find a Palace, which I’m about to build when a Guild Hall turns up. That’s my 11th build, and when Fiona fails to close out the game with me having six cards in hand I’m able to drop the Palace by picking Builder myself. I win this game as well.

Fiona realised after this game that she had basically stopped picking Councillor, once I built my Prefecture, and at the end of game she didn’t have enough good buildings because of this. She also had terrible luck with a very early Gold Mine, which only worked once during the entire game.

The final game I get an awful start. I spend all of my opening hand on a Quarry, but Fiona drops a Prefecture, and I’m unable to find any other violets worth building. I have a City Hall in hand, but drop a couple of buildings behind. My next build is actually a Hero - efficient in terms of VP, but I think you’re supposed to be developing your income with your third build. I struggle along like this, dropping a Market Hall to help offset Fiona’s production advantage, until I get a sixth build Carpenter. Now, despite my bad start, and Fiona’s huge income advantage (she has Silver and Gold Mine, possibly Prefecture as well, and is about to drop a second Silver) I’m right back in the game. I drop the City Hall, and as I’m unable to find any decent violets and am losing in terms of income anyway I rush out to 12 buildings with very cheap violets like Gold Mine and Archive (when you have Quarry & Carpenter they don’t cost you anything).

This plan is just enough for me to win by a few points. I really thought Fiona was going to win this game, but I didn’t panic, (it would have been easier to build some bad violets early on, just cause they were cheap), and even picked Councillor when Fiona had a Prefecture – I had to find something to build, to get back into the game.

I remember seeing a comment somewhere at BGG, that when somebody played against Andrea Seyfarth, that they couldn’t believe how often he would pick Councillor. But Fiona and I certainly can – I think it’s an important part of being a good San Juan player, understanding the importance of Councillor.

I have no doubt now that Fiona is a good San Juan player, despite my three wins. I really had to fight hard for these wins, and could easily have lost two of them. Fiona is just unfortunate that I’m an excellent San Juan player. I’m pretty certain she could beat anybody else we know in a two player game quite comfortably.

Sunday 07/05/06: San Juan, Lost Cities, Can’t Stop, LotR

2006-05-08T17:15:00.000+01:00

Due to a variety of misunderstood and forgotten messages and mobile phone mast breakdowns, the plan for Tony and Bekki (that’s how she seems to spell it) to both come round to mine didn’t quite work out. Bekki came round, but Tony thought she wasn’t, and so didn’t bother coming. Oh well.

We started with a couple of games of San Juan. Bekki has played once before, a four player that she won with Smithy & Guildhall – and what does she get in our first game – Smithy & Guildhall again. Meanwhile I’m going ‘mono-violet’, with my first builds being Prefecture and Gold mine, and City Hall in hand. I get a Carpenter (but not Quarry), and am able to maintain equality with Bekki in number of Buildings, as she spends time building a Palace.

With both of us having seven buildings I could conceivably finish with the following, which I have in hand: Victory Column, Hero, City Hall, Triumphal Arch, Palace! (I have a Tower in play, which will let me build, whilst retaining the others, and already have the Statue). But there’s no way a Smithy / Guildhall player should let that happen – they should rush me out with quick production builds.

This being Bekki’s second ever game, of course she doesn’t know that, and so she wastes enough time producing, trading and dropping large production buildings, that I am able to play them all except the Palace. On the penultimate turn I discard the Palace to build an Archive, letting me just build the Arch next role, as the governor, with Bekki being unable to build. As I end up winning by two points, this was a pretty good move!

The second game is more one-sided - Bekki doesn’t get a Smithy this time! I get an okay start with Poor House and Black Market, and am able to find a Guildhall, for a fairly comfortable win, despite having to build inefficient Tobaccos and Sugars. Bekki cripples herself by building a Palace very early, and finishes with an average City Hall (she had built too many production buildings).

In games of two player San Juan between a beginner and somebody with 50+ games, the beginner is a huge underdog. Considering this Bekki did very well.

After San Juan, we played a couple of quick hands of Lost Cities. Bekki quickly experienced the Lost Cities angst of a typical opening hand, where every move either seems like a bad idea, or a gamble, depending on your point of view. She wins the low-scoring first round 24-18 (she had a nice 36 doubled in blue for 32 points, to offset her total of 3(!) in white, whilst I just had four lowish scores), but I dominate the second, with much the better of the cards (the majority of the eights, nines and tens ended up on my side of the table), for a comfortable aggregate win.

