Pastboard and Plastic XVI

Another Essen Spieltage, the biggest cross on the board gamer's calendar, finished last weekend and various members of our group, and the wider games community returned with cases and cars full of new games, cheap older games, promotional items, and expansions.

A year or two ago it dawned on me that if the third and last "Pasteboard and Plastic" games day of the year took place soon after "Essen" it would give the owners of all this new game treasure a chance to play it and show it off. It would also give us stay-at-homes a chance to see what was shiny and new in the word of brettspiel.

Yesterday saw Pasteboard and Plastic XVI, organised as ever by Crabro and held in the Scout hut at Saltdean, raising funds for the 42nd Scout Group.

In view of the fact that I no longer run a car and would have to travel by 'bus I carried only a few fillers and a game to add to the raffle prizes and set off a little earlier than usual with the intention of also leaving a bit earlier than usual.

The event runs officially from 10am until around midnight but Crabro is there earlier setting up and the last games are usually still being finished while the furniture is being moved around them.

The first thing that struck me on arrival, around ten-thirty, was how busy it already looked. There was a noisy hum of gamer's conversations in the air and the raffle prize table and the second-hand games tables were already well-stocked with goodies.

The other thing it was impossible not to notice was the tables groaning with shrink-wrapped goodness from our friends at Board Game Club. No-one could complain that there was nothing to buy!

New games for sale

I spent some time looking at all the new and second hand bargains before I remembered to sign in and make myself a tea (unlimited cuppas being included in the entry fee).

Before too long I was asked if I was up for a game and I found myself with Crabro, MaOldie and Waaru, together with a couple of young gamers I hadn't met before, playing the new game by the man with a passion for the letter F and the colour green. Our friends had met up with Friedmann Friese in Essen and had the photo to prove it. Their purchases of his games and add-ons to his earlier games should keep him in green hair-dye for some time to come.


The game this time was Power Grid: The First Sparks which has a lot of the flavour of the classic Power Grid in the gameplay but is a stand-alone game, set far back in the mists of time when men were men and mammoth meat was on the menu. I must say I struggled a bit as the light slanting low in the window made the far end of the board (where the available technology and intelligence cards were) impossible to see without standing up and moving.

As it was just a "learning game" I wasn't too bothered about being competitive anyway and proceeded to take what came my way. In the end I was assumed so far behind that no-one even bothered to check but since I clearly hadn't been in with a chance of the win I didn't worry too much. The winner by tie-break in the end was one of the aforementioned youngsters whose name (something like Rav or Raf?) I'm afraid I didn't get.

The game was very attractive, with nice, coloured wooden pieces for the hunted (or fished) food and I liked it very much. As an owner or Power Grid I think I would still be happy to add this one to the collection as well, and I think it would be popular with the Goldstone Gamers, as it clearly is with the Saltdean Gamers.

At some point I found myself chatting with some other Essen raiders from our group: MrWendell and Petra Pan, although they had actually spent the whole week in Germany and much of their plunder had come from ordinary shops. It seems shoe shops are a popular board game outlet in that very game-aware land. MrWendell had brought me back a couple of promotional cards to add to my Power Grid game with which I was very pleased.

He then asked me if I was available for a quick two-player game and produced a rather beautiful abstract game composed of silver and blue metal rings, rods and cylinders with which to make three towers on a triangular board. I proved rather a dismal failure at this on my first attempt but perhaps I will get another crack at San Ta Si sometime.

Meanwhile it was already lunchtime and the drawing of the raffle had been anounced. After quite a nice win several years ago I had settled into a pattern of winning nothing so I wasn't taking too much notice as I went backwards and forwards to the kitchen to make some tea to go with my sandwiches. On one of my returns to the hall it eventually sank in that Crabro was announcing one of my numbers. There wasn't much left on the table but I was just happy to win something. I selected Fire Team an older two-player game of hex-and-counter modern warfare. I was very pleased with that and it turns out to be an interesting looking game in excellent condition.

Raffle prizes-my win second from right

I then spent a considerable amount of time in internal debate about whether to buy a second-hand or new game. The temptations were huge. One of the second-hand games I had been interested in disappeared into Mike's huge bag at a knock-down price, which made me jealous but took away part of the dilemma.
In the end I was asked if I wanted to play Lords of Vegas and left the decision for a while. As it turned out, BrightonFoxDave, one of my opponents, was the seller of a couple of absolute classic games on the second-hand table and I did a deal for the two which left me free to put purchases out of my mind and concentrate on gaming.

I don't frequent the Brighton games club but I'm always happy to get a chance to play against the members at these events. Playing against BrightonFoxDave and Thrudd was guaranteed to be fun and I was even more sure of this when I saw that the game was full of brightly coloured dice. It took me some time to grasp the game-play of this game of casino ownership, although to be fair that was more to do with my tiredness than complexity of rules.

The game allows a lot of backstabbing in taking over others' casinos, which is fine in company such as this where fun is the main concern. I was actually doing very well throughout the game, much to my surprise, indeed actually in the lead or joint lead.

Of course it would be no fun if I didn't have an opportunity to whinge about being robbed though and with my casinos being ripped from under me by Thrudd and then by perpetual last place man Mike, whose luck had suddenly changed, I went from the lead to last in the final stage of the game. Nevertheless, a lot of fun and a game now on my wishlist in the hope it might turn up at a good price in future.

The remainder of the afternoon saw me playing a couple of lighter games with MrWendell. The first was Bausack, an extraordinary cloth bag full of odd wooden shapes in three colours. Intriguingly it also contained a clothes peg and some string but these didn't feature in our game. Petra Pan had been lucky enough to pick up this bag of goodness earlier from a fellow gamer, having nearly bought it in Germany for considerably more. She definitely got a bargain because it is a fascinating and flexible bag of goodies. MrWendell and I played a variant involving increasingly difficult tower-building with unlikely shapes. At one-all I suggested we have a decider and was surprised to find myself the winner, my shakey old mitts not normally being ideal for games of dexterity.

Petra Pan then joined us for a hand or two of Sticheln, a popular trick-taking game which is not new but is one we enjoy. This resulted in a win for Petra Pan with MrWendell and I tying for second. Since we were on negative scores and PP's was well into the positives it was a clear win.

At this point those people who were staying to the end began to head off to the local fish and chip shop, or more exotic "take-aways", for some nourishment to sustain them for the final four or five hours. I decided it would be a good time to take my leave. My conscience insisted that I did a bit of clearing up and washing up first though. I do appreciate all the organisation that goes on and it was one of the few times I was not going to be there for the midnight task of stacking chairs and stowing folding tables away.

I began to question the wisdom of having bought two large games (El Grande and Tigris) as I headed for the 'bus but got home fairly easily, looking back on another very successful Saltdean Games Day which, hopefully, has raised a nice chunk of change for the local Scouts.