Ghost Stories – Oh, the horror!

Last night was another meeting of Scimitar Wargames Group. Since this is the Wednesday closest to Halloween, we traditionally play games  with a ‘horror’ focus.

I got to play Ghost Stories, which is a co-operative game which was released last year to rave reviews – and after playing it I can see why.

The players are a group of Taoist monks, defending a village from an invasion of ghosts – led by the dreaded Wu-Feng, Lord of the Nine Hells, who has come to the village to reclaim his ashes, rise from the dead and plunge the world into eternal darkness – you know the sort of thing.

This game (even played a the easiest level, which we did) had all the classic elements of co-op. Everything appeared fine, we commented on how easy things seemed (although I was somewhat suspicious, given the games’ reputation)…and then we all died very quickly!

A post-mortem discussed revealed several ‘lightbulb’ moments – the classic one being that when we started the game, we didn’t ‘click’ about ghost placement…always put the weak ghosts on the corners so you get the chance to defeat two at once. And other things…like actually using the Buddha tokens early in the game, when you’re not overrun and too busy rushing from one ghost to the next to think about them.

In short, a really good game, and I can’t wait to play this again. It’s theme and gameplay appeals to me much more than something like Pandemic, and it has all the classic co-op issues – things get worse every turn, and you always have a really hard choice of what to do from several different options. The variation of player powers, plus the different manifestations of Wu-Feng lead to some great replayability, and that’s before you up-the-ante to Nightmare and Hell levels.

Another one on the shopping list!

Shadows Over Camelot – how many ways to lose?

Last night saw another meeting of Scimitar Wargames Group, and it was good to see a healthy number there this week – 15 as opposed to the 4 of us from the week before!

Whilst several people took part in an epic scale Commands & Colors battle to celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the battle of Teutoburg Forest, the rest of us were left playing board games.

So, for the second week running, Shadows Over Camelot hit the table (along with the Merlin’s Company expansion). After a win with 4 of us last week, this week we were feeling pretty confident – even with only 3…how wrong we were!

Two dead knights, 7 black swords and 10 catapults later…

This is a good game – obviously better with more people playing (we are still to play a really big game – 7 or 8 players with 2 traitors must be a real blast) but enjoyable all the same.

Highly recommended!

BTW – next week it’s Battlestar Galactica with the Pegasus expansion and a full 7 players – should be a good one.

Going to Manorcon?

Manorcon is only a week away – are you going?

“What on earth is Manorcon?” I hear you ask…

Manorcon is a 4 day boardgames convention, held at Stamford Hall, at the University of Leicester. This year it’s running from 17th – 20th July.

Why is this important? Well, it’s only 10 minutes drive from where I live (the other side of the city of Leicester) and so it’s really a no-brainer when it comes to attending.

I’ll be there from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening, so if you fancy a game of anything, or just fancy a chat, please come over and say “Hi”.

I’m hoping to play several new games – or at least games that I own but haven’t played yet, plus some games that are a bit longer and therefore don’t come out to often. The current list for the weekend includes:

• Brass
• Automobile
• Perikles
• Senji
• Reef Encounter
• Shogun
• Galactic Emperor (6 player)

Lots of stuff to play, but luckily about 40 hours worth of gaming time to play them in…

Boardgames paradise…see you there?

Snow Tails – first game at Scimitar

One of my unplanned purchases (and yes, I don’t impulse buy all the time) at the UK Games Expo last weekend was Snow Tails. I had a demo of the game and liked both the game play and the presentation enough to buy it.

Last Wednesday rolled around, which meant Scimitar Wargames Club, and whilst I was keen to get many of my new purchases into play, with 5 player, Snow Tails was the obvious choice.

What can I say? We all loved it! The first game took a while (I shouldn’t have put trees on the track!) but once everyone had grasped the mechanics – which only took a few turns – it became a huge success.

Several of the players likened it to Knizia’s Circus Maximus, but with more playable mechanics – though still enough to think about and make it interesting. What was more surprising was that Tony (who has actually raced a dog sled) said the game was pretty accurate about what you needed to consider when doing the real thing.

I started to put the game away after we had played one game, only to be greeted by howls of protest. Needless to say, we played it for the rest of the night, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

A surprise hit, and I’m now very glad that I bought it!

Scimitar Wargames Group – new website

Scimitar Wargames Group have now launched their new look website. You can find it at www.scimitarwargames.org.uk

Scimitar Wargames – 26th November

Last Wednesday saw the latest meeting of Scimitar Wargames Group, and this time, the group was divided into only 2 groups…

Martin, Tony and I played Duel In The Dark, complete with the new Baby Blitz expansion, which adds a lot of new depth to the game.

Meanwhile, a Commands & Colours: Ancients game of truly epic proportioned was being fought on the next table.

Not much scenery was in evidence – just lots of troops, plus paperwork galore, as the group tried out a new adaption of multi-player C&C:A for the first time.

Scimitar Wargames Group – 19th November

Last Wednesday saw about a dozen of us gather together for another Scimtar games night.

Pete, Tony and Phillip played Ancients (again) – DBM this time (I think)

Whilst Bob, Gary, Tony & Martin played Blikzkrieg Commander – a late war game, this time (for a change).

Finally, I gathered everyone (John, Dave, Matthew, Andy & Peter) else into a 6-player game of Galactic Emperor. Despite having a couple of people who hadn’t played before, and several of us (including me!) who couldn’t quite remember the rules (thanks for keeping us on track, Matt) , we had a blast (pardon the pun).