During Lost Cities I had done the scoring each time – I’m pretty good at mental arithmetic, and know the game, so it’s seemed easier that way. Consequently I’d don’t discover just how bad her mental arithmetic is until we play Can’t Stop. She actually has trouble calculating the possible totals you could make by combining different pairs of dice! With a bit of help from me pointing out the possible totals, she is able to win, claiming columns 6, 7 and 9. It basically all comes down to the Sixes, where she just beats me. I crashed out more than she did, which I lead to me being too cautious when it came to try and close out on Six, and she pinched it.

Bekki needs a solid diet of Lost Cities, Can’t Stop and Cribbage. That’ll cure her mental arithmetic ills. Or drive her insane.

We had more time than expected after the one game of Can’t Stop, (her boyfriend was unable to get away from some urgent business on World of Warcraft), and so we finished with a game of Lord of the Rings. Bekki had played this before, didn’t have much trouble relearning the rules, and soon we were off to Mordor to destroy the Ring. Bekki was Frodo, and I was Sam (the reverse of how Lucy and I usually play). We had a little trouble in Moria, (‘Fly you fools’), but did okay through Helm’s Deep and Shelobs Lair, until Bekki rolled a triple corruption on the dice near the conclusion. In Mordor we hit event three very early, with neither of us having a Heart token, and this was enough to kill me, and Bekki rolled triple corruption again, to leave her within one space of the Eye, and only one card in hand. Her boyfriend arrived then, so we called it in Sauron’s favour.

Friday 05/05/06: Schotten Totten, San Juan

2006-05-06T20:12:00.000+01:00

I only got to play games once this week. I took some games round to Fiona & Pete's Wednesday evening, but the huge barbeque (I was pretty full after a large piece of pork and a couple of sausages, and then Pete put on a load of chicken legs), and copius alcohol proved too distracting (and Fiona and Scott couldn't stop fiddling with a large bundle of purple wool) .

So no games on Wednesday. But I managed to pop back round Friday evening, and we had time for a couple of games of Schotten Totten (which I got as far as explaining the rules to Fiona a couple of weeks ago) and a game of San Juan.

The first game of Schotten Totten seemed to be going Fiona's way - she won the first four stones. But you need five to win (or three in a row) , and I could sense that she might not win another. I was clear favourite on a couple of stones, one stone was blank and I had a strong straight flush to play, and for the other two stones Fiona was relying on completing single sided straight flushes, one of which I knew she couldn't - I had the required card in hand. I then draw the card she needs for the other straight flush, and am able to take the last five stones for a 5-4 win. Good game! (I am somewhat fortunate, in that Fiona has a straight flush in hand near the end of the game, but no unstarted stones on which to play it.)

The second game was a bit more one sided - after about ten cards Fiona commented that she'd already been "completely outplayed". I take a three stone to nil lead, and look to be winning at least a couple more. Sure enough I managed to win my fifth stone for a 5-2 win.

Schotten Totten really is an excellent game (kind of like a gamers version of Gin Rummy, not that Gin isn't an excellent game in it's own right). It's a shame that the production values of the commonly available version are so terrible. The cards have stupid artwork, the font isn't terribly clear, and the six colours include two shades of green. Couldn't the publishers think of six different colours?? When the gameplay really requires you to pay close attention to what cards are in play, this sort of niggles do distract from the enjoyment.

Lost Cities, another excellent two-player card game, suffers from the opposite problem - it's hugely overproduced. The cards are gorgeous and very clear, but far too large (Schotten cards are the size of regular playing cards, and so will at least fit in my pocket), and the the game comes with a completely unecessary board. Ideally I'd like to see both games with cards the size of Schotten Totten's, but the design quality of Lost Cities.

After Schotten Totten, we had time for one game of San Juan, which was a complete blowout. I had a much better start then Fiona anyway, and she wasn't helped by the fact my Gold Mine worked on the first two Prospectors. I got an early Carpenter and Prefecture and just ran away with the game, building a set of Monuments + Arch + Palace (despite picking Councillor most turns I couldn't find a City Hall). We didn't bother counting the scores.

During the games we had a DVD of Russian Martial Arts playing in the background (from the blurb "In the world of office violence, home invasions, hijackings & back-alley muggings, you must have the tools to survive"). Fiona is a proponent of Systema, but was complaining to me that she has a problem that all the rest of the class are men, and so some of them will go easy on her because she is a girl.

