Bocage

Combat Commander was played again this week, Hedgerows and hand grenades was the scenario and my Americans were beaten. The scenario was a nightmare for movement and line of sight. The hedgerows funneled my troops into one area and my hand management got them stuck. I had 3 ambush cards for most of the game, desperate to use them on a close assault but a lack of move cards held me back.
My artillery attacks initially did very well, but I never had the troops available in the right place to capitalize on it. In the end Mudhoney managed to win on sudden death with the majority of the VP's.
It was a good game if a little frustrating for me. It has however taught me more about hand management.

Other gaming has been only online. Yspahan has been released on the Yucata web site and I really like this game. It's a mid weight euro game that seems to tick the boxes for me. I have also got Catan for the Xbox 360 and enjoyed playing it this week. I think I have played 4 or 5 games against the easy AI and won easily. I think it's time to up the skill level a bit.

Jungle speed and the Swiss ticket to ride expansion arrived recently. I am desperate to give the Swiss map a play. The rules look really good and I am sure its going to make for some tense games. Hopefully this will hit the table soon.

Brutes attack

Anyone who wants to give my brute a fight, click here.

A Weeks Gaming

A varied week of gaming started of on Sunday night in Guildford. Games hitting the table were Blokus, Ubongo and Formula D.

Blokus went down well and it became quite an aggressive game with lots of blocking going on. Frank managed to win 2 of the 3 games but most were very close. I was trying to start off with different pieces trying to gain the edge on getting the most number of corners into the center. It worked well, but not well enough.
Ubongo is a good quick game and I managed to grab the win. Frank didn't really like it but the other 2 did so I expect it to be played again. Some of the puzzles seemed to be harder than the others but I am sure its not the case.

As the Formula 1 started on Sunday it was fitting to play Formula D. Due to time constraints and a diversion on the way home we only played a single lap. I started in pole position but ended last. Typical ! We played the advanced rules for the first time and they made a huge difference. You couldn't afford to be too gung ho with your car.
I do like Formula D and the new expansion is tempting but the dice just hate me.

In the week I played Heck'n'Peck with the kids. I thought that they would get the game but it was a bit of a struggle. My youngest beat me by 3 worms so he must have been doing something right.

Delivered this week was Ticket to Ride Switzerland as I was after a TTR map that played well for 2 players and Jungle Speed as it looks like a great laugh. I am sure the POB guys will have a blast with it.

3,3,3,3,1,1,1,2,2,2,1,1,1 !!!!

Last Friday was the March meet of P.O.B. and we had a good turnout with some new faces. Plenty of games were played over the 5 hours of gaming. 5 hours! yep, bet it went by in a blurr.

First up I played Pit, maybe the loudest game I have ever played. It was fun, especially when one player thought he had to collect one of every card type. The rest of us couldn't figure out what was going on until he asked if it was really possible to collect one of each kind. Good fun.

Next up we split off into some smaller groups and I played Cleopatra and the Society of Architect's which was a card management type game. It had some lovely pieces that you used to build up an Egyptian area that looked amazing at the end of the game. I managed to win the game by about 10 talans which was good. Can't really say I expected to win but I just went hell for leather on the build using corrupted resources. Then offered huge amounts to the gods to off set the corruption.
Next up was Chicago Express which is a great train game. Not as deep as Age of Steam which was running on another table but has more than enough strategy to keep it fresh. I struggled a bit at the start although I have played it before. Its all about bidding enough money for the railroad shares without paying over the odds. I did OK, but not enough to win.

The other games, Age of Steam and Age of Empires 3 were finishing up now so we decided to play a couple of games of werewolf to round off the evening. Unfortunately Mudhoney had forgotten his cards, luckily I had a copy of coloretto with me. So stripy chameleons were werewolves and green ones were villagers. It all worked out well, especially for the werewolves who managed to win both games.

Next meet has been scheduled for the 24th April if anyone fancies coming along.

Go home to Mama

Monday saw Combat Commander Mediterranean land on the table courtesy of Mudhoney. We have been trying to get some regular plays in of Combat Commander as we both enjoy the game.
We played the scenarios Saint Agthna which involved an American patrol coming across some Italian defenders. The Italians had the advantage of numbers, plus they could hide some of there troops and deploy them when the time marker hit 2. the Americans had better weapons with a hvy machine gun and light motor as well as a couple of medium machine guns.