I think this game really hits a sweet spot with 5 or 6 players, as it forces the pace of the game as almost every role is played every turn. Everyone seemed to enjoy it (especially Peter, who won…beginner’s luck!) so this is a game that will hit the table again soon.

Three weeks in gaming at Scimitar

I’ve been a bit remiss in updating this blog with gaming session reports recently – mainly because I keep forgetting to take my camera with me to games nights!

So, what have I been up to over the past few weeks?

Well, two weeks ago saw me getting roped into playing Memoir ‘44 – Tony had been out on a spending spree and bought the latest Overlord expansion, along with the new scenario map “Hedgerow Hell” – and so eight players were required to play the game.

It wasn’t quite what I had in mind for the evening, but I did actually rather enjoy it.

The scenario is a tough one for the Allies, as it covers the breakout towards St. Lo though the Normandy Bocage.

The new Overlord expansion works well – though it has been observed that it would have been better from a game design point of view if the two packs of Command cards were different colours, so that they could be told apart…just in case someone comes along and shuffles them all together (now who would do that?).

Last week saw us back in the realm of Middle Earth, this time playing the Lord Of The Rings co-operative game, by Reiner Knizia.

This was played by 6 of us, as we played with both the Sauron and Battlefields expansions.

Well, we ended up playing the game twice, as the first game has got to go down as one of the quickest games in LOTR history – I think it took us longer to set the game up than it did to play. Basically, due to some horrendous tile choice, we ended up selecting all the encounter tiles out of the bag first, and so the quest was over at Weathertop – which was quite appropriate really…it just indicated that the Witch King corrupted Frodo in their first attack.

So, we set up to play again – this time getting somewhat further. One of the part died in Moria, I died on the Isenguard board and the game finally ended during Helms Deep.

So, what did I think? Well, I hate to say it, but I was a little underwhelmed. I own this game (though we didn’t play my copy) and after this evening, I am seriously considering trading or selling it.

Why?

Well, I don’t like the player elimination aspect – though this is an issue we have to deal with in several co-op games. But the game as a whole just didn’t grab me. I will reserve judgement until I play it again, but currently, I’m not too keen on playing this too often in the future.

Finally, last night saw my first play of Agricola – the game that has sent the boardgame community into various states of ectstacy in the last year. I was keen to know what all the fuss has been about.

Hmm.

OK, I can understand why many people like it. My own feelings towards it are somewhat less enthusiastic. It immediately strikes me that it is a game that does not mix newbies and experienced players well, and I freely admit that if I hadn’t watched the Boardgames With Scott video on the game prior to playing , I would have been totally lost for a while.

This is a critisim you can level at any game, but given that roles/resources are so scarce, you need to have a firm idea of what you need to aiming at doing before you start playing Agricola.

Game play is, in essence, very simple – but I think that was very much hindered by the selection of Minor Improvements and Occupations that I had in my hand. OK, it didn’t break the game, but it was obvious that my selection of cards was far worse than a couple of my opponents. You would imagine that within a 14 card selection that you would find a useful selection of cards – I had 2 or 3 - so that ‘luck’ factor did not impress me.

But, I ended up 3rd of 5 players, which surprised me. Agricola is definitely a game that rewards multiple plays, and a game that may very well grow on you over time. At the moment, the jury is out on whether I really like this game or not – however, it’s definately NOT the No.1 game in my opinion…but then again, I didn’t like Puerto Rico either.

I finished off playing two other new games – Buccaneer and Metro – both from Queen games (and Metro designed by Dirk Henn…he of Rosenkonig, Shogn and Wallenstein fame).

Buccaneer is a game about Pirates boarding ships and getting booty. The game mechanics revolve around lots of player interaction as you ‘recruit’ crew from other players in order to board ships. A light game – ideal for the pub.

Metro, on the other hand, is a slightly deeper game. It’s a tile laying game with a train theme based around building the Paris Metro. It’s all about connecting track and stations - you gain points for long tracks whilst at the same time attempting to hinder your opponents with short tracks. Surprisingly deep and strategic, and possibly not the best game to be played at the end of an evening, this was still my favourite game of the night (Yes, I think I enjoyed it more than Agricola).

Scimitar Wargames Club meets every Wednesday night  – you are very welcome to come along. You can find out more details here.

Scimitar Wargames Club – 15th October

This last Wednesday saw another meeting of Scimitar Wargames Club.

Tony brought in War of the Ring, which was played by Tony, myself, Bob and Jere. An excellent game, which I will be looking at more closely in a future podcast.

Andy and Howard played Arab/Israeli war ( a blast from the past!)

Whilst Tony and Phil played DBM…

…and Dave taught Pete Napoleonic Polemos. (By the way, if anyone doubted that I exist, as I don’t appear on many photos, I’m the chap in the red and white striped rugby top in the background)

If you fancy joining us, we meet every Wednesday night 7pm – 10pm at Church Hall at Christ Church, Frankpledge Road, Cheylesmore, Coventry.

Scimitar Wargames Club – 8th October

After the quiet evening of the previous week, we had a room-full of people for this week’s Scimitar Wargames Club meeting.

Phil, Richard (plus partner), Tony and Pete played HOTT, whilst Andy and Pete had another play through Impetus.

Meanwhile, the rest of us (Howard, Tony, Gary, Bob, Martin, John and I) played another game of A Touch of Evil, this time, playing a competitive game.

It has to be said, this game is much better as a competitive games rather than a co-operative game. I had much more fun – especially since I spent half the game as a werewolf! Always a bonus!