Articles on games, from top sellers, to what we are playing here at Spirit Games.

Expo 2011

Another successful Expo - we took slightly more money than last year, which meant that we covered our costs and had enough left for a meal at Manzils (which was the best Indian meal I've had in a very long time) and a couple of pints in the Burton Bridge Inn. Money, however, is a secondary consideration for us at Expo - we go there to enjoy ourselves and play games with as many people as possible. As usual we were ably assisted by Nick, Paul and Carole; for a variety of reasons ranging from plain incompetence to alarming medical emergencies we were short of extra bodies, but managed to catch at least some of the new releases. We came away with Go with the Flow, a simple tactical game with quite a lot of luck involved but fast-paced and very well produced, and Convoluted, a simple but really quite thoughtful word game. A hideously misplaced apostrophe on a card put me off Zombie Close but further investigation has shown it to be really quite good despite being Yet Another Zombie Game; a lot simpler than most of the others, fast-paced, nicely balanced and quite atmospheric. I managed to miss Medieval Mastery, but having played it since am hoping that it will be available to sell in the shop before too long.

So what were we playing in our demo patch in front of the stand? On Saturday, mostly the dice game King of Tokyo which, as expected, was the hit of the show for us. It's easy to learn, fast to play, colourful, fun, and works with 2 - 6 players, so ticks a lot of boxes. We also played a fair few games of Cargo Noir, the new Days of Wonder release which is also a favourite at our Wednesday Night sessions, and Abandon Ship, which has been out for a couple of years but has been largely unnoticed despite being a fine lightweight tactical/bluffing game. Sunday was dominated by Conquest of Planet Earth; we had planned to try the co-operative variant but as fast as one game finished there were players waiting for the next game so we stuck to the version we knew. Ascension and Guillotine got a run-out too, but the longer games didn't get a look in. However, one person did stop at the stand to say how much she had enjoyed Navigador, which we had recommended a few weeks previously; that was top of the list if we'd had the chance to fit a longer game in.

At another company's demo table nearby, there were constant games of Braggart - with the advantage of costing only £8.99 it was our top seller, though closely followed by the £29.99 King of Tokyo. Braggart won the Best Card Game award at the show, unsurprisingly. Best Board Game was won by Martin Wallace's Ankh-Morpork, but we all have to wait until the September release before we can lay our hands on that one.

Spirit Games (Est. 1984) - Supplying role playing games (RPG), wargames rules, miniatures and scenery, new and traditional board and card games for the last 20 years

Posts on the Big Bang Burger Bar by our Wednesday night players, reproduced by kind permission of zarniwoop:

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 06 January 2012

21st Dec 2011
Well we started the evening off with a game of Wiraqocha which is proving a popular game with at least some of the Wed night gamers :). This is an excellent little game with 3 ways to win providing for plenty of interaction as players both try and complete one of them whilst trying to stop someone else. The game involves rolling dice, which does mean an element of luck, but there are ways you can effect the outcome of dice which mitigates some of the randomness. I like this game and will always be willing to play in a game of it. Phil won this, I was merely providing a means of slowing down Martins/Phils battle for the win.

Finished the evening with a first play of Space Maze a quirky but fun little game where players race to collect the Artefact at the centre of the maze to return it to their mothership. In order to move through the maze you need to get the doors to match the primary colours that make up the colour of the alien you are trying to move, various cards allow you to manipulate the maze. You roll dice (one of each colour per player plus a movement dice) each player taking one dice on their turn until they have used 3 dice. On your board you can play 2 action cards and one movement dice, but only one per turn. To play a card you needs to place a dice on it with at least the value shown on it or higher and the colour of the dice determines which of your aliens can use the action it provides. The movement dice have a number of coloured feet on them showing how many moves each of you aliens can make. This plays reasonably quickly and is quite fun.
Andy was our runaway winner on this first game, helped by the fact I got the rule about playing the cards wrong (I thought you had to get the exact number only)

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 17 December 2011

14th Dec 2011
We started the evening off with a 5 player game of Lifeboat , players are hand a random character card depicting one of the survivors, each with their own unique ability. They are also handed two other cards - A character they Love and a character they hate.
At the end of the game, if you survive, you score points if your love is still alive and if the person you hate has died. The characters are placed in the lifeboat (represented by cards in a line on the table), the first in line picks up a number of cards from the supplies deck equal to the players, looks at them then takes one and passes the rest onto the next player in the line. These items can be weapons, water, money, jewels etc that either aid you during the game or represent additional potential points for the end game. On their turn players can: Do nothing, Swap Places with someone (who can refuse so a fight breaks out!), mug someone (Steal some supplies, again this can lead to a fight!), play cards with special actions or Row. When players fight they can get wounded placing a token on their card, each character can take a differerring amount of wounds, also the other players can take sides in the fight each adding their strength total to the attacker/defender. When players row they take 2 navigation cards and select one, each of these cards depicts who has gone overboard and who is thirsty. The last person in the row picks up all the cards placed by rowing and selects one to use, if no one has rowed then a card is taken from the deck instead.
This was quite fun and did produce some funny accents and cruel / funny player interactions. The game ended with "the kid" being thrown overboard and to add insult to injury someone chucked in some "Chum" meaning the sharks attacked the kid taking him out of the game.
Play continues until the fourth seagull is sighted meaning land has been found.
Phil: (Sir Stephen) 28, Chris: (Lady Lauren) 17, Barry: (Frenchy) 16, Sal: (the Kid) Dead and Paul: (The Captain) Dead

We ended the evening playing Mundus Novus
Quote from: The Box
It is the 16th century. The riches of the New World enflame the greed of the great European merchants. To bring back the gold and precious commodities (cocoa, corn, tobacco, vanilla...) they will charter fleets of caravels, build warehouses and seek the help of famous conquistadors.
Mundus Novus is an immersive, tactical game of trading to acquire the wealth of a new continent. An interesting card game with an unusual trading mechanic which claims 45min but took way longer than advertised, due in some part to it being the first play for some of us. It took me some time to really get the hang of how the trading worked, as ultimately you are trying to build sets of cards each turn in order to gain money or buy ships/warehouses/seek help from the conquistadors. There is more than one way to win the game, Sally nearly won by getting 75 money but sadly this was a turn too late as the other 2 had both gotten the magic combination of every commodity plus incan gold. The tie being resolved by most money.
I enjoyed playing this, I might be tempted to try again but not one I think I will add to my collection. Barry: 1st, Philsy: 2nd, Sally:3rd and me last!

The other table played a game of City Tycoon Phil Says :- City Tycoon a cross between Urban Sprawl and Infinite City - but what would I know I came last.
Andy:38, Chris:31, Martin:27 and Phil:22

Christmas approaches once more, and it is high time I brought you up to date with my choices from the deluge of games we have had this year.

First off, what did I allowed myself as early birthday presents this summer? The answer: King of Tokyo - now awaiting a reprint - and Conquest of Planet Earth. By the time of my birthday I had allowed myself a Wiraqocha as a very early Christmas present and that gets played constantly. Recently I have been getting the hang of Eminent Domain, a more user-friendly Race for the Galaxy with a touch of Dominion, which puts it right up my street. The long-awaited reprint of Alien Frontiers arrived last month and has been avidly played. Most recently of all, the last game I played on Sunday at Midcon was Urban Sprawl - a 3 hour game, but which we got the hang of as we went along and thoroughly enjoyed. I would put this alongside Agricola as a game that sounds and, at first glance looks uninspiring, but turns out to be good fun.

I have borrowed back the copy of Sutter's Mill which I gave a friend for his birthday and have been interesting several of our regulars, this is one that seemed to pass people by initially but is a bit different without being too complicated and has always been fun. Two similarly overlooked games that we pull out of our games library from time to time are Abandon Ship and Montego Bay. While on the subject of simpler games, Braggart has largely taken over from Nuts! as the default quick fun card game, and Marrakech continues to come out regularly as does It's Alive.

At the last Raiders of the Games Cupboard (next one is on 29th December, by the way) I took the opportunity of a game of Ad Astra, as I usually do, and also played Ankh-Morpork, the new family/light gamer Discworld game, and Fortune & Glory, an impressively large box of bits which also proved possible and enjoyable to play straight away after punching out the counters using the Quick Start rules.

