The Plucky Plank: Lords of B.L.O.B.

Gather yourself around the fire and listen my friends to the tales of courage and chance. The fine hall of the fair maiden Rhonda was filled to capacity with rogues and heroes gathered to test their metal against each other in battles of skill. Some faced the trials of Space Alert, whilst others joined in auctions of Modern Art. A particular foursome made kingdoms for hours in Dominion.

The Hotness was rampant this week as Lords of Waterdeep was played 3 times over the course of the day. Everyone who played seemed to be enthralled and enchanted by the game. Lords of Waterdeep is basically a worker placement game with hidden roles. During the course of the game you recruit thieves, warriors, wizards or clerics which are represented by wooden cubes. The “adventurers” or cubes are used on various missions and upon completion you gain victory points and other various rewards. There are also Intrigue cards which allow you to break rules or hinder your opponents.

You can also build buildings which offer better rewards than the fixed areas of the board. Some allow you to break the game rules and others amass cubes or VP each turn. Now I am not a big fan of worker placement games, I don’t like being locked out of choices because of my seating order. That said I never felt my choices were limited when playing Lords of Waterdeep. The buildings, intrigue and mission cards offer more opportunities to gain cubes and VP. I didn’t feel like I was playing a fantasy game, so it shouldn’t deter anyone from trying the game. I would also like to say, Lords of Waterdeep has one of the nicest inserts with everything organized in its own spot.

The Scepter of Zavandor was next to the table. It has auctions and tech trees to further your economic engine to gain more dust or jewels every turn. Every turn you should be earning more “money” than the previous turn. Certain artifacts help you hold more gems or take gems from your opponents. The ultimate goal is to purchase Sentinels to trigger the end game and get more victory points. I am lukewarm about this game. I always feel the turns are scripted based on the “magician” you start with in the game. I made an early mistake when I grabbed a sentinel a turn to early leaving me locked in first and low on funds in the late game.

The day was in full swing and over 25 people were playing games. A coffee table had to be cleared for more gaming. I wandered around and snapped a few photos since I am the official photographer of BLOB. I soon was odd man out and waited for games to end. I was noticed by Joe and he invited me to play Roll Through the Ages with him and his daughter. I was always curious about the game and gave it a go. The rules are simple, roll dice up to three times and decide what you want to keep. Build civilizations for more dice or build wonders for endgame victory points. There are also trade goods and coins on the die; they help you make scientific advancements. It felt a bit like Yahtzee but with more depth. I am always on the look out for more games to play with my wife and I believe this is one she would enjoy.

Suzanne perused the games I brought and wanted to try out Mystery Express. We gathered a few other want to be sleuths and boarded the train. The game is time based and searching for clues in train cars offer you new clues from the other players but takes time. Conductors, passengers and fellow inspectors all have cards, much like Clue, and are shown to you based on your train car choices. The time of the murder is handled in a separate fashion, three times during the game the time cards are flipped or passed for everyone to look at. A good memory is a plus since note taking isn’t allowed. As a child, Clue was always one of my favorite games and Mystery Express is a great addition for any murder mystery fans. The game was really close as many of us were even with clues but it came down to the Telegram to ultimately break the tie and capture the murderer. More important is that everyone seemed to enjoy the game.

We wrapped the night by playing Lords of Waterdeep again. My opinions didn’t change after a second play. It is a fast and fun game which I can see getting more table time in the future. We were packed to the rafters and if BLOB gets any more players we may need to build an addition on Rhonda’s house. Since warmer weather is on its way to Michigan, I could see attendance waning but we shall have to wait and see. Thanks for reading and I’ll be back in a month’s time with another report.

Who wants to Play?

Space Alert

Wasabi

Good Night

The Plucky Plank: Cat hugs and wooden bits

Hello all of my loyal followers. Once again it is time for me to recap the games I played at B.L.O.B and share some of my pictures as "Official B.L.O.B. Photographer".
Which just means I am the only one who brings a camera. I am going to start off with something lighter this month, Cats. Rhonda has three cats who like to visit and get attention as you game. For some reason, one of her cats (sorry I forgot it's name) likes to lay on and hug the shoes by the front door. I found it funny so I took a picture to share with you. I make a few appearances in the photos this time, Rhonda snapped a few photos of me playing so I wouldn't be excluded.