A lot of two player games have the property that if one player is better than the other (even slightly), they will tend to win most of the games (if not all). So far this has been my experience of my two-player games with Fiona. But unlike her Systema classmates, I won't go easier on her just becuase she's 'weaker' than me. I know whe wouldn't want me to - she's smart enough to play most games well and learn from my advice, and when she does win that makes it so much more satisfying.

And she can always kick my arse at Carcassonne (like pretty much anyone I play Carcassone against).

Monday 01/05/06: Puerto Rico, Goa, Carcassonne H&G

2006-05-02T17:24:00.000+01:00

Managed to get in a few games with Matt & Dave on Bank Holiday Monday.

We started with Puerto Rico, with quite a few of the expansion buildings thrown in (Black Market, Church, Small Wharf and Library).

The opening of the game sees Matt & I both try to use Black Market to our advantage, but not to any great success. The plantation tiles give me loads of corn, so I end up being the heavy shipper this game. I almost miss Harbour, but luckily for me Dave takes Factory instead.

(This occurs because of the following scenario: I have been saving for Harbour, and can afford it if I take Builder. But this would mean passing over Trader with 2 bonus doubloons. So I do the trade, but now everybody has enough to afford Harbour, and my LHO, Matt, picks Builder, meaning I can miss the Harbour. In my position, heavy on Corn, but with no trade goods, that would be bad).

My lack of income continues to cause me problems, and leads to me missing out on a Wharf. I purchase Small Wharf instead, but in hindsight Small Warehouse would have been more effective. I am hoping to purchase a Customs House, but I don’t come anywhere near affording one before the game ends. Matt doesn’t get one either, but he has still scored considerably more in Buildings than me. Dave ends on two large buildings, but only one occupied, when we run out of victory points.

The final scores are very close
Dave: 48
Simon: 51
Matt: 52

The game is close enough that I probably threw it away with one really dumb Craftsman pick about halfway through. And the player who won was the player with both the Harbour and the Wharf. That is starting to annoy me about 3 player.

Afterwards we teach Dave Goa. (Matt has only played once before, but seems to have remembered the rules very well.)

Goa is a strange game. The economics are very odd, and the luck elements (getting good colony draws, getting useful expedition cards, and hitting expedition sets at end of game) can overwhelm good play.

At halfway I think Dave has the best position. But he makes some mistakes in the second half (miscounting the number of colonists he has available, leading to a bad miss, not properly appreciating that the triangular scoring rewards you for concentrating on maxi one or two ‘tech trees’, and not planning properly for the end of the game, particularly the most cash bonus).

I beat Matt by a couple of points, on some good cash management (I was tracking approximate cash) and an expedition card strategy that saw me end up with 8 expedition cards in hand! This worked as follows: draw up to my hand size of 3, then use the Swap tile to take the Three Expeditions cards tile, and then hit two Expedition card bonuses by advancing Ship Building. I finished with a triple, a pair and three singles for 12 points from expedition cards. It meant I couldn’t play expedition cards for most of the second half of the game but that was a small price to pay.

We end by playing a quick game of Carcassonne Hunters & Gatherers. As usual with Carc I finish last, although this time I don’t think it’s my fault. Dave & Matt got a long sequence of tiles that let them both score for completed river and forests every turn (& when they only had one meeple left each to add insult to injury). I got a sequence of awkward tiles, and couldn’t compete with that kind of scoring.

UK Math trade completed!

2006-05-02T17:18:00.000+01:00

The UK Math trade at BoardGameGeek completed last week.

I've traded away Quo Vadis, Around the World in Eighty Days, Dos Rios and Tycoon.

I'm receiving: Louis XIV, Age of Steam, Babel, and Elfenroads.

Seems like a good deal to me. I got two of three games I really wanted (AoS and L XIV, the other being Santiago), and will no longer have to try and find room for Tycoon on my shelves.

Sunday 23/04/06: Domaine, Alhambra, San Juan

2006-04-25T16:14:00.000+01:00

Another Sunday, another boardgame session! This week Becky joins us. Apparently she used to play, but hasn’t been around for a while.

We start with Domaine (the “knight and castles” game), which Fiona has been pestering me to bring again since we first played it a few weeks ago. I miss out a couple of rules during the explanation (we forget to place starting knights with the castle until about turn 3, and I forgot to mention about paying for knights in forests).

Everybody knew about the importance of starting round the edge, and gaining early income (which we all did), but Becky didn’t realise that the other main point of the game is claiming the large negative spaces that are left in the middle of the game, so she finished last by some way.