Most recently Sally and I have been trying three very different card games: Food Fight is clearly designed to appeal to those wanting a bit of silliness but in fact plays rather well and has now had several outings with different groups. Conflicting Kingdoms is a semi-customisable card game a bit like Magic the Gathering (oh yes, I've been playing a fair bit of that too), but with a strong tactical/positional element too. I'm getting more drawn into it the more I demo it to people. And Revolver is a two-player game with an unusual mechanism which will take a couple more games to get the hang of . I'll have to put up a review once I know what I'm doing - maybe by the time you read this...

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 27 September 2011

21st Sep 2011
This week we had another game of Wiraqocha which I am really enjoying playing it is such a fun little game. Well it was a close run thing between Phil, Sally and Caz all of whom were a turn or so away from getting a winning condition but in the end it was Caz who romped home with the win.

We ended the evening with a game of On The Underground which is a great game we just have not played for some time, which did lead to us missing or getting wrong several rules during the game. This did not ruin our enjoyment and really did not effect the results at all with the final scores being: Caz & Sal: 49, Steve: 43 and last me with 34

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 27 September 2011

14th Sep 2011
Tonight Elder Sign turned up in the shop, being an Arkham junkie there was not much arm twisting involved to get me to buy a copy which we then preceded to unbox to play.
As is to be expected the artwork is in keeping with the Arkham Games theme and the component quality is very good. In fact some of the tokens are better suited to the theme than the normal Arkham Horror game.
The characters are exploring a museum steeped in the usual Arkham Horror mythos meaning there are monsters, magic and mystical traps to overcome to try and prevent the ancient one from arising and devouring the world.
Players either stay at the entrance to heal, buy items from the shop using trophies gathered, rolling for random rewards or by tackling adventures in one of the various rooms in the museum.
A lot has been said that this game is easy and that the rules are broken. Well from my experience, which admittedly is still only a few games, the game drips the theme and the each game I have played could easily have ended badly given a different choice or a bad dice roll. For me though, whether I win or lose an Arkham game, its all about the theme and the atmosphere generated by the players. If you get the right people playing who buy into it all the game is a joy to play and you get cheers as people get the right symbols on the last roll or the collective sigh after a horrible fail or character loss.
As to the rules, I found them easy to pick up and teach to new players. Are they perfect, no there are places where examples or more clarification would help but they are far from broken.
I have to say this was an excellent purchase and I really enjoy playing this. It has all the look and feel of its big brother, all the same atmosphere and enjoyment but with simpler gameplay and can be played even with a large group in around 2 hours which is great.
I would recommend this game for fans and non-fans of Arkham Horror, but if you play with a larger group I would recommend thinking seriously about how you sit people around the game everyone needs to be close. The reason is that they need to be able to read the flavour text on the cards but also it helps everyone interact on each others turn helping to enhance the atmosphere of the game.
In our game we could have had nice gentle last round to win but Martin, after we had all decided we need do no more adventures and grab that win, decided to push his luck and go for one more room.
Well the ancient one was awoken, we had several adventurers devoured and on the final roll of the last survivor we banished the ancient one for a very narrow WIN.

We then went on to play Quarriors this is a dice game where players start of with a set of dice and on their turn roll some dice then use these to acquire other special dice from the available pool, all with different functions. The aim is to build your "Deck" of dice in order to score points which win you the game achieved by placing creatures in front of you, if they are still there on your next turn you score them before discarding. This was actually quite fun but unlike the card deck-builders, there is a lot more luck involved in this game.
Scores were: Paul:14, Richard:10, Martin:10, Ben:8

Finally, whilst I was waiting for Caz to finish her game of Wiraqocha we played a round of Nuts! always a funny game.
Ben won this one!

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 26 September 2011

7th Sep 2011
Tonight Caz started her evening off playing a game of Quarriors a dice deck building game. Phil won this game apparently

We ended the evening with our first play of Guards! Guards! this game has some excellent quality components combined with some really great discworld artwork. There is a lot of discussion around the board for being abstract, well for my 2 cents the board looks great and suits the gameplay, some of the text could be easier to read but it is not a show stopper.
The players are newly recruited members of the City Watch, the eight great spells are missing from Unseen University and they have been tasked to collect a set of the spells and bring them back to the university. Each recruit selects a guild to infiltrate giving them which spells to collect and unique guild abilities to aid them in their tasks.
The winner is the first to bring their selection of 5 spells back to Unseen University which is achieved by working your way through the city collecting volunteers to help you run the spells past the gauntlet of saboteurs, Luggage, magic and other obstacles. You can collect magic and items to aid your volunteers in their tasks or to hinder your opposing players.
As you return each Great spell your selected team has to pass different Wizards challenges in order to safely return it. You selection of volunteers needs to have the right combination of attributes in order to stand the best chance of succeeding.
Throw into this mix a secret society trying top summon Dragons to the City which, if successful, block quarters of the city from being used for anything other than passing though and which the players have to battle to get rid of them. So there is a lot to this game and it just feels like you are there in Ankh-Moorpork.
The rules are not overly complicated but there are some gaps and the layout is not the best. These are things that can be overcome and the designers have been extremely quick to respond to questions on various BGG threads which is really good. Hopefully a formalised FAQ or revised pdf of the rules will be forthcoming.
This is a game that requires a few rounds / games to get the hang of it but the games we have played so far have been close and there is a lot of fun to be had here.
Well as this was my copy of the game, Phil won - there is a trend starting here there may have to be some get Phil strategies ;) (only kidding)

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 24 September 2011

31 Aug 2011
For the first time in a long time I bought and played a game the same night. The game is question was Wiraqocha and myself, Phil, Caz and Mike sat round to play this. I had not heard of this until I saw it in on Spirit Games new games list. I looked it up on Boardgamegeek (http://www.boardgamegeek.com) and was hooked :)
The theme is steampunk which is always good and the quality of the components is excellent, with the possible exception of some of the stickers where the artwork is a little dark making it hard to distinguish between some of the special pieces. Players represent different conglomerates competing to collect the spoils of this Lost Valley of riches. The board consists of a number of hexes with either a number 1-12 or a dice combo in order to place one of your pieces you need to get the exact number or the right dice combo. The hexes produce resources, gain extra dice to roll, allow a re-roll, gain extra mining points or contain one of the 4 relics that will let you discover Wiraqocha's treasure. There are 3 ways in which you can win, Collecting all 4 Relics, Mining a number of Somnium Crystals or acquiring a number of Buildings and Technologies to build the Leviathan. Players move or add their pieces to the board and mine crystals, collect resources spending these on the various cards which provide special actions or additional playing pieces to aid them. The game lasts more or less the hour specified and is huge fun to play, there is a lot of player interaction and in all the games I have played so far the competition is fierce and the final outcome close with more than one player a turn or two away from winning.
I really enjoy this game, it is easy to teach as the rules are not too complicated but there is depth here as well as plenty of replayabilty. The game comes with a variant which is swapping one of the tiles for another which adds a twist to the normal setup. Worthy addition to my collection which has already had a lot of plays.
Phil won this, keeping up my losing my own game record ;)

We then played a game of Dominion which is another all time favourite of the Wed night club. The classic deck building game, which always goes down well.
The final scores for this game: Mike:36, Paul:33, Phil:27 and Caz:21

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 20 September 2011

24 Aug 2011
Tonight we had our grandson with us so we started off gently with a game of RoboRally this is one of the first games I ever owned and still good. Players race their robots around a number of boards trying to reach a number of flags in order. The first to complete this task wins. Robots shoot lasers at each other, there are laser turrets on some boards, you have conveyor belts/pits/cogs/water/oil etc to deal with all effecting your ability to control your robot. This is just FUN always full of funny moments when people get things wrong or are pushed out of position meaning their carefulky programmed robot suddenly falls into a pit :)
Oskar won this game ;)

We then tried a new game The Impossible Machine. This is an excellent little card game where each player has a coloured deck of parts they can add to the growing machine. Each player has a hand of 6 cards and can place 3 cards on their turn into the machine. Placed cards can go anywhere as long as the symbols on the left and right hand edges (input and output) match the cards it is going to connect to.
Special cards, Catalysts, start the machine also after 15 cards are placed the machine starts. Players can still add cards but at the start of each turn 3 columns of cards are flipped over, once all the cards have been flipped the machine is complete and put aside for scoring. Once 3 machines have been completed the game ends.
The Final Scores: Caz:14, Paul: 15, Jordan & Sal: 17

