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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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The preamble to the evening's gaming was a trio of Kings Arms' (in)famous Dirty Burgers: fully-loaded and BBQ-sauced towers of meat and flavour to help put hairs on your chest:
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Absolutely delicious, it took a caravan of staff to deliver these behemoths to the table; it reminded me of this:
Will, our keen but least-experienced gaming pal, nervously-popped his head round the dining room's door and we waved him to "Come hither!". The core rules - as mentioned in yesterday's post - are extremely simple, so much of the five minute teach was pointing out the various methods of scoring: simple points, set collection, cohabitation and 'per':/pic7544810.jpg)
Despite his nervous babbling and wandering concentration, Will put up an excellent first fist of the opening game - coming second to yours truly. Of course, the others - Tom and Dave and Paul - were now fully up-to-speed with the way it all hung together and we (forest) shuffled for the next.
Tom pulled off a set of Horse Chestnuts (with the help of some friendly Bees); Paul, a mish-mash of various animal combos; Will floundered with only a handful of sparsely-populated trees to frame a disappointing second score; and, my own bird-heavy forest was solid but unremarkable. Dave, however, trampled all-comers with an arboretum featuring one of everything, a couple of 'one per tree' bonuses and a cave stuffed with bear-gathered Clearing cards!/pic7544811.jpg)
Will wanted to be away on his pushbike while it was still light (he travels EVERYWHERE on his trusty velocipede), so we paused to chat about the Club's Snowdonia: Grand Tour scenario prototypes that I'm bringing to the UKGE and then shuffled, once more, for just me and Paul and Dave:/pic7544812.jpg)
There's more space to move and - importantly - more time to build up your tableau with three; this just might be the game's sweet spot! All of us scored very handsomely and Paul achieved a magnificent 172 points - not even my Watership Down-like warren of seven (7) European Hares, with their square scoring, could rein in his cloud of avians.
If you love Wingspan then you're going to adore Forest Shuffle - keep an eye out on the feeds, my pals; this one is going to be a monster hit!
Everyone Needs A Shed
Life and Games (but mostly games) from Tony Boydell: Father, Grandfather, Husband and Independent UK Game Designer.
Archive for Session Report
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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There's no better way to spend a Summery Sunday than doing a variety if gardening tasks then seeing the afternoon into the evening into a starry night in front of a real fire with gins & tonic, barbecued meats and a groaning table of salad sides. Top the whole basky, bakey, stressless-soughing experience with the first Mölkky of the year:
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Ready, steady...
As the light dimmed and the beers fizzed:/pic7538038.jpg)
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Mrs B clouts the required 12 for Victory!/pic7538039.jpg)
The final record!
Perfect.
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Another Wednesday, another session at The Kings Arms preceded by a request opening of The Museum of Board Games - the latter for Dan and Fiona, holidaying in The Forest of Dean, who I know from those distant London working/Hemel Hempstead gaming days. 'As per' I rambled and anecdoted, directed and filled-in before realising we all had 30 mins to a) get to the Kings Arms and b) order a meal before the real gaming kicked off!
Down in numbers again - and still no showing from the many local gamer folks who have recently-discovered the Museum and expressed interest in our weekly session - we split into a table for Discordia (Dave - who bought the copy from me - and Dan and Tom) and Reavers of Midgard (Paul and Steve and me):/pic7531507.jpg)
I was rather pleased to not have to teach anything this week and it was up to Paul to get us going on this worker-placement, action-following, resource management, set collection affair: the usual suspects neatly-assembled into an entertaining - if not entirely riveting - ninety minutes./pic7531508.jpg)
Everyone has the chance to get actions off other people leading into a WP space - provided they have the payment resources and actually want to - with reduced bonuses depending on your turn order when performing the action thusly: something for everybody, mostly.
Having played this before, Paul spammed the 'set collection' space (something to do with raiding villages?) and hoovered up a fat deck of scoring cards - enough, in the final reckoning, to make up a 50 point deficit and overtake us for the win. It feels, in the post-play glow, that this might be the only way to approach 'Reavers'./pic7531509.jpg)
We came together, as the six, for a closing first-run at 7 Wonders: Architects:/pic7531511.jpg)
Constantly-frustrated by shit cards in the decks to either side (if they're not taken, they just stay there) and, therefore, forced to blind-draw from the shared deck with an equally-frustrating 'failure rate', I watched Tom blind-take what he needed three turns in a row. Dave finished his Wonder (and ended the game) with seeming ease, Steve and Dan scienced into Prestige tokens and everyone seemed to score extra card draws without any effort. First impressions linger and my first impression was of a tiresome, heavy-luck knock-off of a bona fide classic:
If we had the original in the room, I would always play it over this. If we didn't have the original in the room, I would rather hammer nails into my own eyes than play such nonsense again.