I was placing Castles last during setup, so I had less access to the external mines than the other players. So once I have my first mine, I concentrate on playing Knights onto my central castle to set up a high scoring central domaine. At one point Becky can screw me over before I complete it, expanding through the middle of it to cut off most of my points, but she probably doesn’t see it (she admitted afterwards that had trouble visualizing the empty spaces, which is completely normal for a first game), and I get to complete a high scoring domaine with four knights in it. My first prime target for expansion was Fiona’s domaine, but she has an alliance card, so after expanding into the Capital City I am forced to expand into Becky’s only decent domaine (feels a bit rude as she is the beginner, but I had no other decent choice).

Whilst I was plodding along with an income of 1 a turn (2 when I completed the central domaine) Tony quickly got an income of 2, then 3, and had 4 before the end of the game. He gets a decent large domaine, and has most money at the end for a five point win over me. (Fiona finishes second richest, but still a few points behind me).

I could have won on the very last turn, but Tony has an alliance card that prevents me from using my last expansion to get a Diamond monoply. Foiled!

After Domaine I want to play Ticket to Ride, to see if my extensive online experience (50+ games, almost all fourplayer), will tell in the real world. I’m pretty certain they won’t have seen strategies like “ignore almost everything except the six-train routes” and “complete your initial tickets, then ignore everything except six-train routes” (my favourite strategies for the original TTR).

But instead we play Alhambra. It’s the game that defines our group really; we always seem to end up playing it.

For the second time in the evening we bugger up the setup – this time everybody seems to assume that somebody else has dealt with the scoring cards, and they end up just randomly shuffled into the deck. I was in the toilet, so it’s wasn’t my fault!

The first round turns up almost all of the gardens, and goes on for slightly too long, before we get suspicious, and fix the scoring cards. I have a couple of majorities, for second place behind Fiona, who had Towers plus a huge wall. My strategy for this section of the game was not to waste money fighting over the Gardens, a decision that definitely paid off (I didn’t buy any throughout the entire game).
At the second scoring I go into the lead (I still have two outright majorities, and some seconds), just ahead of Fiona, but she just catches me on the final scoring round (111) with a huge wall (fourteen I think). Tony finishes third, and sadly Becky finishes miles behind.

This game is probably representative of our overall Alhambra results – generally Fiona and I tend to do the best I think.

I’ve now played Alhambra probably five or six times, and I developed a strategy that works for me, based on efficiently acquiring tiles that actually matter in terms of majorities (don’t buy stuff just cause it’s free!). I tend not to worry about building a really large wall, preferring to have a flexible city, with plenty of room for new purchases.

Fiona adopts a different plan – she tends to be more of a committed wall builder, as shown above. It works well for her.

After Alhambra, we have just about an hour before Tony has to get his bus, so we decide to play San Juan. Becky has played Puerto Rico before, and it’s not very difficult, so we’re underway pretty quickly. This time I remember to explain all the rules!

It takes Becky a while to fully comprehend what’s going on, but she has a really good early position (Smithy built & Guildhall in hand!), and is able to claim the victory by a few points from Fiona, who has a nice City Hall setup, but struggled to find good final builds (despite Councillor with Library double privilege!). Tony has an okay production position (Well & Aquaduct etc), and has both City Hall and Guildhall in hand when the game is about to end, but not enough time to build them both, and finished third. He probably underestimated how quickly the Smithy player can end the game. Once they’ve built the Guild Hall, they will quite happily build Indigo every turn if they can. I have a terrible hand all game, only seeing a Palace and Triumphal Arch very late in the game, and I’m only able to build them buy overbuilding with a crane. I get just over 20 points in last place.

I don’t think San Juan works particularly well as a four player, for two reasons.

Firstly, there just aren’t enough six-costs buildings to go around (this isn’t helped by the fact that Guild Hall and City Hall are so much better than the other two). If you don’t get one early you have to play flexibly, but then even if you do draw one you’ll still lose to the player who got Guildhall or City Hall early, and played to maximise it.

Secondly there aren’t enough roles - the ratio of three roles out of five that occurs in two and three-player feels right to me, as it requires you to think about what’s going to happen. With four of the five roles occurring every round, the balance seems off.

For four player card game fillers I’ll try to stick to High Society in the future.

I was going to insert a rant here about people who chat too much when it’s their go, but it was probably a bit mean-spirited, so I’ll skip it. [During the evening I actually swore at Tony - he’s slow enough anyway, without spending his turn chatting about comic books characters. This drew a shocked “Simon swore!” from Fiona, that being the point of not generally swearing, people pay attention when you do.]