I played as the Americans and deployed my units in two areas on my side of the map. My plan was to move one group armed with the hvy mg into a building while the rest were to move up the edge of the map and flank the Italians.

Things started out well, I quickly took hold of the buildings at the bottom of the map taking out the Italians that were using it. Meanwhile my other squad was getting pinned down by a medium mg in the woods. Over the next few turns my hvy mg was making mincemeat of any Italians I could see from the relative safety of there building. My other flank had now lost its leader and was not looking so good.

The Italian reserves appeared and Mudhoney decided to spread then about a bit. Unfortunately they were in range of my hvy mg and they didn't last that long. The number of Italian casualties was mounting and things were not looking good for them. Several had routed home to mama which I couldn't really blame them for. Things were getting worse on my other flank. I had lost my leader but gained a hero only to loose him again. Without a leader movement and firing was hard work. Especially as the Italians were dug into foxholes in the woods on top of a hill. My mortar rounds were ineffective as were any shots I sent that way. I sent another group that way to help relieve them and to add more firepower but it wasn't looking pretty.
Next thing we know a fire had started near the Italians and was spreading both towards them and a small unit I had sent that way. Fortune came my way with a jam and subsequent break of the Italians mg which allowed me to move up a veteran unit. They survived some pot shots and then advanced into combat with some ambush cards. I won the fight and the game as the Italians had now hit there surrender limit.

I was trailing on VP's all the way through the game as I couldn't get to the objective areas. I was pinned down in a couple of places and was loath to move my heavy gunners out of there cover. I was pushing for a surrender win and it eventually came.

It was a good match and if Mudhoney had placed his reserves in a different place things would have changed for the worse.

Using the Chapel

I have been playing Dominion quite a bit recently. Mainly using the BSW site as its nice and quick. The system does all the shuffling and works out all the actions and gold which makes life quite a bit easier.

My play of Dominion has evolved over the last couple of weeks. I used to grab as many village cards as I could. Those +2 actions are always useful but to many in your deck and all you end up with is lots of unusable actions. Smithy's are always useful as they can help get you more action cards but sometimes I felt like I was just fishing around for something to play.

Recently I have started playing around with the Chapel card. Initially I couldn't get my head around why you would want to discard cards but after being beaten online it started to make sense. Once a card has served its purpose its just going to clog your hand. When there are no more curse cards left your witch is an over priced moat. Also when you have started to buy or mine the higher money cards it can be useful to trash the lower "1" value cards.
It's all about making your deck as sleek and efficient as possible and is something that all good players strive to.

So the village card is not always the first card I grab, sometimes its the Chapel. Or maybe something that will increase my buying power. Anyone for a woodcutter?

P.O.B @ the Festing

Last Friday saw P.O.B use a new venue. The Festing Pub in Portsmouth, it's probably the best place we have used so far. A bar and pizza service certainly makes the evening more pleasant and a large room with plenty of space to play is ideal.

We started off splitting into two groups with Winners Circle being played on one table while I ran a game of Dominion. We played the starting set of cards as the others have only played it once or twice. It was a very close game with myself and Moley finishing with the same score, unfortunately Moley won as he had less turns than myself. Dominion continues to impress me, and I manage to get a couple of games in a week on BSW when nobody is about.

As Winners Circle was still in play I setup Pitchcar over a couple of tables and the flicking began. I came third with Mudhoney taking the win and Romeo coming second. Moley trailed in at the end after some poor flicking. It's a great game and the expansions are on my wish list. That jump looks like it will make the game even more enjoyable.

When Winners Circle finished some heavier games were pulled out. One group went off to play Battlestar Galactica while Container was opened on another table. I love Battlestar, its a good co-op game especially when you are a cylon but I wanted to give Container a go.
After Mudhoney ran through the rules I was a bit lost but figured I would pick it up as we went along. Container is a very good economic game, one that I am not very good at. I came in last, but would be happy to play it again especially now as I know what I should be doing.

A couple of other players had now turned up so For Sale started on another table while Pitchcar had another race. We were filling in time until the toasters finished off the Battlestar.

By now the group had grown to around 13 and time was running out. With this many Werewolf had to be played and after a quick explanation we started up. We used a couple of new characters in the mix. The lone wolf and masons were used, but to be honest I thought they didn't really add that much to it. I died on the first night! typical I wasn't suspicious at all. Damn werewolves.

A good evening of 5 hours gaming. All agreed that the Festing would be the new home for P.O.B so roll on March's meet. If you want to join in look for us on line.