Where's My Week Gone?

Seriously. I have no idea. I had hoped to make some progress on Zombology, ahead of tomorrow's Newcastle Playtest session, instead I made none - I didn't even get to play it during the week. It's been a long time since I had a week without a game of Zombology.

In fairness, my vanished week was largely spent playing rather than designing games. Tuesday I went to Manchester on the train for work, which meant six hours playing games on the iPad with my boss and Mal. Thursday was Games Night and Friday my brother and his girlfriend came to stay for the night on the way to visiting some friends. We played a few games of Rumis at the end of the evening after spending some time talking about what they could get to play as the next step on from Carcassonne - their current game of choice. Since they are about to move to Oxford, they needed some that plays well with two as they won't know anyone there initially. They really enjoyed Rumis and made a note of it.

Saturday after my brother and his girlfriend left, our friends from York: Paul, Lisa and their ten year old daughter came to stay for the night. We played a couple of games of Coup with the three of them before Their daughter went to sleep, then a game of Chinatown with the four adults. Paul had introduced us to Chinatown a few weeks ago when we went down to visit them and we'd both really enjoyed it - so much so that I'd tried to buy it the next day but it's currently out of print. When it's reprinted in the autumn by Z-Man I'll be rushing out to get a copy - it's an excellent game. After the ladies went to bed, Paul and I played a few more games. Paul was interested in Rumis (he'd never played it) so we played a few games (Paul loved it too) and then a game of Carcassonne: The Castle to round things off.

Sunday, during The. Daughter's nap, Paul taught us Hab & Gut (another great game!) and then we played four games of Coup.

All of this means that I only have tonight to prepare for tomorrow's Playtest session. I've a new version of Zombology half done on the computer which needs finishing off, printing out and assembling. It's changed a bit since the Newcastle Playtest crowd last played it a month ago - I've been playing it for a couple of weeks now with new rules but out of date cards, so it would be good to have the cards to match the rules! I foresee a busy evening ahead...

Games Night: Dave's

Monday night I went round to Dave's for some games again. I'd brought his copy of Border Reivers, plus my It's Alive! prototype and my Pirates of the Spanish Main fleet. Dave wanted to christen his copy of Border Reivers first - so we set up a two player game. Dave won the toss, and laid out a fairly constrained map with more scenery in the middle than I like. I chose the end further from the mine (not sure why) and then we were off. Dave got to the mine before me and put a lot of armies in there to defend it, while simultaneously start to clear land for a new settlement. It's worth noting that Dave got a free reinforcement of both types army and card (Market) in his first turn - so he was off to a flying start. Despite this is was actually a really close game. I managed to successfully attack the mine, Dave won it back and I got it again. We both used Insurrections to attack fairly undefended cities, and I used a Reiving Party to trying to steal from him, while he used Siege Engines a couple of times to aid his attacking of my defences. I managed to break away on the cash front, while Dave continued to spend and receive armies, forcing me to spend my large lead to defend myself. It was one of those back and forth games where it's not clear who's going to win at all. My favourite moment was when Dave used an Insurrection to attack my city, little did he know that I had a Militia to defend with! Dave attacks, I reveal my Militia: 'Ha! My grocers are armed with...' Dave: 'That's a Market not a Militia!' Me:'Arse! It looks they're armed with fruit. Houston, we're in trouble.' Even armed only with fruit they managed to defend themselves though - the city lived to see another day. In the end I managed to wrest an advantage and won - thought it was very close.

The second game of the night was Pirates of the Spanish Main which we'd played recently. We set up for a quick thirty point battle, and I made a decision to add a six point coin to the pot of available coins - my reasoning being that I'd use fast ships with small holds to try to track it down quickly. I ended up with three ships and three fairly cheap crew. Dave chose two ships (one four-masted beast) and a couple of expensive crew, including Admiral Morgan who had the potential to be brilliant. I set out to the nearby islands and quickly found my six-value coin, Dave raided one of the islands near him and started to close with one of his smaller ships armed with a firepot specialist. I brought my Captained ship to bear on that ship using it's longer guns and ability to move and shoot to quickly dispatch the small two-master. Dave's bigger ship came over to engage. Fortunately for me Admiral Morgan's ability to act twice on a particular die roll wasn't coming up for Dave, and though I had to run away to begin with, I brought a second ship over for back-up and managed to maneouvre my Captained ship into range of his ship while out of range of his shorter range front and back guns. I managed to sink that one too, so it was game over. In conclusion I think the Captain is priceless, Admiral Morgan not so much, especially with bad die rolls a factor - he's very expensive (five points) too.

