Viva il Terry

This week's main game was a new Martin Wallace game "Discworld: Ankh Morpork". This is unusual for Wallace in being a licenced spin-off from the hugely popular (not least among game-geeks) series of comic fantasy novels by Sir Terry Pratchett.

The game may not please all the Wallace fans as it may be seen as less of a "gamers' game" than his others. Since he is presumably hoping to market this to the legions of Pratchett fans, and to see it stocked by a much wider range of outlets than the normal "Eurogame", it is probably inevitable that it be given simpler rules and strategies.


Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and its card-driven action and found it easy to learn and play but not unsatisfying. It drips with Discworld theme, with the board being based on a map of the city of Ankh-Morpork and its various disreputable regions and with many of the well-known characters appearing on the action and event cards.

Image via WikipediaImage via WikipediaMy goal (defined by a random, hidden character card - Lord Rust) was to control 4 areas of the city at the beginning of my turn. After a number of rounds I was surprised to find that I had got away with my strategy and announced my win. What surprised me was not that I managed to gain outright control of the areas but that I was somehow allowed to keep control by the three other players (The Professor, MaOldie and Crabro) until my own turn again. Simply adding a minion, or removing one of my own buildings or minions, in one of the areas would have thwarted my plan. I believe that the others were simply too involved in their own strategies to notice the situation. Despite my motives being under close scrutiny a few turns before.




I enjoyed the game and would be happy to play it again. Stripped of its theme, there are many games to equal it but it is an enjoyable game and the theme, at least to a Discworld fan, takes it to a new level.

During the first game, Petra Pan and MrWendell arrived and having been issued with a hot beverage were seated at a second table where they amused themselves with a Mystery Rummy, while we finished Morporking. We then joined up for a six-player game which was Viva il Re.


Viva il Re, is a very simple game: a filler really. It is played simply by moving one piece one level up the building and voting (using a set of three cards) whether or not the person reaching the throne shall be ruler or shorter by a head. Each player is issued with a random card at the start, which lists the names of those courtiers which will bring points if they survive.

The voting cards consist of a returnable "yes" or crown card and two non-returnable "no" cards. Players take it in turns to position a piece on the board (a cross section palace building with several floors, each capable of holding four nobles) they then move one up each turn. When one is moved into the topmost room a vote takes place.

Possibly because I have played it before, I managed to win the first game quite convincingly but in the second I game only second having had several of my favourites beheaded. It is a very simple game and one with a high luck factor but it is attractive colourful and fun as a quick and simple filler.

We finished the evening with a quick delve into the mines of Diamant once more and either through bad luck or bad judgement (cowardice) I managed to lose, although it was quite a high scoring game.

Canal Mania

This week I hosted the group's Thursday games again and Crabro brought over Canal Mania.

This proved to be very enjoyable and superficially like, for example, Ticket to Ride.

"It's not a train game" insisted Crabro as he placed a game end trigger marker with a picture of Stephenson's "Rocket" on the score track.

While I grasped the rules and enjoyed the mechanics something about strategy had clearly eluded me as I was a very distant last at the end of the evening. I have to admit to not being very happy about that as, despite being a good (and frequent) loser, I don't like being uncompetitive. I am perfectly happy to enjoy a game without being the victor but I do like to feel that I am giving my opponent(s) some sort of a run for his/their money.

Perhaps this was in my mind when I requested that my other friends play their copy of Canal Mania with me on Saturday night. In fact it was my turn to supply the games but because of a last minute change of plans necessitated by a call for assistance by my historian stepmother, I would have had to lug a lot of games around all day on bus and train.

Instead I carried a few fillers and after a magnificent meal as usual there, we settled to canal building.

It was immediately obvious that there were considerable differences between this version and Crabro's and subsequently we discovered that the Saturday game was 1st edition while the Thursday gamers used the 2nd edition. There are some cosmetic changes to the board graphics, more copies of the player aid and the boats have become less like tugs and a little more like a canal boat...or a Clyde puffer maybe.  There are also some deeper changes including the removal of a route and colour changes to towns, the addition of length-two "wild card" contracts for each player as well as changes to the scoring.

Final positions with this blogger as green

Whether these changes or experience or simply less tiredness were factors I don't know, but I felt more confident during the Saturday game and while one of my hosts had a good lead in the early stages I hauled them in and ended up a fairly convincing winner. "It's Ticket to Ride on water" was the verdict of Paultro in contrast to Crabro's opinion. I would be happy to play it again but my hosts considered that it was too long and imagine it will be some time before it hits the table there again.

