Who you gonna call?

It's nearly the end of February and things have been busy. If I haven't been delving into virtualization at work I have been running with an aim of completing a 10 mile run at the end of the year.
This hasn't left a huge amount of time for gaming, and even less for typing up what's been going on but some gaming has been had.

POB has met up again, last week and it seemed to be a night of the classics. Settlers and Tigris were played. I even managed to scrape a win in Tigris. It's a game that only just "clicked" and made sense. I was lucky in that 2 of the 4 players hadn't played the game before. I can sympathise with them as its a complex game and one that you have to think about.
Other games played were Stone Age, Poo, Pirates and a prototype card game designed by a newcomer.

Other gaming has seen Dominion: Seaside hit the table and I really enjoyed this one. I am desperate to give it another play as I have only used 10 of the new cards. The delayed action mechanic is nice, having a trail of caravans supplying you with cards is very handy.

New purchase of the month is Ghost Stories. I have had my eye on this for a while but the price has put me off. I finally managed to scoop up a copy on an auction. This looks great and hopefully its going to get played tonight. I hear it's hard, but I hope its enjoyable enough to want repeat plays. Nothing worse than playing a game only to find nobody else liked it.

A game that has caught my eye is the new Fantasy Flight war game set on Westros. I am a big fan of the GRRMartin books and FFG always puts a lot of effort into there games. The fact that it uses Battlelore as a system, or part system is interesting. The only downside I can see is the cost. Games just seem to be getting more expensive these day.

King Kong was never like this.

We had a P.O.B meet this week and the Wine Vaults is turning out to be a really good venue. It's quiet on a Wednesday so we don't get many distractions and the beer is good.

A good turn out this week meant we had 3 tables of games running. I setup Steam on one and we had a 5 player game running. Most of us had played Age of Steam or Steam so only Neil was learning the game. It played out well and was quite close at the end with Peter scoring the win. Initial cube deployment was very random so it was all about economic track placement and Peter did well from the start. I came in last due to some poor track placement and not getting the city growth when I wanted it.

Another table were playing Chaos in the Old world which looked quite nice. I know very little about this game but wouldn't mind giving it a go later on.
After these were finished a few people left so we settled down to some card games. A 5 player game of Race for the Galaxy was started and I pulled out Poo!. I bought it as a throw away game but our 4 player game was so much fun we played it again. The game is all about throwing poo at each other and trying not to reach 15 poo markers. Our first game was hilarious as 3 of us managed to get to 14 while Neil hovered around 8. His final card would have taken all of us out but some nifty card playing from Ade and Rob managed to deflect poo back at him in there final death throws. It was a classic ending and a game that will be remembered for a while. All in a much better game than I expected.

Closing orders were rang but not before we squeezed in a quick game of Mow, the RftG game was called as we had run out of time.

It's all so Quiet!

Gamers where are you? It's been deathly quiet on the gaming front. I don't think anything has been played since new years and its getting to be a bit of a problem. It's not that I have masses of new games to play but I would like to replay some of my last purchases or even some of those ones at the top of the shelf.

A POB meet has been arranged for next week so hopefully some gaming will happen in January. On a different note Agricola is no longer No1 at the geek. Puerto Rico has grabbed its Stanna stairlift and motored its way back to the top. I enjoy both games, but neither are really my favorites or number ones really. I maybe enjoy Agricola a little more than Puerto Rico but I understand why PR is so popular. In fact I struggle to think of what my No 1 game would be. Different games are for different groups or times and there are many games that I would happily play at the drop of a hat. Picking my No 1 is just too difficult.

Maybe I haven't played it yet?

No fly's on me, well maybe a few.

Holiday gaming was a bit light but I did manage to gets the guys together for one nights gaming. First up was MOW! which has become my favorite card filler game. It's a basic game of putting numbered cards in sequence and not being caught out with no cards to play. One of the guys hadn't played it before and really enjoyed it. It can get bit vindictive as some cards allow you to change the direction of play, but its all good fun.