Midweek games

2006-04-25T16:12:00.000+01:00

Cribbage: Played two games against Fiona in the pub. She’s pretty new to Cribbage, and wanted somebody who knew the game to practice against. We played two games of six card Cribbage, 121 up.

I took an early lead in the first game, and have to give Fiona a few tips, (and some help with the scoring, which always flummoxes beginners). She is catching me by the end, and has the advantage last of not having the box. I finish up one point short in the play, and she is scoring first, and takes the game. The second game she has much the better of the cards and absolutlely smokes me, winning by about 30 points.

Backgammon: My chance for revenge after Fiona’s beginners luck at Cribbage came Friday evening, when I went round to see her & Pete . (I’m a decent backgammon player). Disappointingly the first game turns into a race, and I roll slightly higher, and win.

The second game makes up for it though. Fiona has the better of the early exchanges and I end up playing a back game. This isn’t something Fiona has seen before, so she makes some non-obvious mistakes, repeatedly hitting my blots, letting me establish two points in her inner board, whilst blocking off my own. Her final mistake comes when bearing off. She mistakenly leaves a blot, I hit it, and she can’t come back on before I establish a prime on my inner board! So it comes down to a straight race, and I just edge it.

After that we play a couple more games, both winning one each. Next time we might try a match (7 points) with the doubling cube, though I suspect she needs a few more games first.

San Juan: Fiona really likes this, so we played a few times after backgammon. Two-player can be really harsh on beginners, but after I beat her a few times I think my advice began to sink in, and she won the last game with a pretty good City Hall game.

After my victories at Backgammon and San Juan, we decide to play something I’m not very good at – Carcassonne: The Castle. I don’t know why but I very rarely win at any version of Carc, and sure enough Fiona beats me twice, the first time a rout, the second game is close, but I mistime the ending, leaving making impossible for me to finish both a large tower and a large house, so I miss out on the keep bonus.

Monday 17/04/06: Puerto Rico, High Society

2006-04-21T17:16:00.000+01:00

Easter Monday (as with most other bank holidays) means board games with the Matts!

As usual not everybody can make the same time. So Matt OH (Matt), Dave and I start at 12, Matt (Bell) arrives about 1:00 and Matt (Stacey) around 2:30, after the Spurs game has finished.

We start with a 3-player Puerto Rico, the idea being that when Bell arrives we can play 4-player.

Three player: Dave, Matt, Me.
Matt makes a Factory, and has both Coffee and Tobacco for trades, but he doesn’t have quarries, so he’s never really as rich as he seems, and doesn’t get many shipping points. He buys two large buildings and finishes third. Dave does well on the shipping (he and I get the Harbours) by concentrating on Corn and Indigo (he has extra plantations from his Hacienda), but never gets any trade goods. He realises late game that he should save for a Customs House, which he just gets before the game ends. I get both a decent income from my trade goods (I even buy an Office, which was okay with Matt also possessing trade goods and sitting to my right) and okay shipping points from my Harbour. With two large buildings that’s enough points to win.

Matt’s mistakes were overrating the Factory, which caused him to miss out on a Harbour, which is more important, and not getting quarries. Dave did almost the opposite – he had the Hacienda and Harbour for shipping points, but no decent income source to go with his multiple quarries, so he didn’t get much use out of them. He only finished with about seven buildings.

Four player: Bell, Dave, Me, Matt
I can’t remember much about this game, except I think I bought some slightly odd buildings to see what would happen (going “off-curve” as I put it), like Construction Hut, and Hospice. I think I even bought an Office again. Bell goes really early into Coffee (choosing it over Tobacco when both plantations are available), which looked like a mistake, but seemed to pay off for him, as he ended up the winner over me by a point. I think we did a good job clogging up the ships with Coffee / Tobacco, which hurt Matt and Dave.

Edit: now I remember – this is the game I went for turbo Guildhall – I ended up with GH and all the production buildings except Small Sugar.

When the four-player finishes Matt suggests we play Princes of Florence. But PR is just so more-ish, already out, and probably Stacey’s favourite, so we play five-player.

Five player: Stacey, Bell, Matt, Me, Dave.
This games starts really weirdly. Stacey selects Builder, and then builds an Indigo Plant (not Small), as does Bell. Matt and I grab Construction Huts, Dave sensibly grabs a Small Market. Then Bell Mayors. We’re really not in Kansas now. Matt and I both man our Huts, but then Matt skips Settler for Prospector as he has a Hut. I decide I’m not letting Dave have fifth (!!) pick Settler, so I grab it.