This weekend the majority of the tables seemed to be longer games as Arkham Horror and Mage Knight kept several people enthralled for hours and others caused a ruckus during a game of Wiz-War. A few played train games, while others fought through jungles for Incan treasures. I sat down to play Sid Meier's Civilization: the board game based on the old computer games. While I am not familiar with those games, I am told if you "loved" the computer game, you will love this board game. So on the board you have plastic flags which represents the army and covered wagons which represent scouts. The 4 x 4 grid boards have different terrains from deserts to mountains and lots of symbols that represent goods to harvest or villages to conquer.

I set out to discover new areas of the world playing the ancient Greeks and competed against the Germans, Indians (India) and United States of America. The basic premise of the game is you are trying to enrich your civilization by conquering new lands, learning new technologies or by adding culture. Now I was very disappointed with the teacher of this game. He did a poor job explaining the rules and the rest of us took turns flipping through the rule book when it wasn't our turn. Now once I got the hang of what I was doing, the game opened itself up to me and I devised a strategy. Unfortunately, the three of us took a vote while the rule teacher went to the restroom and unanimously decided to quit the game. We just felt that after two hours, nobody was close to victory and chalked it up as a learning experience.


I would really like to try Civilization again, but only with a better understanding of the rules. After our abandonment, we debated on what to play next and the three of us ended up playing Kingdom of Solomon. T, Mike and I placed our workers on the map collecting goods to purchase buildings, build the temple or sell at the market. Unlike most worker placement games, I never felt like I was settling when it came to placing my workers. Turn order on the other hand can be brutal, goods are limited and if you are last to collect, you will be shorted. Kingdom of Solomon played fast and offered some tough decisions in resource management or purchasing. I liked the way the game played and though basic, the artwork was nice.

While playing Kingdom of Solomon, we keeping hearing cheers and groans from the backroom. T informed me they were playing a game called Wiz-War. I only recently heard of it but apparently it has been around since the '80's. The rules couldn't be any simpler, gain two points by collecting two books from your opponents or killing one of the other wizards. You get a handful of cards that help you move, destroy or protect you. This is not a friendly game as Joe and Jim started casting spells at each other and one time punching each other. T and I silently went about stealing books and staying hidden from the two spell flingers. The game plays quick and is total chaotic. I actually won but I owe the victory to T. Joe was going to win this turn, so T moved Joe's wizard towards me hoping we would slow each other down. I obliged and cast a 5 point fireball at Joe turning his wizard into a smoldering heap. I then proceeded to teleport to my home square with a book in tow and win the game.


The board layout reminded me of Pac-Man with it's maze like look and opening on the sides of the board. It was only missing the floating fruit and ghosts chasing you around. If you don't like confrontational or random games, avoid Wiz-war. After the game, we waited for some of the other tables to finish their games. I was asked to teach a everyone how to play Core Worlds. I feel I do a good job teaching but sometimes I see the glazed over looks and begin to question myself.

Core Worlds is a card drafting game that takes place over ten turns. You draft infantry, spaceships or tactics cards into your deck so you can attack worlds which provide you the energy you need to run your empire. I think the game was a bit long for all the first timers since it clocked in at 3 hours. The cards are a bit text heavy and can be daunting for new players. I still have to read everything and I have played it a few times. For me, Core Worlds is a great game. You can see the designer put a lot of thought into the creation of the cards and combinations hidden within.


Back to the game, Jim had to take off mid-game and instead of quitting, I took over playing his deck along with mine. I am sorry to say Jim, you didn't win. T managed to beat me by two points with Rhonda coming in a respectable third. General consensus from the players seemed to be positive. In fact Chris was at another table teaching a few other players how to play with a second copy that was available. I am very happy with the next generation of non collectible card games and will post a separate blog post of my comparison of Core Worlds versus Eminent Domain. Andrew Parks (the designer), I hope the sales are solid and you have an expansion in the works.