After this we played Endeavor another new favorite. For a 5 player game it played out different than I expected. Only 3 of the regions opened up and then only in rounds 5-6. There was not much shipping going on and more attacking than usual. I managed to score the win, but I have played it more than the others so I did have an advantage. Some of the others were stuck on low level buildings and slow population growth, next time they will have a better idea.

The only other gaming has been with the kids new Lego games. Between them they have 4 and the quality varies. The best one so far is Minatourus, its a maze navigation game that also has a Minator that can attack the players and movable wall pieces that you can use to block your opponents. There is scope to add to the maze and use additional rules, but for now its enough of a game for the kids.

I'm a Storyteller

Last week was full of gaming as the various groups met up before Christmas to play a few games and have a drink.
The first game played at P.O.B. last week was Dixit. Initially we were a bit sceptical about the game. We had been dealt a hand of cards and told we needed to tell a story. Auctions we can handle, bluffing not a problem but asking us to make up stories seemed a little odd.

Actually the game was very good, when its your turn you pick one of the cards in your hand. These are beautifully illustrated pictures of mainly surreal states. You then say a word or phrase that would tell a story about that card. It's then placed face down on the table. The rest of the players then need to pick a card which they think would also match the story and place them face down.
Cards are then shuffled and turned over, each player then places a token on the table matching the card position that they think belongs to the storyteller.
Points are then awarded to each card with tokens and the storyteller can gain more points if his card is chosen unless it chosen by all or no players. So the story you tell cannot be too vague or too simple.
The rounds flew by and there were several "What!" moments as non of the cards seemed to match the story.
After our initial scepticism I really enjoyed the game. Putting down cards that matched very close to the story was fun knowing that I could get more score from the other players. I lost out to Mudhonney my one point but would be very happy to play it again.
It's classed as a party game and I would play it over Wits and Wagers any day.

Stone Age

I had a package delivery on Friday while I was out and the only item to big to fit through the letterbox that I was expecting was my Santa gift.
I couldn't pick it up until yesterday and resisted opening it for all of.....5 seconds. I kidded myself into finding out as I had a few other games on Christmas lists. I wouldn't want two copies of the same game would I?

A copy of Stone Age greeted me as I ripped upon the box. Fantastic, I love this game and have had a game running on Yucata since I found out about it. Now I have my own proper copy and it should hit the table this week.

Thanks BGG Secret Santa.

Looks like P.O.B. has a new venue, we will be at the Wine Vaults tomorrow night if anyone is in the area and wants a game. Hopefully this venue will last longer than previous ones. Tomorrows games are going back to old school Euros. Puerto Rico is making an appearance along with some others, I am tempted to bring along Caylus as I haven't played it for a while.

Santa's on his way

Boardgamegeek run a secret Santa every year and this years one has just kicked off. This will be my third year and the previous two have been really good.

Once everyone has signed up Tom Vassel supplies each participant with there target, you can then spend some time looking at there profile and wish list. You can also use a Santa account to start sending anonymous emails to your target which is fun. My last targets have been in America and Australia, this year its a Canadian and they have a pretty good list of games on there wishlist.

I rarely get games for Christmas and this makes sure that I get at least one good one. I am not hoping for any one particular game this year, although Dungeon Lords and Dominion Seaside would be nice additions.

Looks like P.O.B. has found a new home. The Wine Vaults pub in Southsea, our first meet there is next week and it will be nice to have the room for everyone to meet up and play some of the new games.

Gaming wise here has been a bit slow, maybe because of Modern Warfare 2 being released but also work has been busy. Endeavor and Notre Dame have seen the light recently and they have been well received. Endeavor continues to impress me, last game I tried to go for a building strategy as I am usually stuck with lower buildings. The last game went well for me with the other players missing on attack options so I managed to take over enough cities to claim a large share of the trade routes.