We then went on to play King of Tokyo. An extremely fun little game and a popular choice for Wed Nights. The artwork and components are of good quality befitting the style of the game. Essentially a dice game with players trying to get to 20 points first whilst trying to damage the other players, there are various cards which can be purchased which provide one off or permanent effects to you or other players. Players roll the dice upto 3 times keeping or discarding dice, the dice symbols mean you either collect energy (used to buy cards), cause damage, heal or score points.
To score points if you have 3 of a number (1, 2 or 3) you score that many points, if you score more than 3 of a number then you gain an extra point for each one. To heal for every Heart token you heal 1 point of damage, unless you are in Tokyo. For every lightning bolt you gain an energy cube which can be spent on cards during your turn and finally Fists represent damaging other players, those outside Tokyo hurt the player inside whilst those inside Tokyo damage all other players. Players in Tokyo can not heal but do gain points for going into or staying in Tokyo, if they are damaged by a player they can elect to leave forcing the other player into Tokyo.
Sally Won our game of this :)

Finally we finished of the evening with a firm favourite Buckets, which you can never have just one game of ;) the two winners were Myself and Sally.

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 08 September 2011

11th Aug 2011
Tonight we had a rare visit from Frog and Carl wanted to have a go with Dungeoneer which he has been itching to play for a while. Each player gets a random character and a hand of 5 cards, on their turn players try to build/explore the dungeon by laying cards down. As you explore you gain Glory and Peril points, one used to pay for useful items for your character the other can be used by other players to do bad things to you on their turn. This is quite a neat mechanic, the cards are of good quality as it the artwork. I enjoyed the game, obviously helped by me winning :), I'd give it another try.

We finished the evening of with a game of Infinite City always a favourite for wed night sessions. A really neat game with minimul rules, and you do what it says on the cards :).
Final scores for this was: Neil: 18, Andy: 19 and me: 20. Shocking really but it does happen now and again.

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 05 September 2011

20 July 2011
Tonight we broke out my shiny new copy of SmallWorld Underground this is a standalone game with mostly the same mechanics as the original Smallworld. The rulebook highlights the changed rules to make it easier for existing players to pick out the additions/changes. There are new races, new terrains and new special object and places all adding to the rich fun atmosphere of this game.
I Like this better than the original there is enough different here to make the game as enjoyable, if not more so.
We had a 3 player game of this With Sally romping home with a Score of 113, closely followed by Caz with 110 and as usual for playing my own game I came last with 75.

To finish off the evening we played a couple of rounds of Buckets, a favourite of most of the wed night boardgamers and always a fun closer of the night. Sal and Caz ending up winning the games between them.
Another great evening of gaming with the usual excellent company.

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: carldjcross on 10 August 2011

Wednesday 3rd August
I thought the game we were playing last week was called Olympus but a quick look on BGG reveals otherwise.
It was certainly set in mythical Greece and may or may not have included Crete but if definitely put Atlantis in the Med between Europe and Africa. It was also about collecting resources tied to particular territories to buy advances and wonders (it was very Civ like) and it was Andy’s game. I wonder what it was? Anyone know?
Whatever it was called it soon became a two horse race between Paul and Phillip. The game has a neat balancing mechanic in that everyone has the same amount of turns but can choose to spend them in chunks that are small, large or anything inbetween. It also allows canny players to “save” up extra time for a couple of free turns by buying certain advances or being between in combat. Using that tactic just about edged Phillip the win with a 51 to Paul’s 46.
It’s a quick but satisfying Civalike whatever it’s called.

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 21 July 2011

13th July 2011
Tonight we played another game of Medieval Mastery an excellent game where players need to gain territory and compete with other knights to win the crown.

Then we finished off with a game of NightFall which is another in a long line of Deckbuilding games, the differences here are that each player gets 2 unique decks that only they (for the most part) can buy cards from, players can attack each other and players lay cards down to form chains of cards around the table (each card dictates what can be played after it). I found this complicated to follow the choices you could make, the only scoring mechanism is who has the fewest wounds with another slightly hard to fathom way of tie breaking. This was not as quick to play as other games of its type and I found it way to complicated and random to build up a decent hand of cards. The scoring mechanism left me confused and so I did not easily fathom a decent way to play. I guess more games of this would make it easier to know what you need to do with your hand to maximise actions and scoring but this is not a game for me. Given a choice I would rather play Ascension or Dominion which are much easier to just pick up and play.

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 21 July 2011

6th July 2011
The shop was packed to the rafters with gamers tonight, so in order to get a table Myself, Carl and Caz were forced (terrible I know) to go over the road to play in the Roebuck pub, a huge sacrifice but someone had to make the gesture.

We took over some small games that would fit on the table and started the evening off with Sumeria a really excellent little game from Reiver Games sadly shut down but was an excellent independent games maker.

Followed this with a game of Go with the Flo (Pirate Edition) an excellent little game with some quality pieces and simple gameplay.

Finally we closed the evening off with a classic favourite Guillotine set in the French revolution players attempt to collect the most valuable heads of the Aristocracy in order to get the most points and win. Really funny game with some excellent artwork and humorous action cards.

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 21 July 2011

29th June 2011
Tonight we got to play another game of Navegador players represent traders exploring unknown regions and building up trade routes to build and expand the empire. Players explore, trade, build, buy workers, gain privileges all to earn VP's. The board and pieces are extremely well made, look excellent and fits the theme nicely. This is by no means a short game to play as players have a lot of action choices made by moving their playing piece around a Rondel. There is plenty to think about with a fine balance being made between building up ships/buildings/churches or keeping cash reserves for later rounds. Every choice and action has significance so you have to plan your go carefully with a mind of what you need to do next time, hence why this game plays a little longer than it says on the box :). That said it is quite an enjoyable game and you rarely notice the time it takes to play as it is engaging throughout, even when it is not your turn. A good game, one that I will play again. I think we did manage to miss/get wrong several rules along the way as it had been a long time since we last played but that's only to be expected

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 04 July 2011

22nd June 2011
Tonight we started off with 3 games of King of Tokyo which is an extremely fun little game. The artwork and components are of good quality befitting the style of the game. Essentially a dice game with players trying to get to 20 points first whilst trying to damage the other players, there are various cards which can be purchased which provide one off or permanent effects to you or other players. Players roll the dice upto 3 times keeping or discarding dice, the dice symbols mean you either collect energy (used to buy cards), cause damage, heal or score points.

To score points if you have 3 of a number (1, 2 or 3) you score that many points, if you score more than 3 of a number then you gain an extra point for each one. To heal for every Heart token you heal 1 point of damage, unless you are in Tokyo. For every lightning bolt you gain an energy cube which can be spent on cards during your turn and finally Fists represent damaging other players, those outside Tokyo hurt the player inside whilst those inside Tokyo damage all other players. Players in Tokyo cannot heal but do gain points for going into or staying in Tokyo, if they are damaged by a player they can elect to leave forcing the other player into Tokyo.
This games plays really quickly and is immense fun providing a good open or close to a games evening.

We then Played Dixit a strange game where players have a hand of cards, with some superb artwork on them, and the active player says a word / phrase / tells a story / sings a song / makes a noise about one of his cards the other players then look through their hand and places a card they think matches this face down. The active player then takes all the cards, including his own, and shuffles them then places them face up in front of everyone stating which order the cards go in, players then vote for which card they think is the active players.

Scoring goes as follows:
If All or None guess correct the Active players card then 2 VP for All Other Players
If only Some guess correct 3 VP for Active Player and Correct Players
Each Incorrect Guess 1 VP for Card Owner

This is a quaint and quite funny game, especially in the right company but this did not really float my boat as this kind of creative on the spot type thing just makes me uncomfortable as I am just not that good at it. Good fun was had by all but this is not one I would leap at playing again given a choice.

Finally we played Tombouctou. The components and artwork on this game are of a very good quality, not unsurprising as it is a Queen Games production. The rules are quite simple, well laid out and well written.

