Tuesday 21st February

Andy S wrote:I'll playtest your goldmine game, Rich.  I can be there from 6pm if you're wanting to start earlier.

Rik, I'm up for Madame Ching if the playtest doesn't pan out.

Cool, there should be time for both I think, especially if you are starting at 6. According to the box Madame Ching is only 30/45 mins

karl_b wrote:John H - do you fancy playing The Cave?

I'll also bring some light, filler type things (Goonies?) and would quite like to be...errr, I mean play...Secret Hitler if there's time at the end.

Unless of course I've done my usual thing of completely forgetting that I've already committed to playing something.

I will be along on Tuesday and would like to give The Cave a try.

I will also be bringing along INIS ( max 4 player) which is meant to play in a hour so would like to give that a try after if there is time.

Michael

Mike - let's start with INIS, keen to give it a go.

RikTheChief wrote:

Andy S wrote:I'll playtest your goldmine game, Rich.  I can be there from 6pm if you're wanting to start earlier.

Rik, I'm up for Madame Ching if the playtest doesn't pan out.

Cool, there should be time for both I think, especially if you are starting at 6.  According to the box Madame Ching is only 30/45 mins

Great. I'll get there for 6 then. An hour should be plenty of time

I will be up for the playtest if you need more players.
6pm start is fine for me also

Ianm wrote:I will be up for the playtest if you need more players.
6pm start is fine for me also

Yep, another player would be most welcome thank Ian

Mike4000 wrote:

karl_b wrote:John H - do you fancy playing The Cave?

I'll also bring some light, filler type things (Goonies?) and would quite like to be...errr, I mean play...Secret Hitler if there's time at the end.

Unless of course I've done my usual thing of completely forgetting that I've already committed to playing something.

I will be along on Tuesday and would like to give The Cave a try.

I will also be bringing along INIS ( max 4 player) which is meant to play in a hour so would like to give that a try after if there is time.  

Michael

I'd quite like to get in on Inis as well

PaulG2 wrote:

Mike4000 wrote:

karl_b wrote:John H - do you fancy playing The Cave?

I'll also bring some light, filler type things (Goonies?) and would quite like to be...errr, I mean play...Secret Hitler if there's time at the end.

Unless of course I've done my usual thing of completely forgetting that I've already committed to playing something.

I will be along on Tuesday and would like to give The Cave a try.

I will also be bringing along INIS ( max 4 player) which is meant to play in a hour so would like to give that a try after if there is time.  

Michael

I'd quite like to get in on Inis as well

Could I get in on the Inis action also? (And The Cave!)

AntW wrote:

PaulG2 wrote:

Mike4000 wrote:

karl_b wrote:John H - do you fancy playing The Cave?

I'll also bring some light, filler type things (Goonies?) and would quite like to be...errr, I mean play...Secret Hitler if there's time at the end.

Unless of course I've done my usual thing of completely forgetting that I've already committed to playing something.

I will be along on Tuesday and would like to give The Cave a try.

I will also be bringing along INIS ( max 4 player) which is meant to play in a hour so would like to give that a try after if there is time.  

Michael

I'd quite like to get in on Inis as well

Could I get in on the Inis action also? (And The Cave!)

That would be 4 for INIS which is now full.

Karl, happy to play to play INIS first and then The Cave.

Looking forward to them both.

I've got to go out on site and see a customer on Tuesday, I should be there for 7 but if I'm not then start something without me because I will be stuck behind a lorry on the M62 somewhere!

I think I left No Thanks at the club, can someone stick it with the club games and I'll pick it up next time? Thanks

RikTheChief wrote:I think I left No Thanks at the club, can someone stick it with the club games and I'll pick it up next time? Thanks

ah we wondered who's it was. It is under the bench.

DaveB wrote:The eight hour commute is a bit much for Tuesday

It's not too much for some of us...yesterday morning I was in Cornwall on a family holiday (and feeling a little unwell into the bargain!) but still made the session (by which time I was feeling a lot better). Admittedly the journey wasn't especially for that purpose though...

Anyhow, played some good games. Enjoyed Citadels with its role-taking and building...er...building, despite coming dead last - would definitely like to play it again, to learn the tactics and improve my score.
Somehow managed to win at Avalon as the minions of Mordred, despite a huge error from myself which pretty much outed me as evil part-way through.
Then played Junk Art (on a pretty steady table this time!) which was as fun as ever.

I managed to fit 4 games in last night. 4!

Started with Skull, Ian's offensive bidding strategy won him the game in short time.