To be fair for a picosecond, I did like the unpredictability of the 'Wars' based on certain shield icon plays (and the accompanying 'rooty-toot-toot' horn noises encouraged by the rulebook) but the rest is just an homeopathic aberration.
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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With work and holiday commitments, the Club is just about hanging on to a couple of tables each session - which is nice - encouraged, occasionally, by committing to a multi-play of a particular favourite in advance. This week, everyone was teased into coming with the promise of some Victorian Societal malarky ie. the utterly-splendid and entirely-wonderful Obsession:
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With at least one new player each time, we're not yet at the point where we can add Obsession: Upstairs, Downstairs but the base game - with the miscellaneous promos - is heartily-sufficient.
I took both Will and Sandra under my wing on Table 1 and left (the experts) Richard and Paul and Joe on Table 2. Will - often visiting the Museum - is very much new to the whole board gaming world and, to be honest, I was very worried when he popped into the Kings Arms' back-room - how, on Earth, would he react to this immersive Euro?! The teach was rather schoolmasterly as I was keen to reinforce each of the key concepts while, deliberately, ignoring some of the fringe elements like spending reputation for free actions./pic7519359.jpg)
The general mood of play was encouraging and focused on the capacity for storytelling rather than cold action efficiency and mechanics - not that this stopped Sandra from absolutely killing the process and sailing over the 200VPs threshold with relative ease! I'm not sure what Will thought but I hope he, at least, enjoyed the narrative. On Table 2, Joe - confidently hiding behind his five Monuments - was pipped to the win by Paul by just two points - that's just one, half-decent Guest!
In other news, I have been chatting with Mr Dan Hallagan about something Grand Tour-related and, from me, something to add to the Obsession Universe - exciting times!
Thu May 18, 2023 9:43 am
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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On the "rolling" TV adverts in The Kings Arms.
After seeing a LOT of fluster on the Internet about Darwin's Journey - and I mean a LOT of fluster - I looked a little deeper. Trying to ignore the usual "Best Game EVAH!" preposterousness, at its heart we have a richly-themed, worker placement affair with a couple of wrinkles to stave off the staleness. I do like worker placement, so I took advantage of a very well-priced (at least when compared to the majority of hand-offs) Collectors' Edition.
Oddly, every copy available in the 'Groups' seemed to be a spare ordered mistakenly: quite how you miss an intended pledge of 70 euros and hit 140 euros by mistake, I'm at a loss. It would be churlish of me to suggest the generously-stacked 'final package' looked ripe for harvesting future gamer FOMO - with a healthy return on investment - so I won't.
The box arrived, hernia-inducingly pregnant with upgraded components, punch sheets, flimsy plastic trays and expansions. Taking me a good hour to unpack, separate and re-pack - there is no handy-dandy guide to what bits belong to what extension - I, eventually, retired to my bed for a long lie-down with the rulebook...which sent me in a drowsy torpor because there are lots of actions, icons and clauses to be digested. After a second attempt - which ended with me dropping the square tome to one side with an "I'm bored now" sigh - I decided that watching my old pals Heavy Cardboard might be a better preparation for delivering this beast to the Wednesday club at some point:/pic7506477.jpg)
DJ _is_ just good ole worker placement and the core actions are standard enough despite the over-complicated rulebook: Move an Explorer (gain money, final scoring elements, straight VPs, a free action from this list, research a new species) Move your Ship Send some letters (stamps) Improve your workers' skills (seals) - action spaces need workers (your crew) with more seals - in specific colour combinations - to unlock their more powerful versions Turn Order adjustment Place a Lens (dibs a 'better' action space somewhere with an initial free, worker seal-ignoring trigger) Take an Objective (unlock abilities and bonuses on your personal board) Deliver a researched species to the Museum (for money and final scoring elements) Research something already delivered to the Museum
A bit like RISE (and others), the gaining of something in one area may trigger the gain of something else - eg. sending the last stamp from a stack of four (you have three stacks) / dropping a Camp Site on an Explorer space can trigger a free action - in a pleasing chain of effects; careful to make sure you've not forgotten anything, the opportunity for "a big turn" is pretty easy to engineer.