Each player has a number of camels (each lettered), a number of lettered cards (matching the camels) and a set of cards showing where in the next oasis thieves will rob camels. At the start of the games players place their camels at random on the starting pitches, with the only restriction they have to have a camel in each line once all the camels are out play begins. Players are dealt a set of 3 cards which show which pitches, on which lines will have 2 types of goods stolen from, On a piece of paper players mark, in secret, where they know the thieves will strike then select their first camel to move.

Each line of camels has a choice of two lines to move to in the next oasis for free, or by paying one good can move to any line. Players reveal which camel they want to move, and move them in turn order to the front most empty space of their chosen line, 2 spaces have card symbols which means players pass round to the left their thieve cards. At some point the players will know where thieves will strike at 3 out of the 5 lines so there is always an element of risk for everyone. Once all the camels have been moved the thieves attack camels on those pitches lose the goods indicated, if they have them. The thief cards are then collected back in, shuffled, and a new set dealt to each player for the next oasis.

Once the players reach Tombouctou and resolve the last theft players score their camels. Each good they have left is worth the number of that type stolen throughout the game, for example if you have 3 water left and 10 have been stolen you Score 30 for your water. You work out your score for each good and then total it all up, the player with the most wins! :)

This is incredibly good fun, produces some funny moments during play and very very enjoyable.
Final Scores: Paul:93, Caz:98, Phil:100 and Luke/Martin:141 (Last minute sub when Luke had to dash!)

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: carldjcross on 22 June 2011

15th June
One of the things I really like about Wednesday night at Spirit is that someone always has something new and interesting to play. Or at least it's either new, interesting or fun to play. One of them.

Tonight Paul and Carol came armed with a game that was all three of those things. They picked up Medieval Mastery at the UK Games Expo direct from the designer, I know because he'd signed the box. The game is a light hex based wargame. The fully made up board is quite small forcing the players to interact sooner rather than later and if our game was anything to go by there was quite a lot of interaction. And by interaction I mean fighting.

After the first couple of turns it was only Paul and myself who hadn't scrapped and that was only because our armies couldn't see each other.
Much use was made of the randomly distributed “special powers” which give bonuses to attack or defence or cancel out other powers for instance. I suspect these will also give the game its replay value. I sat in the Arena the whole game pretty much but it didn't do me much good. The Arena is the always the centrepiece of the otherwise randomly generated board and is worth more than anything else on the board.
Around me the battles raged but Carol managed to slip in the winning point due to one of her special powers (I think). But as with lots of games of this type it was a well-balanced game ending in a close result.

If you ever get to play Traders of Carthage my tip would be not to scupper your own ships. Like I did on my first go. Carol and Neil played much more cautiously and managed to protect their cargos long enough for them to score ending the game with 70 points each with Neil winning on tokens.

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 20 June 2011

1st June 2011
This was the last Wednesday prior to the UKExpo so Phil, Sal and myself had a go at Conquest of Planet Earth Phil having played this the week before undertook to teach the rest of us. Phil unfortunately did not remember as much as he thought, and we had a few rules hiccups along the way. I enjoyed playing this game and it has a Mars Attacks kind of feel to it, but I did feel there was something missing and I wanted more. For replay ability having different versions of the same game certainly provides plenty of options and is a very neat idea.
Phil won this eventually ;)

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 10 June 2011, 21:43:38

1st June 2011
Started the evening off with a new game - "Go With the Flow Pirate Edition" where the players compete to collect treasure from the central island and be the pirates with the most at the end of the game. Players can also steal treasure from other pirates as they attempt to sail it back to their own island on the edge of the board.

On your turn you either train a new pirate onto your island, build a raft or set sail, you move orthogonally from your island turning one tile at a time. The tiles will reveal a tide or one of several special tiles, your choice is either to go with the flow and turn over the tile you’re are moved to or spend a coin to Steer which is to turn the tile 90deg or weigh anchor if the flow is not where you want to go. On your next turn you can navigate away from your tile in the direction you choose.

Several tiles have whirlpools, sharks, storms all of which have different effects on your boat and/or pirates. If you make it to the treasure island then you collect a treasure and on your next turn set off back to your island hoping to avoid fighting any other pirates on the way. You can also leave a pirate on treasure island which allows you to push an unmanned boat towards your island, hopefully, or construct a boat directly on treasure island.

I really enjoyed this, it is a fun little game that plays quite quickly as well as being quite tricky as you start with a small amount of money which does not get replaced so spending it needs to be done wisely.

We then went on to play yet another new game - "Zombie Close" a light Zombie game where each player controls 1 survivor and 3 zombies. The winner is the last man standing, survivors and zombies start in the middle of the board and then get moved around by the players. Survivors draw a card from a deck which provides an additional action or bonus on their turn, if the players get bitten, after 5 turns, or if they get bitten again, they become Zombies and draw from another deck of cards. Survivors or Zombie survivors get to move upto 6 squares, whereas the zombies get to move 1d6 squares (a single roll for all 3 zombies).

This was quite good fun, not very complicated and short enough to be interesting to try again. Zombie themed games are not really my bag but I did enjoy this.

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 27 May 2011, 10:54:59

25th May 2011
Tonight we started with a game of Braggart this is a fun little game where players try to build a story with a hand of cards. The cards come in different flavours Scenes, Deeds, Foes, and Results with a minimum combination of Deed + Foe. Players arrange the cards to form a story, lower value cards provide hilarious but ridiculous stories and higher value cards produce more heroic exploits. Players can either accept someone’s tale or play various liar cards from their hand to replace cards with lower value equivalents from their hand. At the end of the round the player with the highest value tale keeps all of the cards for victory points and any other players with tales keep one card and discard the rest. On your turn you can draw cards, start your tale or play Ploy cards which allow you various special actions. Play continues until the deck of cards is exhausted and players total their scores. This is a quick but hilarious game which produces some fantastic combinations in the stories. Really good game worthy of more plays.

The next game was Carpe Astra this is always a great game, Andy and myself had to brush the cobwebs from our memories for the rules but it was not difficult to get back into things. Players use network cards in conjunction with agents to influence various guilds to gain favour they can also use Slander cards to influence the guilds against other players. The aim is to collect sets of guilds tokens to score at the end of the game. The game lasts 10 rounds, each round aside from the first having bonus's for various actions. Final Scores: Paul:15, Andy: 13 and Martin:10

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 12 May 2011, 22:33:37

11th May 2011
We started the evening with a game of No Thanks a card game where the aim to end up with the least points. 9 Cards are removed from the deck at the start, each card has a number on it, and each player is given 11 chips. The start player turns over the top card and either takes it or places a chip on it, if he takes the card he turns over another and repeats the same choice. If a chip is placed the next player either takes that card and the chip or places his own chip on. This continues until someone takes or is forced to take the card. Once the deck is exhausted players count their scores, any remaining chips count as a negative score. The trick is that if a player has a run of cards 15-16-17 for example, you only score the lowest card.

We played two games of this the scores as follows:
Paul:59, Neil:50, Caz:37 and the winner Sal:36
Paul:60, Sal:54, Caz:21 and the winner Neil:14

We then played a game of Speicherstadt a deceptively simple game that is easy to learn to play but takes a while to master the unique bidding system. This was only my 2nd game, the first with only 3 players, tonight's game had the full 5 players and it was a lot more cutthroat making getting hold of the rights cards to win harder.

We finished the end of with a couple of games of Coloretto. This is another simple little card game that is extremely fun to play and quick. All the cards are a different coloured Chameleon, some are just a +2 Point card and there is multi-coloured Chameleon. The idea is to collect sets the more of one colour you can get the higher the score, You can only have 3 sets, any more and these count against you in the final scoring. A number of placeholder cards are placed centrally (1 for each player) then in turn each player either takes a card and placed under a placeholder or takes a set of cards. Each placeholder can have a Max number of cards under it, so players are either trying to add to a set to make it better for them or to scupper another player.

Scores were:
Neil:18, Caz:19, Eric:20 and the winner Paul:22
Sal:13, Neil:18, Paul:20, Eric:22 and the winner Caz:24

Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2011
Post by: Zarniwoop on 12 May 2011, 21:29:42

4th May 2011
Tonight was another go with Cargo Noir this time we had the full 5 players. This added a new dimension to the game making it much busier with more player interaction. The bidding was a lot more vicious and it was a little bit harder to get all the right good combinations to buy the VP cards.