My quest to play more of the games I own (and decide whether they're worth keeping) resulted in a look of disgust from Sam as I mentioned the games I had brought with me. I get the Fluxxx hate (although my other half likes it and buys me copies so I like it), so we skipped that and played Ominoes, an Expo purchase from last year. I think it's a neat little abstract with terrible artwork. I give it the benefit of the doubt as it was a prototype but the current Kickstarter doesn't allay my fears.

Inis was fun. I found it difficult to wrap my head around the action cards at first and was struggling to get a hold on the board. Like Mare Nostrum, it is seemingly a game which requires long term planning to build armies and hold territories but actually has VP conditions which make the game much shorter. I certainly feel like I fell in to an early sub-optimal strategy that was based on longer term planning. Also, the Epic Cards I dealt were rubbish. I'd be keen to play again.

Mint Works - brilliant! A quick, fun, tin-sized worker placement game. Which I won. The rule book not fitting in the tin perfectly still bothers me.

I had mixed feelings about Great Western Trail. Half way through I was loving it but by the end I had some reservations (and not just native American ones ahahahaha). Not sure, probably need to play it again. Definitely an interesting play, either way.

I loved Millions of Dollars. Hidden role and negotiation heist game. Need to play it with seven or eight to include all the roles and probably make the negotiation phase more interesting. Really enjoyed it though. I'm sure Jamie would love it.

Star Wars Rebellion took a year off my life. I was pretty knackered when I came down, and also started the night with Skull and Ominoes ― kind of a lazy warm-up.

Rebellion is... heavier than I expected. About four hours long. So many cards. So many minis. So many planets, enough that Kes didn't even recognise some of them.

I didn't quite get it this time around. It took me about three hours to remember that if I opposed one of Scott's missions with one of my leaders, my troops then could not move out of that space — look, there is a lot to keep track of! I also decided to gallivant about the galaxy with three or four big, slow moving armies, but thinking on how deployment and movement and subjugation works it now seems like it would have been far more sensible to build up smaller armies in many areas then combine them under one leader when it was needed.

There is a bit of faffing when keeping track of probe cards, and counting up units that will go in the build queue, enough that I wished there was an app that would deal with it. And four hours is pushing at my upper limit for one game.

The game seems good overall, though I'm not sure I could tell you why. I would still definitely play it again twice — once as the rebels, and one game where I hopefully know what is going on!

Sorry to Scott if I wasn't being very responsive by the end of the night. Part of me wanted to lie down on the pub floor by 11:15.

Who won?
(I recognised them all, just couldn't tell you anything about some of them)

Sam wrote:Star Wars Rebellion took a year off my life. I was pretty knackered when I came down, and also started the night with Skull and Ominoes ― kind of a lazy warm-up.

It's a good game and I want to play it some more (I've only played once) but I don't think I'd fancy playing it on a noisy Tuesday night! It's definitely something that requires some concentration, and there are plenty of subtleties. PaulC and I had a great game of it which ended basically on a knife-edge.

paulyg wrote:

Sam wrote:Star Wars Rebellion took a year off my life. I was pretty knackered when I came down, and also started the night with Skull and Ominoes ― kind of a lazy warm-up.

It's a good game and I want to play it some more (I've only played once) but I don't think I'd fancy playing it on a noisy Tuesday night! It's definitely something that requires some concentration, and there are plenty of subtleties. PaulC and I had a great game of it which ended basically on a knife-edge.

It is certainly a game where experience and prior knowledge of the cards really does give a massive advantage. For example there are only 3 planets that generate Star destroyers - if the rebels take those out early they really mess up logistics for the empire. And visa versa. But the rebel player can live without ships... if the empire have a hard time getting ships their options for locating the rebel base quickly diminish. That experience imbalance is far greater than something like twilight struggle because ultimately there isn't enough cards in the game either. I'd like to see a larger Rebel objective deck - and then random cards picked out of it for each game for a bit of variety.

I do love it though - so if anyone fancies a trip to Deepest Darkest Deepcar for a game Lee me
Know.

Loved Great Western Trail. Such a typical game I do super well in. I had a really good strategy last night and everything came together so well. I'd play it again.

Millions of Dollars I also loved. Dolores not so much - which is pretty much the opppsite opinion of the Dice Tower. Strange.

paulyg wrote:

Sam wrote:Star Wars Rebellion took a year off my life. I was pretty knackered when I came down, and also started the night with Skull and Ominoes ― kind of a lazy warm-up.

It's a good game and I want to play it some more (I've only played once) but I don't think I'd fancy playing it on a noisy Tuesday night! It's definitely something that requires some concentration, and there are plenty of subtleties. PaulC and I had a great game of it which ended basically on a knife-edge.

I can't even remember who actually won that game, I just remember it was a great game!