Each of these mini-games contribute pails of points to your final pond and the (Natural History) Museum is a big source of both VPs and cash income, keeping you figuratively and literally afloat./pic7506478.jpg)
My own explorers forged deep into the islands and gathered a healthy hold of specimens; cash was flowing easily, so there was never any struggle to pay for the actions I wanted at the time I wanted them. Indeed, in general, I never missed anything I wanted to have or do: I 'completed' the education of my Crew for good bonuses, almost entirely filled my player board with achieved objectives & researched species' and almost entirely emptied it of Camp Sites & Stamps. Frankly, the only reason I paid any attention to Ian and Joe was to see if it was my turn yet.
There are such a lot of paragraphs and caveats - and the iconography puts Guilds of London in the shade (albeit without the howling that my design garnered back in the day) - that you're initially blindsided to the relative straightforwardness of the whole shebang.
There was plenty of fun to be had putting together the explosive turns and naming the species ("spikey beast", "wibbly flower thing", "feathery bastard" and so on) but, overall, this was a colourful and solitary affair - not as complex* or as interactive as it looked. Will definitely play again - with noble Paul (see below) included this time, hopefully - to see if this was an aberration or the norm**.
In other news, Steve arrived late in the middle of the setup of DJ and David's space game; Paul nobly ducked out of Botany and Biology to teach him Viticulture instead./pic7506476.jpg)
In the end, we had three well-stocked tables to pique the attention of the Bar Manager whenever she stopped by to collect empties and take refill orders.
*fiddly, yes, but not 'heavy'
**maybe we should add in some of the expansion material?
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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I've been staring at the wall of games in my (overflowing) library room and finally buckled under the weight of "never gonna play it"s and "never gonna play it again"s. With the Coronation of King Charles III* just a couple of days away, I decided one of the weekend's Museum attractions should be a game sale:
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Just some of the outgoing items.
With an element of perfect timing, an on-the-spur-of-the-moment article I knocked together for a local advertising booklet plopped onto the doormat; hopefully alerting the sleepy residents of my sleepy town that there's something of passing interest to be seen between the Church and the Spar convenience store::strip_icc()/pic7494526.jpg)
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With the car stuffed to the tops of the windows with boxes, I trundled it down to the Museum and let it steep in the hot P.M. while I attended to the specially-booked visit from Matt and Martha: Bristolian gamers and part-time podcasters (Boardgame Buddies). As is now traditional, I welcomed them with quiz sheets and set them on their quests immediately: chatter, banter, facts and anecdotes. Rumbling tummies took them away in the mid-afternoon so I decanted the sale items into the shade; we would meet again just a couple of hours later at The Kings Arms. These young folks are big on games but short on some of the older, classic fare so I felt legally-bound to introduce them to Keyflower:
Quickly, with the straightforward teach out of the way, we settled in to the usual high-interactivity, conflicting decisions, distraction techniques, bluffing and paranoia that underpin this ripe-for-a-twenties-reprint magnum opus./pic7494089.jpg)
David is a very good analyst and it was really a race between him and me for the laurels; while offering some advice along the way, one's first Keyflower is always a learning experience, and the air was filled with Matt's frustrated "Fuck a duck!"s as Autumn transitioned to Winter. Thankfully, he and Martha very much enjoyed the experience, despite being (a little) sharked by the two old men!
We chatted for ages while the other table called their Nations early and then we scattered into the night; it being Ted Lasso day, I had an urgent appointment with Mrs B and the television.
*less hair but bigger ears in this unnecessary sequel
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Social media posts showed one of our Club members in the thick of a Team Day Treasure Hunt where the 'treasure' was a delightful little Public House in the middle of Worcester: my sixth sense suggested that they probably wouldn't be making Games@The Kings Arms later. Indeed, despite a rather weather-pleasant day, the Pub itself was unusually-quiet and, by extension, so was our mid-week session. What could've / would've been eight or nine ended up being three:
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Old lags all, David and Paul and myself settled in for a tranquil evening of Ecclesiastical Jiggery Pope-ry and Rome-based Tomfoolery:/pic7479905.jpg)
David settled into heavy Alms-giving - something I've seen him pursue before - while both Paul and I spotted the easy-clockwise/NE confluence of the Production Duty -> Allocation -> Road/Shrine Building: a clear indicator we should get all 18XX about the main board! Dave continued to stay well clear of this routes maneuver and tarted up his Abbey with a variety of tasty (and highly donate-able) Buildings.