The final scores were: Paul:70, Sal:75, Caz:90, Chris:90 and the winner Phil:100

13th April 2011
A little mention for Wednesday Night:
Four of us played Sutter's Mill which I had been keen to play again since trying it at Christmas. As the only one to have played before I gave out suitable advice (honest) but experience still showed. Chris and Carl soon saw what was going on and were reigning me in as best they could, and are both keen to try again to beat me at my own game. That's in a tactical sense, it's not physically my own game, the owner has taken it back to Ossett with him. Mind you, I suspect that if three people take the same approach, the fourth will sneak a victory amidst the squabbling. The game is quite simple in essence, easy to explain and set up, but timing your reactions to other players' moves is critical, with lots of tension building up as crunch time approaches. Quite a little classic, which has been completely overlooked.

Wednesday 30th March
Following on from Paul's last session report tonight it was time for me to try Cargo Noir. This is a straightforward bidding game wrapped up in the all the usual high production values that Days of Wonder are justly famous for.
The board and bits deserve special mention because they are so lovely. You’ll need a reasonably sized table for the modular board (it’s always that big no matter how many play, with fewer players parts of it are simply turned over to an illustration only side) and there is a real tactile joy to moving your little fleet around the map.
In a nutshell (and we’ll get to that later) players are attempting to make buy commodities to make money to buy VPs. So far so normal. There’s no messing about with variable prices in this game, the more you sell of whatever the more you get. If there is a criticism of this game it’s that the theme is a little thin; guns, rum and gold could easily be coffee, sugar and wheat or whatever.
The one aspect of the game I found slightly strange to begin with was that you can’t speculate to accumulate. Money is only used to buy the all important VP cards making the “get free money” action less of a choice of last resort as it is in many games and more an every turn necessity.
You win the commodities in a given territory simply by having more of your fleet on that space at the end of the round forcing the other players to either up the ante or withdraw. Easy. Except obviously everyone else is trying to do exactly the same thing.
As it turned out with only three of us the board never really got that crowded. That’s not to say that the occasional bidding war didn’t break out but it perhaps wasn’t as cutthroat as it might be with more players.
Carole steamed into an early lead by expanding both her warehouse and her fleet in the early turns meaning she could grab more stuff and sell it for higher prices. She also often chose to take a free random commodity which combined with her warehouse worked rather well for her.
In the end and after a last minute dash for VPs from me Carole won, but only by 10 points. Paul came second but only on the second tiebreak since we both scored a respectable 80 points. Once again a good close game.

23rd March 2011
Tonight We had a go at a recent purchase, Cargo Noir which is a new release from Days of Wonder. As with all of Days of Wonder games the components are first class, colourful boards, beautiful pieces, excellent cards and a well written rulebook.
Each player represents a family of smugglers the aim is to amass the most Victory points (in the form of cards representing various assets - Dive Bars, Yachts, Night Clubs etc). To purchase the VP cards each player must place their ships in a port and bid for the goods available there, if they are successful they get all the goods. To win a bid you must be the only player left bidding in that port at the start of your turn otherwise you either have to increase your bid or withdraw. In order to purchase cards you trade in your goods, upto 9 of the same or upto 9 different, you earn differing amounts depending on which option.
The amount of cargo you can hold is limited at the start but you can buy VP cards that increase your storage, as well as VP cards that increase your fleet and a final one that allows you to gain coins when you withdraw from a bid.
Finally there is the port of Macao where there is a Casino where your ships earn $2 or the port where for each ship placed you can swap a trade good with any located face up or take one at random from the bag.
This is a quick game to learn, we read the rules on the night, and is quick to play whilst providing for a bit of strategic play. Really fun little game, not deep but a challenge none the less.
The scores for the game ended up very close, another plus point, Simon:70, Paul:60 and Caz:60

We then finished the evening off with a game of Metro a tile laying game where players are trying to join a station with their train using tracks to another station using as many tiles as possbile. The longer the track the higher the score, if the track meanders back over the same tile you score it twice, if you manage to get to the stations in the middle you double your track score.
You can also place tiles to shorten others players tracks, but you do this whilst not helping yourself so careful planning is required. Whilst the tiles are picked up at random there is room for strategy and devious play ;)
Simple to pick up and play and works really well with lots of players.
Scores: Sal:57, Paul:48, Simon:43 and Caz:40

16th march 2011
Started off with a game of Blue Moon City which is really easy to pick up and play. This is another firm favourite of the group and is one of those games which is well balanced providing a tense, close finish. Tonights game was no different with everyone being one more turn or so away from a win. Carl was the first to get to the required 4 sacrifices to the obilisk but everyone else had made it to 3.

To end the evening we played a game of Carcassonne: New World which is an excellent variation on the classic Carcassonne game. These games are always great fun and this was no exception, the scores for this broke down as follows: Paul:89, Simon:84 and Caz:69

9th March 2011
Arrived a bit later than normal tonight so missed out on getting a place on the Mansions of Madness game being run by Philsy, gutted as I also own a copy of this game and would have loved a chance to learn the game.
Still there was another stray Gamer, Simon, who was on need of a game so we found some table space and I introduced him to a game of Infinite City. This is a great tile laying game with very minimal rules but lots of gameplay and strategy to be had. This is pretty quick to play with up to 6 people and very easy to teach. As I own this game I did not have high hopes and I was proved right when Simon beat me 21 vs 18 but at least I can salvage some dignity with it being a close score.

After this to finish the evening off we played a game of Citadels another favourite of the Wed night crowd. Players take a role each turn and try and build up their districts with high scoring buildings. A fairly close game really with the scores breaking down as follows: Me:28, Luke:26, Phil:25, Andy:21 and Simon: 17

2nd March 2011
Tonight had a go at Constantinopolis where players take the role of merchants shipping goods and passengers for profit, whilst selling goods at home, donating to the city, funding public buildings all to gain fame points to become the most renowned merchant in Constantinopolis.
The mechanics of this game are well done and add to the theme and enjoyment of the game, it starts with players vying for various roles in public office, each of which award the player with an extra ability or reward that turn. The players bid for these roles and the money is from all of this is placed back to the bank. The roles picked also determine player order for the rest of the round.
I really enjoyed this and there is a lot of scope for different winning strategies. The final scores were close which is always nice, Philsy 41, Carole 32 and Me 32.

23rd Feb 2011
Tonight we played a game of Furstenfeld this is a great little game where you balance growing crops to trade with breweries for money with replacing your fields by building parts of you great Palace. The winner is he first to complete their palace.
This was an interesting game where some hoarded cash till the later turns to try and build their Palace in a late flurry, myself I lucked out by having the crane early on enabling me to build stuff cheaper. Now I have to report nearly breaking the universe again by actually winning this on the night....

We then played a few games of Callisto this is an exciting and fun little game where players compete to place all their tiles on the board. Each piece you place has to be placed next to another one of your pieces, which are of various different shapes. The game is quite addictive as we ended up playing 4 games of it :). The game plays quite quickly with players having to plan their placements quite carefully. Chris won 2 games, with me and Phil winning 1 each.

16th Feb 2011
Tonight we played Magnum Sal with some lovely components and artwork. Players control a mining team trying to complete the Kings orders for profit. There are different types of Salt worth different amounts, there are several different buildings which can only be visited once per turn. The buildings have various functions such as purchase of tools (which give once per round abilities), removing water cubes, buying and selling cubes at the market, hiring more miners, and going to the palace to complete a contract.
Each round the players get to make 2 actions (only 1 during the first round of each phase) the choices are:
1) Placing or moving a miner
2) Extracting salt
3) Placing a miner as an assistant in a building
4) Visiting a building
5) Pass

The game is played over 3 phases with new contracts and tools placed each time. The tools provide extra actions (but once used are flipped over until the next phase) to aid the players, they also provide an income at the end of the game. The winner of the game is the player with the most money at the end of the 3rd phase. The Phase changed is determined by the number of contracts completed at the Palace, when the 4 or 5th contract is completed (Determed by the number of players) each following player back to the start player gets one more turn then the board is reset.
There is a lot going on here and a really fun game to play, this works very well as a 2-player games as it does a 4 player.
This is normally a 1-2 hour game barring Phil'isms, despite that though it was an enjoyable night and Simon even managed to stay awake despite the elongated play time.

