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.

Stalingrad

The last weeks gaming has been very different. First up Mudhoney came over to give the new Stalingrad expansion for Combat Commander a go. We are both keen Combat Commander players but there are so many games in our collections that it doesn't see the light that often.

Stalingrad gives you more scenarios, rules to cover urban combat and some more counters. All in not a bad little bundle, its just a tad over priced. We played the Sea Devils scenario which saw my rag tag band of Russians attempting to defend the important grain silo from the invading German Wehrmacht. I had less units but spread them over the center of the map and both flanks and awaited the impending assault. The game played really well, my troops were generally decimated but luck was with me. A couple of well placed mine cards and slung satchel charges took care of a few Germans and time event cards slowly brought the end closer. After a few hard fought incursions I had lost a few objective areas and the victory point marker was on 0. We were in sudden death and things were not looking to good for my comrades. Luckily another time event was pulled. I got 1 VP for defending and Mudhoney pulled a card. Sudden death was triggered and it was all over. I had scraped a win by 1 point. All in a great game and a lovely scenario, edge of your seat gaming.

Zooloretto has also been played twice in the last week. The first time with my 5yr old son who seemed to get it and lost by 3 points. Last night he wanted to play it again as did my youngest (3) and my wife was brought in to help out. She isn't a big gamer but after a couple of rounds had picked up the game. Things were going well with us all managing to fill our enclosures when the tiles started to turn bad. Well for me they were. I was being hosed by my kids.
Game ended with Noah winning by 2 points. Everyone enjoyed it so I am expecting it to be played more often.

I have managed to post two reviews on the IGUK blog, dominion my favorite new game and Army of Zero a new English designed and produced game. Give them a read when you have a few minutes.

Pitchcar arrives tomorrow, just in time for the gathering of POB on Friday. Festing pub in Southsea from 6:30PM if anyone is free.

I'm a villager!

Friday was an impromptu gathering at Mudhoney for some game time. It was a pretty good turnout with 9 of us eager to play some new games.
We split into a couple of groups with 5 playing Snow Tails. It's a game where players are each racing a team of huskies over a snow and ice covered course. I never played it but it looked like good fun.

I took the others off to teach them how to play Ubongo. Its a puzzle game that I have mentioned earlier and it went down really well. IT played fast enough for us to get two games in with me winning the first and Hannah winning the second. Four players was a lot more hectic than my previous 2 player goes. Scrabbling for gems after solving the puzzle was a lot more tricky.

As the others were still mushing there huskies we needed something else to play. Pandemic was to hand so the four of us attempted to save the world, but failed. The outbreaks just game to fast at the end of the game with black and blue cubes multiplying across Europe at an astonishing rate. We managed to get 3 cures but not the last one. A good game but you can't always win them.

By now everyone had finished playing and as there was a decent enough number of players Werewolf was suggested. I quite like Werewolf, in fact it was shown to me the first time I met up with the POB crowd. My comment of "I'm not a Villager" always bring a laugh. I wasn't a villager but the seer. My ineptitude at the game had my strung up by the villagers then but times have changed.
We played 4 games of Werewolf and the furry killers managed to win 3 of them. I was the seer in the last game and immediately told the rest of the players who I was and who a villager was in the first day. I knew I was setting myself up to die but I really wanted the villagers to win for a change. I didn't die that night as the werewolves wanted to sow some seeds of doubt into the mix but on the second night I was pushing daisies. Too late for our silver phobic friends they were outed that day.

All in, a good night gaming with a variety of games being played.

Ubongo, Ubongo they play it in the jungle!

Lastest purchase was a used copy of Ubongo. It's been on my games radar for a while and after a recent episode of the spiel I ramped up my effort to grab a copy.
I have not bought a used game before, I like that new game smell and unpunching cardboard bits but as Ubongo has been out of print for a while I had no choice.

Ubongo is a puzzle game and a type of game that I have not played before. Basically users race to use Tetris shaped pieces to cover a pattern on a board. Sounds easy but when you are under pressure it can get a bit tricky.
After you have finished your puzzle you have to yell Ubongo! then move your player piece on a board and grab a couple of coloured jewels. Player with the most of a single colour wins.

The rules are all pretty simple and there is a fair bit of re playability in the game. It's also nice and quick. I managed to get 3 games in over lunch today against Dobbie. Both enjoyed the game as we are pretty competitive.

I have heard that there is a reprint by Z-Man games later this year which is good news as its a great game and something different from the more mainstream types of games.

Otherwise gaming has been pretty good. Dominion has hit the table again and this game just gets better. There are still cards that I haven't played before and combo's to be put together. I keep promising a review on IGUK but the game is getting played too much.

I also managed to get a face to face game of Tigris in. This game has had me puzzled for ages. It's one of those games that I really wanted to play but after a couple of online attempts I just didn't get it. Face to Face changed this (Thanks Hannah & Ed) and I now understand the rules enough to actually play the game. Winning is a different manner but a few more games and this may change.

POB is having a mini meet this week so more games to be played, unless we get snowed in.