Feld and Friese

It was a day of effs and not all of them uttered by me, although I lost three games in a row.

We first played Stefan Feld's "In the Year of the Dragon" again. In fact we can now play it sufficiently well that we managed to fit two games in before lunch.

In the first Crabro locked me out of what I needed so efficiently that the winning margin was huge, but in the second I managed to narrow the gap to a mere two points and it was a lot more easy to see where these could have been found. Despite the losses I very much enjoyed playing this game again, there is something very satisfying about the neatness of the design and the way the mechanisms are nicely in balance.

Image via Wikipedia

After lunch it was the return of an old favourite by another designer beginning with eff: Friedmann Friese's Power Grid, but this time the two player game was enhanced by the new "Robots" expansion. This allows the creation of a robot third player whose game is varied by his being made up of randomly chosen pieces, each controlling the robot player's behaviour in a particular phase.

Our robot was not very successful at expanding but he was always last in player order and so bought raw materials first every time, increasing the rarity and price of various fuels.

Although we struggled a bit to remember the new rules and perhaps gave "Robbie" a harder time than we should have, it certainly added something to the two-player game and it would be interesting to try other robot combinations and see how they affect the game.

Once again I lost, and although the final winning margin would not have been vast, it was clear without playing the final turn that there was no action available to me that would alter the fact that Crabro had it wrapped up. This was a little frustrating as, unlike the first ITYOTD from which I could clearly see and learn by my obvious errors (corrected in the second very competitive game), I was not so sure where I had gone wrong. One thing was obvious and that was that at a crucial turning point in the game, Crabro had a substantial amount more money than me despite my larger income. Since there were (unusually) no major bidding battles in this game, I have to think that I overspent a lot on resources at a key point of the game.

Image via Wikipedia

I was playing an unusual strategy for me in that I expanded fast early on. Normally I try to hang back, not wanting to buy and build last, but in this case my first city was allowed to appear in an area rich in cheap building opportunities and I succumbed to the temptation to forge ahead, despite foreseeing a sharp drop-off point in the future. Crabro built steadily within his means, expanding cities and plants in tandem until, in classic PG style he was ready to make the final push across the line in one protracted build.

Two excellent games, very satisfying to play. Power Grid is, for my money, the chap with the green hair's best design by a considerable margin and both would be in my current top ten I think. ...if only I could win them once in a while.

Table for two

Image via WikipediaTuesday games met a bit of a setback to start with yesterday. It turned out that the "new" games table has had its legs removed and replaced so many times already that the threads have been stripped on the bolts that hold them in place. Nothing we did would persuade them to stay fixed to the table so we made plans for some more practical replacements and meanwhile retreated to the previous Tuesday games venue - the kitchen and it's somewhat smaller oblong table. The reason for abandoning the round drop leaf table we most often use for two-players these days is that we were playing Age of Empires III (aka Glenn Drover's Age of Empires: The Age of Discovery) and it has quite a large board.

 I was immediately taken by the look of the game in fact: The board is attractive and it comes with many colourful figures, big plastic coins and some nice trading ships.

More importantly though, it turns out to be a species of worker-placement game which is a mechanism I always seem to enjoy. This proved to be no exception and definitely had that can't-do-everything-I-want-to feel that paradoxically makes these games fun. It's a challenge to decide which of all the actions you would like to take will do you the most good and in which order to take them.


I seemed to be falling behind quite early on as Crabro had a healthy income and was even pirating some of mine. In the end, though, I won by quite a healthy margin and Crabro was keen to know how. I kept quiet and he appreciated that he would enjoy the challenge of coming up with a better strategy of his own.

What he didn't appreciate was that I didn't KNOW how I'd won. I'd simply taken what I thought were the best options each round given what was available and which specialists I had.

A very enjoyable, attractive and satisfying game and one I suspect we will play again, at least until Crabro gives me a trouncing. I think it will be a very different game with more players and we may find out tomorrow.

As we'd had a later start and a whole game to learn from scratch, it was well into the afternoon before we finished "Empires", in fact we had broken for lunch after the rules learning and before actually starting the game. We felt like finishing the day with some very light fun and after some debate and a look through the library Crabro requested another Fast Flowing Forest Fellers.

I was only too happy to agree and having set up a challenging course we set off...but it wasn't long before our "fellers" were going round in circles as the usual backstabbing and revenge cycles began. In the end the last of my lumbeeple crossed the line while Crabro's was trying to find a way through the final eddies, giving me my second win of the day. Very good fun. The table is a bit of a nuisance though. I have a temporary solution but it would seem that trestles are the way of the future.

Gaming at a distance

Image via WikipediaOh dear Crabro and I have finally dipped a successful toe into the wide waters of board gaming via the internet while chatting on Skype. It's not quite the experience that sitting around a table pushing cardboard is, but it's an interesting substitute.

We were due to be at a small, rather exclusive Con locally but for one reason or another couldn't get away until almost lunchtime at which point Crabro suggested that, rather than driving there (quite a few miles for him especially as he would be coming here in the evening too) we make another attempt at linking up on-line for a game or two.