After Construction Hut I go for Hacienda (I think the idea was to get some goods to go with my Quarries, and with the double Indigo Plant purchase on turn 1 there are more men available), and then a third violet before getting any production buildings, it was either Hospice or Trading Post (I definitely got a Post at some point, but would I really buy it third??) Pretty weird, but it worked out okay, as I absolutely smoked everybody in this game. The Trading Post was great, and by the end of the game I was buying large buildings off four manned Quarries, and had Factory at 3 doubloons per Craftsman. I end up with two large buildings (I could have tried for three, but that would have meant passing on the Small Wharf, which I’m pretty certain would be wrong) and 51 points, about 15 ahead of everybody else.

After the final Puerto Rico game Bell has to leave, and we have about 90 minutes left. We’re not the quickest, so we decided to a few rounds of High Society (after I explain the rules) rather than breakout Princes or Tigris.

At the end of the first game Matt & I tie for least money, eliminating both of us, whilst Stacey has two recognitions for x4, but no luxury items, handing the game to Dave! I win the second game on a tiebreak over Matt (quite a heartbreaker, as I assume tiebreaker is most money, so we think Matt wins, but I check and it’s best luxury item, which does make sense when you think about it, and I win!). Dave takes the third.

This was the first time I played with four players – it was certainly better than three. I’m not sure how it’ll play with five. In the third game Matt was trying to actively track everybody’s money. I think I prefer the game played quickly, making money counting harder, so that the game is a fun risk-taking filler. If everybody tracks money, and knows how much the poorest player has it will become too calculational.

High Society’s weakness seems to be that sometimes the game will be more by when the game ends, than any mistakes the player makes. For example in the final game Matt & I both have more money than Dave and there is one red and four luxury items left. As the game played out the first tile was red and Dave won. But if we turn over two more luxury items then either Matt or I probably win. Still it’s fun and quick to play, so it’s not worth getting to worried about it.

We plan to meet again next Bank Holiday, in a couple of weeks time. Next time we’ll play something other than Puerto Rico! (probably Princes, but maybe Tigris or Goa,). Or maybe Beowulf will have arrived by then.

Sunday 16/04/06 - Perudo, Alhambra, Acquire

2006-04-17T09:22:00.000+01:00

As is usual for Easter Weekend, some long lost sons of the Isle, return to the land of their forefathers. And afterwards they depart, not to be seen until Christmas.

Players present at Tony's : Tony, Fiona, me, Colin, Rob, Simon . Six(!)

Once again I took completely the wrong games. I should have taken some six player fillers (Razzia, Saboteur, Formula Motor Racing).

First game: Perudo. First time for everybody except Fiona & Tony. Two players (Simon & Colin) have been eliminated before Fiona loses a dice, then she loses them all rapidly. Comes down to me with 2 dice against Tony's 2 dice, then one dice each, and I win. Good fun.

Second game: Alhambra. I win with 70-something points, with a 10-15 points lead over Tony. I adopted what I felt was the correct strategy, but Tony said he was doing the opposite (if I understood him correctly), so I guess I'm still not certain what the correct six-player strategy is (to the extent there is one).

Third game: Acquire. Colin and I hadn't played before, and Rob and Simon seemed pretty rusty. Nobody came close to running out of money (I was down to $100 at one point, but new I could do a merger in a chain in which I had majority next turn).This game ended up pretty close (maybe that's a feature of six player - with six players the mergers seem to happen pretty frequently). Colin and I came joint fifth with just under $28k, Rob had a little more, Fiona and Simon had over $30k and Tony won with about $33k.

Star Wars - Epic Duels

2006-04-11T17:35:00.000+01:00

Last Friday was spring accountancy updates courses – a fun day of learning about new tax, accountancy and audit rules and legislation.

Not the most fun day ever, but at lunchtime I did get to wonder into Cowes High Street at lunchtime, to visit Chiverton’s, a newsagents that has a small stock of games (I’ve no idea why). They had a half price sale, so I grabbed a copy of Star Wars - Epic Duels. My girlfriend is a big Star Wars fan, and I had read that it was actually an okay game (for a licensed movie game produced by a major non-eurogame game company).