Since Chris was using T's copy of Core Worlds, he couldn't leave yet so Rhonda convinced T and I to play a game of Dominion with cards from Dominion: Intrigue and Dominion:Seaside. I will go on record and say Dominion isn't my favorite of the deck building games due to the theme-less design and lack of player interaction. Now the player interaction has be circumvented in the later expansions with Attack actions. Which makes it more appealing to me to play. T also voiced his lack of interest in playing but joined us. What was he going to do sit and watch us play? Heck no.


I was always curious how I would do against people who play Dominion more than I do. Does their familiarity with the cards give them a leg up? In this case, I would say no. I felt like I was neck and neck with Rhonda and T in both of the games. Sure Rhonda won both of the games, but not by much. She usually won by a Province at most (That's about 6 points to those of you who never played). Seaside offered some interesting cards that stuck around until the beginning of your next turn. You could draw extra cards or stash a card for use in the next turn and so on. I think that if you can find a few expansions you like of Dominion, you really don't need to purchase every set. I felt like some of the cards got repetitive, much in the same way as Magic the Gathering did.

That brings me to the end of another game night recap. Thanks for taking the time to read this and please leave me any comments or questions below.

The Plucky Plank: We have a name......B.L.O.B.

Our second meeting was this weekend and we got twice as many people as the previous month. We have officially named ourselves as Board Gaming League of Brighton or B.L.O.B. for short. Now we need to get some one with artistic talents to make us a graphic for a logo.


I saw several people from Great Oak and several new faces. Plenty of games were played. T taught Eclipse again but I was in the middle of Shadows over Camelot at the time. One day I'll get to play it.I didn't keep track of all the games played, but I saw Chris teaching Mike D. how to play Mage Knight and Mike, Rhonda, Suzanne and Jim played Airlines Europe. I will comment on what I played.

TtR: Nordic was the first game I joined in. Vicki was a new gamer and had primarily played Settlers of Catan. I suggested TtR to give her another glimpse of a good light game. Since there were 3 of us, Rhonda suggested Nordic Countries. After a brief overview, (TtR isn't that complicated) we began. I anticipated a tight game with each of us blocking routes off from each other due to the tight nature of the map. I was wrong and we all managed to complete our tickets. Vicki seemed to enjoy the game and afterword started asking us about all the other games on the counter. She couldn't stay too much longer but I figure she will be back again next month. I am glad we got to teach her a new game and she enjoyed the experience.

After wrapping up TtR: Nordic Countries, quite a few more players showed up and after introductions we jumped into our next game, Shadows over Camelot. I figured this would be played, since Rhonda asked several times last month for this to be played. As cooperative games go, Shadows over Camelot isn't a bad game. It manages to provide the appropriate tension as you struggle to survive the bad stuff. 6 of us assumed the roles of knights and battled our way to a victory. Our victory was not without its losses; Sir Galahad (me) sacrificed himself in an honorable way for his kingdom. It resulted in a black sword but ended the game in a victory for the team. Shadows over Camelot is a good game but I never feel overwhelmed with the game.

We were waiting for the other people present to finish up Eclipse. Mike D. recommended a small filler card game (No, not Tichu*). Tanz der Hornochsen was the game and I don't think any of us could pronounce it correctly. :D The game has a set of cards numerically circled in the center and each player places a card on a card it is higher than. Some of the cards are positive points with green cow heads and some are negative points with red bull heads. Basically once you place the 5th card on a stack, you take all the cards to your score pile. The game gets more interesting since you have to play a x2 card and a +5 card. Rhonda just killed us by claiming two x2 cards and a pile of positive points.


A brief shuffle of players and some decisions on what to be played next, had me sitting down to a 5 player game of Power Grid. I was excited to play this with others who knew the game. In my previous plays, I learned it with other new players and won every time. So I wanted to see if I could hang with the big boys.
We did have one new player but she didn't seem all that interested, since she almost fell asleep multiple times during the game.