Though Paul seemed a bit bewildered getting to grips with the mancala/what should I do next? conundrum - and not a little frustrated by a long rules discussion between Dave and myself that had me phoning the Designer up in the middle of his own Evening - the final results were very close and - for his first game - highly-creditable: 42(D)-42(T)-38(P). We don't do tie-breaks in Newent, so a shared victory was an honorable outcome.
With time still to spare, the only packed game that would fit into an hour-or-so was my multi-use cards prototype Rome Sweet Rome:/pic7479906.jpg)
Long in development, RSR has evolved a great deal and I'm very happy with the latest version; it certainly feels like I need someone independent to cast an objective eye over it now:/pic7479907.jpg)
Despite a flying start from myself - first to gain a top space in Culture (innit) - Dave reined me in and exploited some fruitful Science effects to steal a bonus turn right at the last moment: 30(D)-23(T)-14(P).
Still light(ish) - and still quite warm - there was just time, before bed, to catch the latest (bloody marvellous) episode of Ted Lasso: a tight evening of goodness.
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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"A Tale of Inshore Fishing in War and Peace" (not that one)
When Sam, the Bar Manager, switched on the lights for the back room at The Kings Arms the Disco Ball in the centre began to rotate and sparkle: quite the welcome for our Wednesday - Strictly Come Gaming, if you will? In the corner - for a short while - a party of youngsters sipped ales and choffed chips as us old geeks congregated; they watched us with our heavy bags of boxes and one remarked that they'd been given 7 Wonders but "it was just too complicated"; I was hoping they might ask to join in but they had other things to do this fine, Spring evening.
Richard has given Scythe a fair crack of his whip and it's not for him, so he was happy to follow Ma & son Markey and David to the other table for a Cleobury Mortimer play-test. Pushing two tables together for maximan display effect, the Henlys and Steve and myself got our робот on:/pic7467359.jpg)
From the very start, Paul and I were enlisting like furious bastards and quickly leeching off our adjacents' slower progress. With plenty of space to meander, conflict was rare and only when entirely necessary. I was particularly-delighted to have sent Steve scurrying home (adds penultimate star) thus allowing me to complete the 'line of four' buildings goal; I often ignore the 'goal' tile as I think it's a nigglesome distraction against better actions./pic7467360.jpg)
As is often the case, I ended the game with my six deployed stars and - also relatively commonly - it wasn't enough to secure the win: keeping the game going for extra rounds only allows the leader to stretch further away / young Tom to put the final touches to his Grand Plan and streak by. Paul's Achievement of 20+ money meant he had already banked a comfortable buffer by the mid-game; I reined him in a little but not enough: 72-58-48-18.
The Shropshire-based sheep-wandering, quarry-dynamiting, train-tootling exploits of CM continued with, by all accounts, a mighty battle developing between the Markeys. For us, Steve leapt at the suggestion of Nusfjord:/pic7467361.jpg)
Paul hasn't played this for over a year (obviously avoiding the many tables at which I have placed this in that period) and Tom not-at-all but you'd not know that from the tight seven rounds that followed. My mental calculations in the latter half was plagued with fears of a low 30s score and no seeming way to improve upon it; in the meantime, the Henlys were spamming the Elder Plates with a catering fury not seen since the memoirs of the much-missed Anthony Bourdain. Like Scythe before it, Nusfjord was a tense and no-nonsense affair: deliciously-so! It seemed only appropriate that Paul and I would tie on 30 - a low score due to the lack of quarter given - with Tom just one point behind.
*phew*
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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With six booked for Ross-on-Wye on Friday, we'd hopefully avoid settling for the same old five player games that always end up being played because five seems to be the only quantity of gamers that drop-in to The Drop Inn. Mind you, it should be noted that Boffo had packed Le Havre in his cabinet of curiosities which would've been a fabulous 2-player 'alt' had the catastrophic quintet actualised. Six it was, though (huzzah!); and - with my spare copy handed over in return for cash - there was the definite possibility of a twin-spin Pilgrim!
If you already know about Pilgrim then you'll already know that it's a fabulous piece of work; if you don't then, perhaps, hold your breath a little longer because it's going to be a bugger finding a copy for the foreseeable and there's not sense in getting you all worked up...except that it is brilliant...and you should seek a copy immediately...for pretty much any price./pic7458898.jpg)
Boffo and Jobbers are a tough teaching audience at the best of times and Pilgrim has a few fringe rules that are useful to know but easy to overlook when pressing the main 'mancala/Duty activation (minority-parity-majority)' processes. We were off to a good start - the other table setting off at the same time having also ear-wigged on my explanation - and quickly settled into a rhythm: me quick turn -> Boffo quick turn -> Jobbers long, ponderous turn.