The game components consist of two doubled sided game boards, 12 characters cards (each with one major character and one or two minor characters), a deck of 31 action cards for each character pair, and 31 small plastic figures, which are actually pretty good representations of the characters. The components are pretty neat, although the lack of any sort of any sort of proper insert for storage is annoying – I can just see lightsabers and guns snapping off.

Each player starts by placing their characters in predetermined positions on which gameboard has been selected, and drawing a hand of three cards. On a players turn they roll dice to determine movement, move their characters, and then take two actions, which are to either play a card or draw a card. Cards come in three types, basic combat cards with attack and defense values, special cards with funky effects, and special combat cards that combine attack or defense (or both) with a funky effect. When attacking damage is simply equal to the attackers attack value less then defenders defense value (which is zero if they don’t defend). Characters have between 3 endurance (robot droid) and 20+ endurance (Darth Vader), and you lose when your main character is killed.

The characters vary wildly in type and abilities. Some teams consists of a main character with one strong supporting character (Han & Chewie), some teams have a main character with two much lesser allies (Darth Vader & 2 Stormtroopers). Combat cards vary from heavily offense based (Darth Maul) to highly defensive (Yoda). Some characters have ranged attacks; others have to get up close (the Jedis only get to attack with lightsabers, although there are special cards that give force lightning attacks).

The special cards include some very powerful effects, that will certainly shock you the first time somebody springs them on you, along with more basic but still useful options like additional movement or cards. Perhaps the biggest ‘wow’ value card, Darth Vader’s ‘All Too Easy’ is a special combat card with an attack value of 3 if defended against, but 20 if not defended (attack card are played face down, so the defender doesn’t know what the attack is). Twenty damage will kill anyone in one attack!

Lucy and I played the game with one set of light vs one set of dark characters. The game is simple enough for non-gamers, but I can see gamers who are Star Wars fans enjoying it as well. The basic 1v1 doesn’t seem to have much lasting appeal (it’s too limited) but you can play four player as 2v2 teams (in multiplayer free for all the best plan would almost certainly be to turtle), or just play two player with each player controlling 2 sets of characters. Having more characters in play increases the tactical opportunities for good movements and attacks, and I can see how some characters special cards might combine to create good combos.

Sunday 09/04/06: Palabra, Puerto Rico, Dos Rios

2006-04-10T20:37:00.000+01:00

Sunday night is boardgames at Fiona’s house. For the last few weeks it’s been Fiona, Tony and me, so I packed the following games: Goa, Dos Rios, Clans and San Juan.

I arrive to find Fiona playing Palabra with Marlena and Jim – so we have five players, and I haven’t brought any games that play with five. Doh! Luckily Tony did bring some suitable games.

Palabra is a card based word game. It basically plays like Scrabble, with you trying to make the highest scoring word from the seven letters you have, but some of the play options and scoring are quite unbalanced. As the score multipliers are on the cards (rather than on the board as in Scrabble), you have very little chance if you don’t draw multipliers. And two of the cards let you cancel somebody else’s word and you can draw a card to replace it!, Still, it plays quite quickly, so you can overlook the deficiencies.

Tony arrives 10 minutes later, in time to see the end of the game of Palabra, which Jim wins, despite Fiona’s first word scoring 106, and Fiona only telling Jim and Marlena that cards in hand at the end count negative after the draw deck has gone!

After Palabra we decide to play Puerto Rico. Jim and Marlena have never played before, so we take some time explaining the rules before we start, and the rest of us haven’t played five player for a long time. The player order is Simon, Tony, Marlena, Fiona, Jim.

The game plays really weirdly. Part of the reason is probably the destabilizing effect of two beginners and the unfamiliarity of five player, but probably a bigger reason is that I don’t flip up any corn for the first three Settlers phases!

Early on shipping is very slow, and everyone is trying to make and sell more expensive goods. I am trying for coffee, but it’s very slow, because I just miss out on the Roaster by 1 doubloon. Meanwhile Fiona, one of the starting corn players is accumulating a lot of shipping points, whilst Tony has the first Tobacco trade – taking trader with two bonus doubloons! (set-up by a beginner mistake from Jim).

Still I am the first player to trade coffee, and have realised that I am only going to win by concentrating on building, so I grab a second quarry, and set myself up for a second coffee trade. I even make good use of office. The shortage of buildings in five player does make you use buildings that you wouldn’t normally touch.
With both offices purchased we get some really weird trade houses like Coffee / Coffee / Corn / Corn and Coffee / Coffee / Indigo / Coffee.