The auctions and building phases were ruthless and a few curse words were uttered. T was 1st through the majority of the game but didn't seem to suffer any monetary problems. He was always powering a few more cities than everyone else and in the end won the game.
I ended up in 4th but had the second most cities. I was one plant away from victory. It was a challenging game and I felt I did a good job against the veteran players. Mike D. promised to bring some of the other maps for next time. I can't wait.:D

Next I sat down for a 4 player game of Eminent Domain. I would say Eminent Domain seems to be the hot game for the last few months. I always see it played multiple times and doesn't seem to be cooling off. The nicest thing was no one needed to be taught how to play so we got right into the game. It was a tight race to a close finish as everyone seemed to follow different paths toward victory. I can honestly say I am not tired of this game and it is just a fun game to play. We all discussed the possibilities of an expansion and agree we all are excited to see what it brings to the game.

The clock struck 12 and the midnight hour was upon us. We were down to 6 players and after some discussion on what to play, we decided on a newish game to us all, TtR: Team Asia. I'll admit I was excited to play the team version. A brief overview of the rules and we were on our way. T/I (Yellow), Mike D./Chris (Red) and Rhonda/Mike (Green) were the teams. The toughest part of the game is figuring out what to collect or tracks to claim for your teammate. You can't talk or give hints at all, so you need to watch what your partner is doing. After a few rounds, you could see the teams starting to gel. The game ended up close but T and I ended up victorious due to completing 108 points worth of tickets. Even if I had lost, this version of Ticket to Ride is fun and definitely for players used to playing the game. I think it is my favorite way to play the game.

It was the perfect length and weight of game to finish off the night. After everyone pitched in to help in the clean up, we called it a night and drove off in our separate directions. This group seems to have a grass roots support as many people helped support and promote the group. I feel it fills a need missing in our area and can only get better.


Once again, I want to thank Rhonda for hosting and I look forward to reporting to you about next months festivities.

*[i]This is an inside joke. Mike D. is a big fan of Tichu and everyone always teases him about it[/i]

The Plucky Plank: A local gaming group recap

A fellow BGGer (Boardgamegeek.com), Rhonda, started a local gaming group at her house. A few months ago we were introduced to each other at Great Oaks Board Game Days. After chatting over a game we realized we lived close to each other. She mentioned she wanted to start a local group.

Fast forward to the 29th of December and we join her for her first official game night. We ended up with a maximum of 6 players but had 7 people come and go though out the night. All of us brought games and some brought more than others. There were stacks of games, ranging from fillers like No Thanks to heavier fare like Agricola. Honestly there were more games than we would ever play, which afforded us with plenty of options for the whole night.

Here is a list of what was played over the course of the night.

Guillotine
I was running late due to a previous engagement, so they were just finishing a game of Guillotine. As filler games go, Guillotine is a fun, back stabbing card game. The object is to score the most nobles during 3 days of execution during the French Revolution. The key is to manipulate the noble line and capture the higher pointed nobles and avoid the negative pointed heroes.

TransAmerica
Five of us sat down and played TransAmerica while waiting for another player to show up. I ended up losing horribly as I crossed the end of the track, triggering the end of the game. TransAmerica is a simple game of laying tracks and connecting 5 cities. It is helpful if other players build track you can piggy back on so you don't have to do all the work.

I could not get any cities that were close and I was all over the map. This was my second time playing this game and I am not a fan. I feel the city cards have to much randomness and if a fellow player doesn't build track close to your cities, you can lose bad. -8 points bad for me one turn.

Agricola
The final player showed up as we were setting up Agricola. Three of us decided to play as farmers and the others went off to choose a different game. This was my second time playing and I felt I was doing much better this time around but ended up third in points.

I had some decent occupations that helped me snag plenty of wood and fish. I just failed to purchase a little bit of everything and suffered to many negative points in the end. I don't mind Agricola but I am so bad at worker placement games. I fail to grasp which task is best for me at the time.

Eminent Domain
This managed to get played while I was farming on the moor. I believe two of the three were new players and I have no idea who won. I was concentrating too much on food production.

7 Wonders with Leaders
We managed to finish Agricola in time for all 6 of us to join in a 6 player game of 7 Wonders. We opted to play with the Leaders expansion, since we all have player before.