Image via WikipediaWe rang off for lunch and some software set up and when we spoke again it was via Skype and for the first time via a sensible headset in my case rather than the speakers.  For the rest of the afternoon we were chatting almost as though we were playing face to face.

The Vassal set-up took a little longer but eventually it fell into place even though I was on my Windows games machine rather than the main Linux machine while he was using Linux as always. We first attempted Memoir '44 as we had played my real copy several times recently and thought we knew the rules. It worked and looked quite nice but we had a few problems understanding the interface especially as some expansions had been included which we had never encountered before. Decks of combat cards?

It having been a reasonably successful start, we had a look through the extensive list of modules but eventually decided to have a game of something we both know and own (one shouldn't of course play anything on Vassal that one doesn't own a physical copy of and in some cases this is ensured by missing card decks etc.). We therefore, had a couple of games of Carcassonne which I messed up as much on line as I do with the cardboard version. I can never get the hand of where and when to place farmers.

Grabbed from the Vassal session

Some things about the interface where nice (the ability to "lay down" a meeple for instance) but it felt rather glitchy and several times we accidently picked up all the tiles instead of just one and had placed tiles go missing. We got used to synchronising on the person with the undamaged copy to correct these things though and overall it was a successful start for on-line peer-to-peer board gaming.

Later on the group arrived for the usual Thursday evening session and I played Strozzi with ProfMudlark, MaOldie and Crabro and then a second game with the full group after Petra Pan and mrwendell arrived.

As soon as I opened and started punching it I realised that I had in fact played it before and quite liked it. A simple game of grabbing a ship or three and placing it at a port to gain points and bonuses by having the best ship in the port (highest number) and the highest position on the trade goods track of that port. There is a little more to it than that but not much. I won the first game convincingly but found a six-player version a little more difficult, coming second.

After that and another round of hot drinks we decided to play Fast Flowing Forest Fellers again as it is quick to learn and should be fast playing. Of course the Professor can suffer attacks of Analysis Paralysis in any game but he quickly accepted that this game needs to "flow" in keeping with the theme and on the whole it moved fairly fast.

I spent several minutes trying to be heard of assorted conversations as I pointed out the the boards were the wrong way round, it being no fun to push someone into a current that is going in the direction they want to go. In the end I gave up and relied on it dawning on the others eventually... Which it did after the initial few moves. Unfortunately mrwendell had negotiated his way through a sea of logs into a clear lead by that point so he was not overly pleased to have the game restarted.

Justice was served though as his lumbermeeple raced over the finish line in a clear lead from my second place chap (which he had unkindly bumped into a stream heading backwards when I was in the lead). The usual mayhem ensued at the mid-point as people repeatedly sent their opponents (and the odd log) back up-river. I'm not sure the others were as enthusiastic about the game as Crabro and me but then for me it loses something with too many players. I like the opportunity to choose between more than one meeple for example.

A good day's gaming anyway, despite shunning the Con and its free cakes.

Fast Flowing Friese Fun

I forgot to take photographs of the first of our Tuesday games this week, which was Macao. This is a very nice game with an unusual mechanic entailing the use of a number of coloured dice, a lot of coloured blocks and a compass rose.

The blocks are used as action points in buying goods, moving ships and purchasing cards representing offices and buildings.

It is a game I recognised immediately as one I had played at a Con a couple of years ago, really enjoyed and tried unsuccessfully to recall the name of in the intervening time.

It took me a while to get used to it again. In particular the need for advanced planning. Crabro won I think, but the scores were very close after I did manage to put together some useful moves towards the end of the game. This is definitely one I would like in my own collection.

After lunch we turned to another recent bargain purchase: Maori. This proved to be more of a filler. A very light but attractive little game of tile placement. We played a couple of games and tried one of the varients, using the rather tighter placement rules and the reverse of the player boards.

We finished the day with another new purchase but one we had also played at the same con that introduced us to Macao: Fast Flowing Forest Fellers. I remembered it as not going down very well (except with me) so I was delighted that Crabro was not one of those who had given it the thumbs down.

This is another game by the man with green hair and obsession with the letter "F": Friedmann Friese. This is not a Power Grid (Funkenschlag for the F conscious) variant but a light-hearted race game with plenty of opportunity to confound the plans of your fellow lumberjacks.

The course is strewn with logs (nice chunky wooden pieces) and a variety of map boards can be put together into courses of varying complexity. The wooden pieces come in various colours, and more unusually two sexes. Using individual sets of cards for each piece shuffled into a personal deck the players attempt to get their lumberjacks (in our case three, in two colours - a male and female in one colour and a further male) down the river to exit off the bottom of the boards. Once a piece is off the board its cards become "wildcards" useable for the remaining lumberjacks.

Where this game takes off is in the opportunity to shove other pieces (including the logs) into currents (depicted by arrows on the board) which eddy in different directions including back up-river.

I won the first of our games and appeared to have the second one sewn up when I had a run of less-than-useful low cards and was overtaken at the last to make it one all.

This is very light but if played in the right spirit and with a "fast-flowing" pace it is a great deal of fun. I think our group will enjoy it and I'm pretty sure that the Goldstone Gamers would enjoy it too.

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.