Wednesday 16th February
Tonight Frog, Neil, Julian and myself finally took the plunge and stepped into the dragon's castle in the Games Workshop edition of Dungeonquest.
Neil bowed out first after being crushed by falling masonry in his third room swiftly followed by me after my warrior tripped and fell into an endless chasm leaving Frog and Julian to battle it out. Frog did manage to raid the dragon's hoard but lost out to Julian's craven cowardice and failed to make the exit in time. Julian won but "didn't feel good about it" since he'd spent the last couple of turns counting his gold at the dungeon entrance. Frankly it took too long and was far too random, Tomb or the new D&D games do this sort of thing much better these days.

Following that we had a quick game of Braggart. Braggart is a comedy storytelling game where cards are played to create a heroic (or often less than heroic) deed. Neil won this but Frog was mainly playing for comedy value. A good pub game.
We finished up with King of Siam an abstract game of area control. I won despite not really knowing what I was doing until at least half way through the game! Beginners luck maybe?

9 Feb 2011
We started the evening off playing Loot a fun card game for upto 8 players. Players try can capture merchant ships for points at the end of the game. Merchant ships are captured by players placing pirate cards the player with the most won the ships at the start of his turn wins the ship. Caz:9, Neil:12, Paul:16, Phil:26, Simon:30

We then played Pallet Ranger's copy of Porto Carthago (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/73650/porto-carthago) this is a lovely little game with some superb components and artwork. Essentially a worker placement game where players take various actions (with different costs) with the aim to load/offload ships in the port or charter private ships all to make profit that can then be spent to gain favour in the palace which ultimately wins you the game. Nice mechanics and with an excellent run down of the rules from Pallet Ranger (who is very good at describing rules) we picked this up quite quickly and enjoyed it very much. Pallet Ranger: 1st, Paul: 2nd, Chris: 3rd, Sal: 4th and Caz: 5th

2 Feb 2011
Tonight we played Navegador players take on the role of Trade dynasties exploring unknown waters, building colonies and trading goods. The artwork and components on this game are excellent and as a Rondel based game the actions you can take are all there but timing them is the key. This is a great game to play and very enjoyable, sadly I have never managed to win a game of this or even get close but I like it ;)
Paul:81, Sally:88, Caz:91 and Phil:117

26 Jan 2011
Tonight we played a game of Settlers of America (Trails to Rails) which is my favourite variant of Catan. It's always a favourite to play and provides a lot of new twists to the classic game, as well as providing balancing rule changes reducing the luck element. Luke won this game but as always it was quite close.

19th January
Tonight we started with a game of Fresco which is always fun to play. We had two people who had never played this before and two who had played before. In a typical Wed night state of affairs the new players took first and second place ;D.
Scores were Caz:53, Paul:54, Andy:59 and Richard: 67.

Having managed to lose at Fresco we went on to play Around the World in 80 Days, a game that we have not played in a while. This is a great gateway game that appeals to both gamers and non-gamers alike, it plays up to 6 people and is always a favourite. The players follow the path of Phileas Fogg. Players have to use various modes of transport to move between the cities using cards with number of days on them. Each turn they pick up a new card that also allows then to take an additional action (use a Balloon, take money, move inspector etc).
Caz won this, followed by Sal, Claire and no surprise I came last.

Finally we played a game of Fzzzt! Players have a set of cards they use to bid for items on the conveyor belt, these cards also act as victory points for the end game and can also be allocated to production units which if completed will score additional points at the end of the game. This was quite a fun little card game which plays quickly which makes it an ideal little filler game.
Sal:24, Caz:30, Andy:37 and Paul: 41

12 Jan 2011
We had an unexpected but welcome visit from Neil tonight and we started the evening off with a game of Asara (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/72991/asara) this is a beautiful little game, the components and artwork are of a high quality. The players compete to make the most elegant towers, with bonuses for Gold adornments (and open windows with an expansion). You score more for having higher towers or more towers. On each turn the players have a hand of cards with coloured builders on, these are placed at one of the many areas on the board to denote what actions you want to take.
Player order here is important as each area is blank to start which gives the player a free choice from his hand but subsequent players need to place a builder of the same colour or two face down cards if they have none. You are then able to take that action, which is buying various tower parts or one of several special actions.
In order to build a tower you need to have enough pieces to make a complete tower (Top & Bottom as min) but you can add to existing towers.
This game is not overly complicated to play but is immensely fun and involves a lot of careful planning of moves. I really enjoyed this and look forward to playing this again sometime.
Sal: 58, Caz: 49, Neil: 48, Paul: 41

We finished off with a game of Eketorp a game with Vikings. This is a well-made game with lovely components, as expected from Queen Games, players compete to build their Castles the winner is the first to build all 18 bricks or the highest scorer after 10 rounds. Each turn a material card is turned over and the resources placed onto the board, players then secretly place their Viking on their boards selecting where on the main board they want them to go. After everyone has decided they reveal their choices simultaneously then place their Vikings on their chosen areas. Where there are enough resources for each Viking those resources are allocated out, where there is not enough the Vikings fight for the spoils which is done by selecting a numbered card from your hand highest card winds. After completing the fight the loser places his Viking in a hospital square equal to the difference between the two cards, the players then swap cards placing them next to their castle.
When a player runs out of cards they pick up all their exchanged cards from the board. Players can also lay siege to other players castles aiming to remove bricks from their walls. This is an important option to try and slow another players progress.
I liked this game but I have to confess having read the box and looked at the pictures I envisioned a more complicated game then I got, that said it is enjoyable and certainly a very good filler game that is easy to pick up and run with.
Final Scores, Caz: 26, Carl: 33, Paul: 34 and Neil: 38

5th Jan 2011
Started the new year off with a new game Furstenfeld this is another game from Friedemann Friese (Powergrid, Factory Manager etc). I really like the games this guy produces and this one is no exception, this is an economics game where you are selling products to the local breweries in order to make enough money to complete your palace. In order to help do this you have can build improved fields or additional buildings to aid you along the way. Eventually you start to build you Palace, but in order to do this you have to sacrifice a building or a field. This leads to a shortage of areas earning you money so planning how and when to start your Palace is crucial. There is an easy starting game but there are also advanced rules which mean you have to build the parts of your palace on specific squares. This is a very enjoyable game, is quite easy to learn and quick to play. In fact the first time we played this at Raiders we played a 2nd game straight away.

Please sit down...... I WON this game... Yes I won a game I own, this is a good start for me in 2011 ;) Frog had 5 Palace sections built (23 money) and Caz had 5 Palace sections built (22 Money).

We finished off the evening with a game of an old classic: San Juan. In this game you aim to build 12 buildings, each worth varying amounts of VP's. Each turn you pick a role which allows you a bonus when taking the role's action. In order to build a building you have to pay its value in cards from your hand, some buildings produce goods when that action is taken, others have special functions which aid you during the game, others just have VP values. Once the first person has built the 12th building then everyone scores what they have built, the highest scorer winning the game.
Paul:22, Caz:23, Phil:32 and Luke:43

The perils of leaving a Luddite with a lap-top! Confident in the memory of having written an up-dated boardgames article, I have not checked that part of the site for months – and I had not transferred the article to the relevant machine. Here's a quick up-date for your belated edification.

Ex Libris is still our top-selling game overall. Carcassone remains the game suitable for everyone, and just in time for Christmas there is now the Carcassone Big Box of several of the expansions together. But the big seller in December is Battlelore, the new medieval/fantasy easy-play board wargame which follows up the huge success of Memoir '44. Strategy games generally have been to the fore, with Antike still steadily gaining devotees a year after its release. The new version of Arkham Horror has also gone down very well, as has the new expansion Dunwich Horror. And, on a completely different tack, Canal Mania has completely sold out at the manufacturer but we still have a few left, having grabbed as many as we could.

