Sunday, November 25, 2007

IGUK Tourney - Hey! Thats my Fish



Next tourney will take place in the the Antarctic where its time to take the role of a hungry pengin trying to grab fish from a rapidly disapearing ice flow. Yep, its time for Hey! Thats my Fish.
Its a quick game thats easy to learn but you never seem to master.

We will be using BSW to play the games this time, sign up now. Rules can be found here
http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/Packeis/

To sign up log into the forums at www.iguk.co.uk

Depending on numbers the first round will be round robin, after that it will depend on numbers.
If anyone needs any help with the game or some practise rounds then let me know.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Power Grid - First Play


I have been eyeing up powergrid for over a year but have always been put off as I felt it was a heavy game and apparently required a calclator to play. Not sure wher I heard that but it was enough to put me off for a while.
I finally caved in a month ago and picked up a copy, I must admit after reading the rules the first time I was a little lost. Second read made more sense and watching the video on Boardgames with Scott hammered things home. I felt ready to play and took it along to my next games night.

The usual crowd was present, myselfm Alan, Frank and Moley all eager to see what new game I had brought. After choosing the American map and picking our pieces I started to explain the game.
Things started off well with each of us picking up power stations and starting to power the cities of America. I went for a trash and hybrid plant selection, Moley went for everything green, Frank for all things nucler and Alan for whatever was left.
The resources started becomming expensive but Moleys wind powered windmill farms made it easy for him to power a continually expanding power system. The rest of us struggled a bit but were always 1 or 2 cities behind him.

Phase 2 came just at the right time as we were all hitting expansion barries with the expensive mid west connections stiffling expansion.
Moley continued to go for all things green but suplemeted himself with nuclear power to continue his lead. Alan splashed out on ome expensive plants to boost his capcity but those mid west links were going to make it expensive. My trash powered plants were running well with an abundance of trash available.

Phase 3 came and Moley was still in the lead, I thought being first player was bad but it was working out well for him. The clinch came when the big 50 power station appeared, a furious bidding war eruppted with Moley ending up the proud owner of free energy, now having a capacity of 19 it was a building race that he won.

End game appeared to happen quickly, but we were all more thn happy wth the game. It seems to flow nicely, with the phases appearing at the right time. All in all a great game, and one I wished I had picked up earlier.