Session Report: Headingley Games Club

On Thursday Dave and I went to Hugo's games club in Leeds. I was going with the intention of trying to play Border Reivers with a bunch of people and hopefully sell some, like I had done in London the week before.

It took us about an hour to get there (it's on the 'wrong' side of Leeds), and then it took us another fifteen minutes to find the place (my trusty sense of direction failed me after we parked the car) - fortunately, Dave used his army skills and managed to navigate by the stars or something and we eventually found the place.

We walked into the venue and found a large room full of people all playing Games Workshop games such as Warhammer 40K, Blood Bowl and Warhammer Ancient Battles. I never knew they'd done an ancients game - shows how out of the loop I am. Anyway, apart from a blast from the past this wasn't what I was looking for - we were directed upstairs. Upstairs was more like it, there were eight people playing board games, including Canal Mania which I've been meaning to play for ages. There was also a back room where a small bunch of people were playing Magic: The Gathering, which was a break from their normal game of roleplay wrestling. Urrrgghh. The less said about that disturbing idea the better.

Sadly for my playing Border Reivers idea, I recognised a lot of the people from Beyond Monopoly and Psychocon. So we volunteered to join in with a game of Puerto Rico that would be starting in around half an hour. With half an hour to kill, Dave and I set up a quick 2-player game of Border Reivers. This would be Dave's fourth game, so I was expecting some stiff competition now that he had got the hang of it.

It was a good game, I can't remember an awful lot about it, I got to the mine and held it for most of the game (though Dave did Ambush me there, killing my mine workers), and there wasn't much action on the fortified border. I managed to sneak around the fortified border, exposed Dave's soft underbelly, but he blocked me off to stop me taking too much advantage. Dave built all three of his cities, while I only got two built. In the end I won with an economic victory, 44 to 14.

Then we joined in with five others for a game of Puerto Rico. This was Dave's first game of the highest rated game on BoardGameGeek so we didn't play with the expansion (which I had never seen before). I chose a shipping to the old world strategy, while Nigel and Andrew (I think that was his name) went for cash, and through that buildings. I spent most of the game skint, which hurt later on as I was unable to build anything useful. In the end the three guys from the club whooped us - final scores: Nigel 49, Andrew 46, Corran 45, me 42 and Dave 36. Not a bad score for Dave in his first game against four seasoned players.

I'm not sure I'd go there again, it's a long way for a couple of hours of gaming, we spent almost as much time in the car as we did at the club.

In other news, check out this year's April Fools Day effort on BoardGameGeek. After last year's effort (the 'admin' screen) I didn't want to miss it this year, and Aldie didn't disappoint. Sadly the Crochet tab doesn't work, so I guess I'm going to have to shelve my plans for a nice gaming shawl.