A couple of rounds in and Jobbers had started a road from the City toward a Trading Post and then neglected it for two turns; I noted, on my next, that I could build three roads to the same Trading Post: completing it and cutting Jobbers off in the meantime...
Oh, my dears, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth that followed! Accusations of misrepresentation, trap-setting and other assorted shenanigans: if scowling were an Olympic Sport, we'd have a Gold medalist in our midst! I immediately suggested he stop whinging and build himself a "high-scoring chain of roads and shrines to a far-off Pilgrimage site" instead...
Simultaneously gleeful at showing everyone that this isn't a forgiving game if you neglect to "pay fucking attention, mate" AND ever-alert to explain rule snippets / resolutions, this was an exhausting two hours. Indeed, I let us play for four extra rounds having forgotten the 'skip Trading Post spaces' rule for the game timer boat; this meant we all had plenty of time to beef up roads, shrines, alms and the like for artificially-inflated scores (late 40s). Suddenly delighted that he'd come just a close second to Boffo after all - rather than trailing far behind like a hobbled donkey - Jobbers' demeanour lightened. And it was all thanks to that high-scoring chain of roads and shrines to a far-off Pilgrimage site he ended up building./pic7458901.jpg)
Table two was one round off their own denouement but the gap between Dave and the others (Becky, Peter) seemed unassailable PLUS their map looked significantly empty of roads compared to our own./pic7458900.jpg)
I'd promised Mrs B that I'd get back earlier so we could watch Episode 1 of Season 5 of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, for which we have been chomping at the bit.
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Tim, Pam and their son are on a family visit in the area - from Hull to the Forest of Dean - and messaged me to see if it would be okay to open The Museum specially: of course it would be! My meetings for the day were done when the 'We're on our way' alert popped up so I beetled through the four seasons in one day Newent micro-climate to open up (and put the heaters on for a bit).
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It turns out they have their own massive collection of 1960s, 1970s and 1980s board games - as well as the usual modern fayre - and we spent the next hour happily comparing notes. Their timing was deliberate as I'd previously recommended the food at The Kings Arms and invited them to the Wednesday session. With it being the Easter holidays (still), turn out was unusually low but we still had enough for two tables; while Tim, Pam and Stevie finished their supper, the rest of us picked our way through Pi mal Pflaumen:/pic7455323.jpg)
You all know how much I love this little set-collector and this was a long-overdue 'teach' for Gary, whose copy we were enjoying. The obvious contest seemed to be between Tom, Gary and myself - much dog-napping, fruit-stealing antics - but this left Paul to unassumingly amass an excellent 48VPs and the win: it's always the quiet ones you've got to watch out for.
We split our visitors for a Viticulture (Tim, Gary, Paul) and Stone Age for Tom, Pam and myself:/pic7455327.jpg)
No teaching was needed and everything rattled along at a vigorous pace. In Stoners, the others let me hoover up all of the green cards and hammer one of the Hut stacks to aggressively push myself into the lead and keep myself there; it doesn't usually work out that way for me and I sailed close to starvation on many occasions to keep that score marker moving.
Having brought their copy of the Deluxe Master Set all the way from 'up North' for me to sign, it seemed entirely appropriate that we actually play it together as well:/pic7455324.jpg)
As you can see (below), I managed to pip young Thomas by the sweetest of single points even though I misplaced my excavating worker in the final round and gave up/gave him 5 extra Yr Wyddfa points!/pic7455325.jpg)
My little running dance around the back-room tables was perhaps, in hindsight, a bit ungracious but I make no apology: I win my own game less often than you might assume...after all, Richard Garfield was never the M:TG World Champion, was he?!/pic7455326.jpg)
The Viticulture marathon closed with a tense final Year: Gary doubling out wine contracts to wrap off the end of the scoreboard (they were playing it with almost every module possible). A mild attempt was made, earlier, to get me to join in - "Eleventh time lucky, Tony?!" - but my love affair with 'Vitz' and the fickleness of its card-drawing is now over.
Hopefully, we'll be back to fuller numbers next week; the Spring, though sodden, is fully-here and Summer is peeking over the horizon!
Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:08 am
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