My good fortune didn't continue on to the filler as we then had two games of Diamant and I didn't win either.

Way out West, Way out East

Two days of gaming.

After returning from the "Dunge" trip I had about three-quarters of an hour to eat, tidy up, change and set up the games table for the arrival of the Thursday gamers on another trip out East. This week there were only four of us however, owing to work commitments and, hopefully minor, illness.

The cups of tea made, the gamers spent some time in this "office" perusing my games shelves before finally deciding on a rather neglected "Wallace". Crabro is a big fan of the designs of Martin Wallace and I share his enthusiasm for several of them, however, I had bought Way Out West more for the theme than the game as I love anything in the Western genre.

As it had turned out it had only ever had one play, with the Goldstone Gamers (Saturday) group, not because it was terrible but probably just that there were so many games we were equally, or more, taken with. I think the conclusion this time was that, it wasn't one of Martin's finest but nevertheless enjoyable enough to warrant a return some time.

First glance at the board and components lead one to the conclusion that it is rather dry and not evocative of the theme. It does however come to life once the inevitable gunfights begin. I'm afraid I did say at one point that I couldn't see why you would play it if you had Lawless (similar theme in a faster, card, game) but it has grown on me and if it played a lot faster (as it should once everyone was familiar with the rules) I would be happy to play it more often.

As the only Wallace in my collection I will certainly be hanging on to it. The other Wallace designs I particularly like are London, Tinners' Trail, Brass, Steel Driver, Age of Industry and Last Train to Wenslydale not to mention the big one: Age of Steam.

We then needed a "filler" game and while I made some more drinks the rest of the group returned to plundering the office from which they returned with Diamant. There have been various versions of this brilliantly simple "push-your-luck" game and the one I had imported from Germany was without the small board of some of the earlier versions and some of the extra rules of Incan Gold, a later revamp. Mine now sports a laminated print of the board for completeness' sake but it really isn't necessary for play.

The "mechanic" is simply that before each new section of the mine is revealed to contain riches or disaster one displays either an empty hand (staying in ) or a hand containing one's "Indiana Jones" meeple (running out and keeping the loot).

Always fun but rarely much of a success for me and true to form I lost (as I did Way Out West) but not by an embarassing amount. The Professor had had a bad time in the mines and was determined to break his "away game" duck so we played again and he went away happy.

On the following day I received an unexpected call from Crabro asking if I had any free time in the afternoon. Since our regular Tuesday sessions have had to cease for some time, I was only too pleased at the prospect of some games and gossip over lunch and tea.

Neither of us felt much like anything requiring a lot of setting up or huge mental dexterity and in the end we settled on an old favourite: Cribbage.

I was very rusty, despite having played it almost daily for a period many years ago. Both of us grew up with cards at school and with family and it was a comfortable pleasure to fan a hand of ordinary playing cards once more. Crabro ran away with the first game and I made a lot of elementary mistakes forgetting such things as "One for his knob" for example. I fared little better in the second game actually but I did manage to score eighteen points for one hand which felt rather good.

After that, Crabro having discovered he had another hour to play with, we picked up a neat little abstract that we had played in the days when we broke our games days for a cafe or pub lunch: Calypso.

It is extremely portable and so lends itself to a cafe table. Unfortunately it is also a game at which I have never beaten Crabro and it seems likely I never will. I'm not entirely sure why.

At one time I might have said that it is simply that my opponent's mind is much better at grasping abstract strategy than mine but since then I have been very successful against him in a couple of two-player pure abstract games.

It is certainly not true that I don't like abstract games although I do love the big, heavily thematic "narrative" type of board game. I started out with normal cards, Draughts (Checkers), Chinese Checkers, Halma, Othello etc and if I hadn't loved them probably would not be playing board games now. It is true that the little metal tokens and plastic houses of Monopoly and the wooden rum barrels and shiny gems of Buccaneer played a big part too of course.

It being rather dull to have no worthwhile opposition Crabro went to the shelves once more in search of another quick light game to finish on. He came back with Coloretto, a simple card game by Michael Schacht which spawned the successful Zooloretto: A less abstract, board game, reworking of the same mechanism. The game is played over several hands and although Crabro had a commanding lead early on I won an intermediate hand pulling back a lot of the advantage and making a win possible. Another hand was played but I couldn't raise enough points to overtake and Crabro had another win.

A very pleasant, not too complex or mentally taxing way to spend an afternoon anyway. Hopefully our two-player sessions will begin to pick up again as I am looking forward to trying some of his new acquisitions including a new Martin Wallace game: A Few Acres of Snow.