Coming in to the endgame the games is too close to call, Tony and I both have two large buildings each, whilst Fiona has the Customs House and obviously more shipping points. In the end I take the game by 53 points, to Tony's 52 and Fiona's 51, but it' s fortunate for me that Marlena causes the game to end by picking mayor. If the game goes another round I definitely get overtaken.

After PR, it's getting late and Jim and Marlena have to leave, leaving about 75 minutes for Tony, Fiona and me. Instead of sensibly playing Carcassonne or Alhambra, we decide to play Dos Rios, after I teach it to them. As we take 15 minutes setting up and going through the rules, we don't get anywhere near finishing. When we call time Tony probably has an unassailable lead - with a good postion on the board, and plenty of Dams.

After playing with both two and three players I think Dos Rios is hitting the trade list (or maybe the UK math trade!)- the position can change so quickly that it isn't worth planning much before your turn, making the downtime bad, and the huge changes to the board make the individual tactics each turn seem to dominate the long term strategy. In the two player game you could plan a coherent strategy, but the game can be decided by favourable harvest draws, which can overwhelm an advantadge gained through good play. I don't have any desire to play four-player.

M:TG Extended "Tournement", Southampton 08/04/06

2006-04-09T10:27:00.000+01:00

Extended is probably my favourite constructed M:TG format, as my collection is mostly based in Invasion and Odyssey blocks, with a decent amount of Mirrodin but very little that is currently type 2 legal. At Gencon last November I played MTG in several GPTs and PTQs to a decent amount of sucess (won a GPT, made top 8 of a PTQ) despite (a) not having played magic for many months and (b) my decks were my own constructions.

So when the local games store in Southampton announced they were running an Extended tournement "by popular request", I made plans to go, and assumed there would be a decent turnout. I decided to play U/G Madness, and Colin, who was also going over from the IW, was running a UB Leyline of the Void / Mists of Singularity Prison deck.

U/G Madness
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Thought Courier
4 Arrogant Wurm
3 Wonder
1 Golgari Brownscale
4 Careful Study
4 Circular Logic
3 Deep Analysis
3 Roar of the Wurn
3 Rushing River
1 Stupefying Touch
9 Forest
9 Mountain
4 Yavimaya Coast

2 Stupefying Touch
3 Golgari Brownscale
1 Roar of the Wurm
1 Deep Analysis
2 Naturalize
2 Oxidize
1 Krosnan Reclamation
1 Ground Seal
2 Counterspell

So, Saturday morning I get up early to finish building the deck, catch a bus to Cowes, and the Red Jet to Southampton. Walk to Hidden Fortress - -and the only people who haved turned up are me and Colin. I am not pleased.

Colin and I play a couple of games anyway, while waiting.

Game 1 he drops a Leyline for free, but doesn't have any counters to prevent my Thought Courier - Arrogant Wurm. He then taps low to cast an Isochron Scepter, but I have a kicked Rushing River to bounce the Specter and the Leyline, and that's bascially game.

I sideboard in Naturalize, Counterspell and some more Brownscales (the Dredge really hurts Colins plan to empty my graveyard).

Game 2 and again Colin has the free Leyline. But I have a Thought Courier, and the card advantadge, combined with my cheap beatdown and answers (Counterspell, Naturalize), let me take the game fairly easily.

So I won the "tournement". Afterwards we played a game of VS, and my JLI/EE 4-resource took down his JLI/TT team attack deck. I got a pretty good draw, while Colin got the TTGs! to stun loads of chracters turn 4, but I have a JLI embassy, and Colin didn't have an Arsenal to make best use of his large number of characters.

Browsing round the shop it really struck me how much the internet has changed things. Five years ago a day out in Southampton would have been an opportunity to buy stuff that you can't get on the Island. Now they have stuff I want (they had TTR:M, Calyus and Elasund), but I know I get them cheaper on the Internet. When it costs you 15 quid and several hours to go to your FLGS, suddenly online stores with free postage seem very attractive. So I didn't buy anything (just as well, having picked up Star Wars Epic Duels half price for my girlfriend the day before).

And after travelling for over an hour to get to a shop running a tournment "by popular request" to which only two people turned up, I am not inclined to give them more of my money. It seems the CCG scene in south Hampshire is pretty dead, apart from Yu-Gi-Oh.

First post!

2006-04-09T10:16:00.000+01:00

This is the first of (hopefully) many posts. I play CCGs once a week (mainly VS, but occassionaly Shadowfist and M:TG) and board games once a week, so there should be at least two posts every week.