So, on the whole, there has been a trend back towards games you can get your teeth into, but the easy-to-midweight games have held up too. The reprint of Through the Desert has pleased many who missed it first time round, and the newer, somewhat longer Hacienda has also gone down well as they both have the great virtue of working well as 2, 3, 4 or 5 player games. Ticket to Ride Europe and Ticket to Ride Marklin, slightly up-rated versions of the original Ticket to Ride, continue to dominate the railway games at the introductory level. Among the plethora of Pirate games, Dread Pirate Bookshelf Edition stands out for its beautiful look (there is also the Dread Pirate Discovery Edition) and Pirate's Cove still holds its own among all the newcomers because it is just so good.

Frank's Zoo continues to top the cardgame list, with Mamma Mia and Sole Mio chasing - these are all suitable for all kinds of people. But right behind is Killer Bunnies, with over half a dozen expansions all selling well. This is the one for all you strange people out there (and often here in the shop too – we're not complaining!)

Not surprisingly Carcasonne: The Count has come top – after all, it costs only 2.99 and Carcassone is a deservedly popular game. The main game itself and the variant Carcassone: Hunters and Gatherers would have rivalled The Count in sales if they had not run out soon after Christmas with fresh supplies not reaching these shores until the end of January, and the first expansion, Inns and Cathedrals, was also in our January top ten.

The Count works rather well, by the way. One of the impressive things about the Carcassone expansions is that they all work together without making the game too fussy, and it all still just fits onto our coffee table so that Sally does not have to move from in front of the fire to play.

Second biggest seller has been Fluxx; I only got round to trying this game last year, and immediately saw why it is so popular. A basic grasp of the English language and the ability to count up to 10 is all that is needed for anyone to play, yet is still holds up as a good lightweight game for the experienced gamer.

Next most popular have been Ex Libris and Hare and Tortoise. At last we have been selling Ex Libris to people in this country, it was very worrying that all the sales of anything even remotely literary were only to the USA. I have absolutely no objection to selling to Americans, but is a relief to know that there are still a few people capable of stringing a sentence together here too. That's all you need to play the game, together with a bit of imagination – it is an excellent after-dinner game for around half a dozen people.

With the return of Rio Grande's version of Hare and Tortoise I have continued with my crusade to get a copy into every local household, this is a true classic and that rarest of things, a race game that still works really well with only two or three people.

And the others holding up well? War of the Ring, now that we have had the time off over Christmas to get to grips with it (some of us do not have as many working brain cells, nor the eyesight for the sometimes tiny text, but it is worth the effort). San Juan, such an elegant playing system, easy to learn but with lots of variety and interaction between the cards. Tantrix, a neat game which can also be used as a solo puzzle. And Bohnanza, simple but slightly mean, still the king of the number-based card games.

Spirit Games (Est. 1984) - Supplying role playing games (RPG), wargames rules, miniatures and scenery, new and traditional board and card games for the last 20 years

We stock a good range of traditional pub games, to save you searching you can click on the names here for an immediate list of what we have of that type. Cribbage is the most popular pub game locally, follwed by Dominoes, darts comes third but we don't sell them. We do, however, have a good selection of Playing Cards, and also stock traditional wooden games such as Shove ha'penny, Skittles and Bagatelle. Quoits is potentially suitable, as is Carrom. We also sell Bingo sets and Roulette sets, popular for charity evenings etc.

It is also worth bearing in mind that many of the recent card and smaller board games fit nicely onto a pub table, take about an hour to play, and go very well with a pint or two of ale. Tantrix also has the considerable advantage of being beer-proof!

HOT NEWS: Trax has returned! This has long been a favourite of mine as an end-of-evening game. As a fore-runner to Tantrix, it requires fewer functioning brain cells, though you still have to keep your wits about you. Hive is also being re-done in a plastic waterproof version though we still have the original very fine wooden style.

Croquet works as well on a small but uneven lawn (like ours) as on a big flat one. It is not obligatory to serve cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, but it is traditional, as is a lightly chilled Chablis if you can run to it. Similarly, you are not obliged to drink Calvados while playing Boules, but it is definitely an option. Beer or lemonade for giant Pick up Sticks, Tumble or Jerico. G&T with Quiots?

The time has finally come for us to move out of 98 Station Street and fit everything into 114/115 opposite.
Instant Armies and Veteran Miniatures will, from the end of March 2008, be based at :

- note that it is NOT a shop, so visits are strictly by appointment. Their phone number is 07758 451853.

We will still be very much in touch with each other, so we will still be passing on messages and we will also be happy to act as a pick-up point for deals arranged with them over the phone. We will not have room for any of their rummage boxes to be left here, but in order to make space for the historical ranges from 98, we are dropping most of the sci-fi ranges, so for the time being there will be plenty of bargains from us there. A glance at the catalogue will reveal an enlargement of the Ends of Ranges figures section, and as well as 25% off most of those ranges, we will be open to offers for the whole of any reduced range.

Enough of the serious stuff - the fun news is that I was able to join in the fun at the Raiders of the Games Cupboard do at a local church hall, where there was space to get my 1:1200 WWII ships out for the first time in several decades. In a hypothetical German raider breakout, the British only had cruisers and a handful of destroyers, so needed a successful torpedo attack as the only hope of putting a decent sized dent in Scharnhorst. It didn't happen, and the cruisers and pocket battleships fought each other to a standstill. Only the Admiral Scheer and one British destroyer went to the bottom, but it was a sorry selection of colanders that limped back to their respective ports. Who won? Over to the propagandists....

Also rescued from years of neglect were my 25mm orcs and Sally's Mongols, Normans, rats and badgers on ostriches. The plan was to try using the Battlelore rules without the hex board; it seemed a shame to be playing with unpainted 20mm figures with a cupboard full of unused pretty 25mm exotica. It worked a treat. Now I have to find room for setting up battles in the shop as well as wedging the extra stock in...

Spirit Games' wargaming roots go back a long way, with Phil's wargames room still containing scratch-built 1:1200 ships and 1:76 Airfix kits from his school days. That was before 1:3000 ships existed! The army which Sally painted for him as a birthday present (other girlfriends may note that this was a highly effective way of encouraging a long relationship) was based for WRG 5th edition ancients rules. Sadly, there is now seldom the time and brain-power available for setting up more than the occasional DBA or Hordes of the Things - even Andy, closely involved with wargaming for almost as long, and without quite as many other distractions, finds the same problem.

It has to be said, though, that with Andy adding his vast accumulation of miniatures to the Spirit Games stocks, we have a lot of toys to play with if we ever do find the time!

The local wargames scene is quite lively, Burton and District club (BAD Wargamers as they have been known in recent years) are very much still at it, and while Games Workshop's customers have taken brand loyalty to extraordinary extremes, they do occasionally call in to take advantage of our range of dice and must surely sometimes notice that there are other miniatures too. Indeed, there are plans afoot that just might attract their attention - we shall see.

The great majority of our sales of new historical miniatures and rules sets are to Europe and the Colonies, so our perspective on what is currently popular is hardly local. It is clear, though, that naval wargaming is popular at the moment; there was not the expected rush on Napoleonic ships for the anniversary of Trafalgar, but people have been buying fleets to fight everything from ancient galleys to the very latest ships.

Two other areas that have been coming to life after a dormant period are Western Gunfights and Samurai. The modern era on land is fairly quiet after a year of being perhaps more popular than WWII. The interest in Warhammer Ancients has been diluted by the release of Warmaster Ancients, but there is considerable interest in the new Vlad supplement. It will be interesting to see if that triggers a new era of East European games, roll on the Hussite war wagons!

Here's a basic guide for those who are keen to join in the games revival, but want to be sure that they are not jumping in the deep end when a gentle paddle was intended, followed by a few suggestions as confidence grows. I won't go into much detail of the individual games here, but the links will take you straight to more info.

If anything looking even remotely tactical is out of the question, you need a game that gets people thinking without realising it. Apples to Apples is back after a two year absence, surprisingly good fun for such a simple game, and now there is Dixit (and Dixit2), the same concept but with added subtlety. People who get well into that may move on to Ex Libris, where a bit of extra effort is required but is well rewarded.

The basics everyone should have, appealing to gamers but as simple as they come, include Rumis, Tsuro, Marrakech and Hey, That's my Fish! For a simple card game with lots of variants try Fluxx. Close behind in the easy-to-learn stakes come Family Business, Musketeers, Take 5, Carcassonne and the evergreen classic, Hare and Tortoise. We've also just discovered Abandon Ship, which has luck, bluff, rats and cheese so that's Sally hooked... For overtly tactical games, but with few rules, Trax is as simple as they come, Tantrix is a related multi-player game, Hive is one of the very best two-players and Tortuga is a beautiful draughts variant. For a small, quite simple but tricky board game I recommend Sumeria, Infinite City is also easy to play straight from the box, and very competitive.