We had time for a quick game of Carcassonne: The Castle after Pirates. Dave and I both drew for the largest house, so neither of us got the biggest open space bonus, and I foolishly wasted a 'score an unfinished road' counter I picked up near the end of the game. In the end the game was decided by the markets, and I had quite a lot, so I snuck my third win of the night. Final scores: me 91, Dave 76.

Another great night of gaming :-)

Session Report: Dave At Mine

Last night Dave came round again for games. Due to being busy I'd not had time to learn the rules for any new games, so we stuck with some tried and tested favourites. Dave had recently bought Guillotine one of the favourites at Paul's Monday night games which he brought along with Carcassonne: The Castle which I had played a few times at Christmas. Dave also wanted to play Border Reivers again - yeay!

First up was Guillotine, a delightfully silly card game where you get to decapitate the French. I'd not played this 2-player before, and I wasn't even sure if it supported two players. Unfortunately Wizards of the Coast neglected to tell me on the box, so after much searching I had to check the rules. Two to five. Excellent. We played three games, I sneaked the first one, Dave creamed me in the second and then in the third I had a huge score (despite two -1 Martyrs and a -2 action card from Dave) and was convinced that I'd won, but Dave had equalled me to draw the game and the series. I'd collected the Piss Boy though, so I like to think I won the moral victory ;-) Final scores: Dave 23, me 25; then Dave 31, me 23; finally Dave 39, me 39.

Next up we played Border Reivers and due to a slack few days when it comes to construction I have no finished games and my copy is still missing loads of tiles as I've been raiding it for spares when I cock one up. So we played with my old prototype with nasty, lurid tiles, but lovely hand-scultped FIMO pieces. Dave won the toss and chose a central location for the mine, and feeling aggressive I went for the start location nearest to the mine and decided to contest it. I got to the mine first, but Dave built a couple of early towns and wrested the mine from me in fairly short order. I fought back, re-claiming the mine and building a Market to boost my income. Dave forced me out of the mine for a second time, so it was time to get medieval on his ass, and I went for cards and got my hands on an Insurrection (cue evil laugh: mwoa ha ha ha). After having just settled two towns and won the mine for a second time Dave was a little exposed, I knew he didn't have any hidden cards, so the Militia wasn't prepared to defend his city, so I went for it. My Insurrection came up trumps destroying his city in a blaze of glory and the tide had turned. Dave tried to save himself, pulling two armies back from the mine to upgrade one of his towns into a second city, but that left the mine with only one army defending it, and I managed to destroy that then his second (and only) city. It was a bit harsh to open up with the Insurrection, but I figured Dave had played recently and knew the risk of my hidden card. Hopefully I've not put him off the game :-) In hindsight, I think I would have left the mine in his position too, moving the one remaining army back to the tower or city where it would gain a numerical boost in combat at the expense of losing the mine. Dave had a reasonable amount of money at that stage, and would likely have rebuilt fairly quickly. Final result: I won my military victory.

We decided to round out the evening with a couple of quick games of Carcassonne : The Castle. Dave had played this before being introduced to vanilla Carcassonne, while I had only been introduced to it at Christmas. I really like this one, but it takes a completely different mindset from vanilla Carcassonne as the unfinished houses, towers and roads don't score at the end of the game. I won both games in the end, having done slightly better on the markets. Final scores: Dave 52, me 63; second game Dave 67, me 87.

Another great night of gameage. I'm really enjoying approximately one night a week of gaming either with Paul and chums or Dave. Next week hopefully it will be at Paul's as I'm off to Paris for work later in the week.