I like 7 Wonders for what it is, a light civilization card game. I had never played with the Leaders before and boy can they help you score some big points in the end.

Citadels
Citadels was chosen as a quick game to finish out the night. Now I don't know about you, but I have never found this game to be quick. It seems to me so many people stare and lock up at all the choices when picking a role.

I ended up tying a first time player at the end of the game. It was funny because if I didn't have the Merchant, she did. I was a little more obvious as I had 3 green buildings in my district, but no one made an assassination attempt on the Merchant when I had the role.

Final Thoughts
It was a good time for a first meeting and I want to thank Rhonda again for the use of her house. I look forward to our monthly meetings and who knows, maybe we will get more people.

I also plan on taking more notes of final scores and bring a camera to capture our gaming moments. Besides, who doesn't like to look at pictures of people having fun.

Geeks present: Eidolon, Emcglohon, Rj_berg, Tanzania and Pescime

Thoughts of Madness: A review of my play-test

Today I got the chance to play-test the new Fantasy Flight game called Mansions of Madness. The game is based on Cthilhu by H.P. Lovecraft in the horror genre. I am only going to give my thoughts on the game play and not the rules (since I only got to look at them quickly).


What I liked
The character and monster molds are beautiful and begging for some paint. The molds are detailed and a decent size. The monsters have a base that allows the information card to be slid in and hidden from the investigators. After damaging the monsters, the investigators can look underneath to see the vital information.

The board consists of dual sided art so the house can be redesigned for the scenario to be played. The art is dark and moody with blood splatters and creepy shadows. Some of the rooms have transparent white lines to divide larger areas.

The Characters are customizable. You have several options on which traits you want your character to have through out game play. Anyone familiar with Arkham Horror will recognize the characters in the game.

Puzzles are done with actual pieces you have to solve based on your characters intellect. There were three puzzle types that appeared in the game. A circuit with red and blue wires, a picture puzzle you had to slide pieces and a suitcase locked with color runes.


What I did not like
The game boards suffer warping issues. The game I played was unboxed today and when I arrived for the second play test group, the boards were already curling after 4 hours.

The combat is determined by flipping cards based on the creature type. It is a pass or fail scenario based on a skill role. What I didn’t like was the lack of attacks for unarmed combat. Our keeper (the person controlling the evil) flipped half the deck to find an unarmed attack. They should have included more cards.


I enjoyed the game and wish we had more than the two hours to play. The game reminds me of Descent: Journey into the Dark. The keeper gets tokens every turn based on the number of players. He also controls a timed deck of 6 cards that move the story line along and pressure the investigators to solve or stall the end scenario.

For anyone who would like to see more, I included two links. One is a official video from Fantasy Flight, a teaser. The second is a video review of the components by Drakkenstrike, a reviewer from Boardgamegeek.com


All photos provided from Fantasy Flight games.

Rolling our way to happiness

I got tired of my wife and I starring at computer screens and commenting on Facebook posts or Yahoo web news. We started date night which consisted of a meal at home or out followed by a movie or a concert in the park during the summer. This was fun and lasted during the summer but when winters bitter chill returned our date nights faded. We needed something to occupy ourselves during the long winter nights and take your minds out of the gutter.

I searched the web and stumbled across a blog and the author of the article was writing about all the same things I was thinking. The title of the article is “How gaming saved our marriage”.You can find it here. He listed a variety of board games that he and his wife played and ranked both of their opinions on the games using a simple ranking. This interested me because Robin and I used to play all sorts of card games like Pokémon and Harry Potter back when we were dating. So after some reading I decided on a game called Ticket to Ride.

The game went over great and we slowly added more games to our collection. We don’t play as often as I would like but it is a step in the right direction. In the coming weeks, I plan to offer up reviews of games played and both of our opinions on said games. Some will be just my review since my wife hasn’t played all of the games I have but I do hope someday to get her to play.

I promise a new blog is coming soon.

This holiday I plan to post a few new blogs. My reviews of my new obsession, boardgames. I also plan on making posts about the films I am working on and the things that happen there.

I know Jason is the only person to read this so please wait Jay. New content soon.