Recently a new breed of card games has emerged, with some of the rich variety and planning opportunities of the collectible card games, but without the open-ended expense. Ascension is an ideal starter here, easy to pick up as you go, and as well as being a good game in its own right it acts as a primer for Dominion and Thunderstone. A similar progression exists with San Juan - still my nomination as the most elegant design ever, as it encapsulates an entire complex boardgame in a single pack of cards - leading to Race for the Galaxy and/or Glory to Rome, which both require more effort to learn but have their own charm and, indeed, addictive qualities.

Co-operative games are also going from strength to strength, with the early examples being fine games but not for the faint hearted. Lord of the Rings has just been republished with, we are told, better explained rules; I hope so, it was a brilliant game but took an awful lot of understanding. Admittedly, this was partly because, at the time, it was very innovative, and many of the concepts are now more familiar. We now have a logical progression for people looking at games where all the players are (probably) on the same side. Forbidden Island is dead easy for anyone to pick up, but with lots of tension, Pandemic (last year's big hit) is a level up in complexity but still pretty straightforward. Shadows over Camelot and Battlestar Galactica have a lot more detail, and also the element of a potential traitor amongst the co-operating players. One big advantage of this type of game is that because everyone is - at least initially - on the same side, a single person who knows the rules can give plenty of help to all the other players.

Once you are familiar with many of the above, you are in a better position to make a rational choice when looking at the huge variety of games on offer. Further advice will follow shortly, but the basic considerations are:

How many players will you normally have?
How long do you want it to last?
Will the theme appeal to all the likely players?

The information on the boxes (and therefore on our site) is pretty accurate these days, but bear in mind that length of game is generally for when you are familiar with it. Always allow plenty of extra time for your first game, and if in doubt, go for a game that may prove shorter than planned rather than longer. You can always finish with one of the quick, simple games, in fact they round an evening off nicely.

There are plenty of games which go down very well with any group prepared to sit down and concentrate a bit - nothing too brain damaging, but requiring a willingness to learn. It is helpful that many recent games are very well designed and quite intuitive, so you can flounder through a first game successfully after a cursory examination of the rules. If an unclear rule does arise, pop the name of the game into boardgamegeek.com and there is bound to be a clear explanation or even a complete set of improved rules for viewing or downloading. Yes, there are odd occasions when modern technology actually makes life easier (of course, if you are reading this, you've already realised that...).

So, let's list a few we regard as classics, some resource management, some tactical, some set collecting, and mostly a mixture, and all at or near the "family" level: all the Settlers of Catan variants, Hacienda, Torres, On the Underground, Basari, Ra and Priests of Ra, Through the Desert, Around the World in 80 Days, Pirate's Cove, Kingsburg - or maybe that is just slightly further up the scale. For an overtly tactical game, Battue is unusually quick and easy and with a fair bit of luck which makes it a sort of family wargame. Antike is still my game of choice for a strategy game with a touch of the old Civilisation - talking of which, the new version of the Civilisation based on the computer game is proving MUCH better than the old one, and really is playable in an evening. Still increasing in popularity, with a new expansion just out, Small World is our most favoured area-control game, with Galactic Emperor running it close. Most played space game in our group is Ad Astra.

Once we are into the serious, but very playable games, we are positively spoilt for choice on the resource management front; Pillars of the Earth, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Caylus, the excellent new Navegador, my perennial favourite Phoenicia (but do look up the clearer rules), and Agricola, for a start. And now, I have a 50th birthday party to go, where we will be playing some games...

This year has seen the return of some real classics which helped the boardgame revival of the last ten years. Through the Desert is remarkable in that it has the look and feel of a serious strategy game - it is loosely based on the classic Japanese game of Go - but always takes just 40 minutes to play. This means that it is suitable for new gamers as well as established enthusiasts. It plays well through the range of 2-5 players too. An absolute must-have.

Another essential for those who missed it first time round is Ra. A set-collecting game where the main question is how far you wish to push your luck, so with gambling all the rage it should not be hard to enroll new players. 3-5 players, takes about an hour lots of variety in how it plays according to which tiles come out of the bag.

Samurai, Torres and Tikal are other anxiously-awaited returns - again, good for new and experienced players alike. Tigris & Euphrates is also back, a game of immense stature but definitely a level up in the need to use the grey matter to get to grips with it.

At the really light-weight end of the spectrum Guillotine has been republished at last. Dead simple, half an hour's head-rolling fun, it was just becoming well-known when it disappeared. An ideal quick after-dinner game.

Finally, a mention that amidst all the splendid games that we get to try out here, we can still always be tempted by a game of Mah Jong, and we have an even wider range in the shop this year. And if you already have everything mentioned above, keep a weekly eye on our What's New section!

We have had several new variants or expansions of the Christmas parlour games, such as Cranium Cadoo and Cranium Zigity, and have topped up on the stocks of the How to Host a Murder, Murder Mystery Party and Host Your Own Murder Mystery ranges as these seem good at stopping the relatives actually killing each other. For those who play word games, Buyword looks most interesting – Scrabble with bidding and so does Letterflip (Lexicon meets Stratego?). The new breed of DVD-based games kick off with Host Your Own Race Night.
For the more serious gamer a Boxing Day game of War of the Ring or Game of Thrones is a must.
And to counter any threat to get the Monopoly or Cleudo out, I particularly recommend Fearsome Floors, Citadels, Bang and San Juan. Bucket King makes an excellent after-dinner game, and nobody, but nobody, can get away with claiming that Fluxx is too hard for them. It's good fun, too.

Some of the games that are excessively cluttering up the place are ones which I personally like, so it is rather distressing to have to provide an extra incentive for you to buy them; you should have bought them already! These are some which immediately spring to mind in that regard, I have given few details here as a quick click on the link takes you to those, and I am trying to be brief, if only to prove to the many doubters that I can be.

Beowulf
A re-make of an earlier reputable game, themed to go with the film. The film has gone, the game is still well worth playing.

Chizo Rising
I suspect that this falls between two stools from a marketing viewpoint, not quite a collectable card game but close enough to scare off those who avoid them automatically. Two one-player starter sets give an adequate selection of tiles for varied and interesting games, and what stands out is how two people with very different taste in games – one an avid Magic: The Gathering player and one who plays few games, none of them collectable - both enjoyed themselves immensely when introduced to it together. Essentially a positional game like Atlanteon, but with extra twists.

Express Chess: Safari + Express Chess: Space Exploration
I have always liked this game, but it didn't catch on – as chess variants often don't – so I am finally accepting that it has got to go. Two decks give you a fairly normal chess set-up plus a degree of customizability, for a tenner you can have four decks and experiment with all manner of options. It uses the basic chess moves but the set-up puts the two sides already very close so it is quite short and bloody. Hence the name..

Prompt
OK, I admit that I have not played this Shakespeare based game, but it looks gorgeous and must be worth a look at under a tenner.

Who Stole Ed's Pants?
Sally and I like this game, in fact I must get our copy out for one of our Wednesday evening gaming sessions soon. It has been around a while so it is continuing to sell somewhere, but has gone quiet for us. I believe that it was the first game by Eight Foot Llama, several more have followed so they seem to be doing OK.
The essence of the game is that you are trying to pin crimes on your fellow players using your witnesses. On your turn you can change the plausibility of your witnesses, the evidence, or the facts themselves; the interaction between the three is really quite complex, so it is more of a gamers' game than it first appears to be. We've trimmed the price to tempt you.

Who?
As a sort of 20 questions with some nice twists and an arrangement that makes it every man for himself instead of a team game, I had expected this to go well. It didn't really catch on, and we have three left – as the years roll by it is becoming less and less suitable for younger players, with the erstwhile contemporary characters coming from an increasingly distant past. Still good fun for older players.

Spirit Games (Est. 1984) - Supplying role playing games (RPG), wargames rules, miniatures and scenery, new and traditional board and card games for the last 20 years

Search Facility

Search Facility