Match Report 26th March 2011

A boisterous evening with 3 very different games

With 5 minutes to go till 7pm we had received only one email to say Natalie would be joining us and 1 phone call from Ben to say he wouldn’t. It looked like it was going to be a very quiet night.

But then the doorbell started ringing and we were suddenly knee deep in gamers. Malcolm, Ruth (for her quarterly fix of games), Daniella, Crispin (a late but very welcome decision to join us, after a hard day sitting reading the paper- retirement is tough!) and of course Natalie.

I am not sure if they had been planning it but they all seemed very jovial and full of witticisms largely at the expense of yours truly! I think the return of Crispin may well have had something to do with this boisterous humour.

When it came to the games it was an easy choice to go for 7 Wonders and with a quick explanation of the rules to the two that had not been with us for our last evening, we were soon plunged into the wonders of the ancient world and the building of our various civilisations. With Daniella now knowing the rules her magic was broken (see our last match report) and I felt the threat would come from elsewhere on this occasion. When it came to the scoring Ruth put in a very fine effort nearly pulling off Daniella’s feet of the previous meeting, but luckily for me not quiet.

Then it was time for me to make the coffees and for the rest to have a quick game of Fuchs and Fertig, won by our quarterly visitor. Munchies had been baked once again by Natalie on this occasion cappuccino muffins, plus some chocolate scrummies provided by Malcolm and Ruth.

With Crispin beginning to tire after his mental excursions we were looking for something light and amusing. My suggestions were either Kalimambo or Pictomania. Ruth and Natalie both normally happy to go with the flow were keen supporters of choosing Pictomania. What followed was a very lively game with much abuse being thrown at each other as one or more of us called into question the drawings of our fellow players.

My recollection is that I did pretty poorly at this game last time we played it and so it proved again and it will be no surprise to hear that the two ladies came first and second! Had Ruth gained just 3 more points in the first game of the evening she would have managed a clean sweep winning all three games. Hmmm maybe it is just as well she limits her visits to quarterly, we don’t want her getting too good.

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More photo's from the evening can be seen here.

If you would like to try some of the games talked about on this blog come along to our next event at the Blue Anchor, Crowborough on Sunday 1st April starting at 7pm - £1 per head. More details can be seen on our Facebook Page Social Gamers - Crowborough

Games in a Pub 18th March 2012

A quiet Mothers Day evening

Whilst Oliver and I were waiting for the others to arrive we had a couple of abortive attempts at Ligretto 2, which really didn’t seem to work as a two player although we have had some fun with it as a four player on previous occasions.

We moved onto Army of Frogs, a game designed for pubs and other hostile gaming environments. It can be carried around in a cloth bag and consists of 44 heavy plastic, marble looking playing pieces. There is no board or cardboard counters to worry about. The game consists of trying to use your hexagon shaped frogs to create an island of 7 frogs of your colour whilst stopping your opponents doing the same thing.

Match Report 12th March 2012

Our largest game yet makes it to the table!

We welcomed our regulars Ben, Malcolm, Daniella and Natalie but sadly no Crispin as he was feeling under the weather and no Gwen as she had had a busy day of interviews in London and fancied a quiet night in front of the telly. The good news was Crispin’s absence meant more munchies for the rest of us and Gwen’s meant my chances of winning a game had increased, or so I thought!

Our evenings normally start in the kitchen as everybody arrives, with people catching up whilst drinks are found or made. This is a convivial and important part of the evening as all our attendees would say they enjoy the social aspect that games facilitate, not seeing themselves as serious gamers. It is a phase that sometimes takes a few minutes and other times much longer. Monday night was very much in the later camp; topics covered included the merits or otherwise of brothers keeping snakes and dragons in their room, girlfriends who behave as / get treated as doormats, the stress of meeting a new partner’s 30 ish children (apparently every bit as stressful as meeting the parents at a younger age), job interviews and the issues of timing on how to handle telling your current employer your quitting.

We did eventually sit down to play a game and of the 4 new games I was suggesting Crokinole, 7 Wonders (by Repos Production), Ticket To Ride: Europe and Existenz the team plumped for 7 Wonders.

Review – Arschbombe

2 to 4 Players, Aged 8+ with a 15-20 minute playing time

A review copy of Arschbombe, designed by Bernhard Lach and Uwe Rapp was kindly provided by  Zoch GmbH .

The theme of this game conjures thoughts of warm summer holidays by a swimming pool disturbed by noisy kids delighting in jumping in and out of the pool, occasionally stylishly from a high board, but as often as not bombing their fellow swimmers.

What follows is an overview of the game broken down into 5 sections: The Game Components, Setting Up The Game, How To Play The Game, What Did We Think? and finally Who Do We Think Will Like It?. So if you don't want to read the whole review scan down to the heading that interests you.

Games in a Pub 4th March 2012

Absence of any posts recently was down to a bout of bronchitis. All is well again now so blogging reviews etc will resume.

Having done a lot of work on the Crokinole game (the story will appear at some point), I was keen to see how people reacted to it at the pub.

Played as a 2 player game each player has 12 wooden disks and takes turns flicking them onto the circular playing board. A board that has 4 scoring zones, the central well worth 20 (disks making it into this are immediately removed and placed to one side to be scored at the end of the game), the central circle worth 15 points the middle ring worth 10 and the outer ring worth 5. Players flick their disks onto the board but if an opponents disk or disks are on the board then you must touch one of them with your new disk or by ricocheting one of your disks already on the board onto one of your opponents disks.. Failure to do this will result in your disk and any of yours it touched being removed from play. When all the disks have been played the players count up their points and the winner scores the difference between the two – it is a game played over a number of rounds, the winner typically being the first to a 100. Although it seemed to be played fairly cautiously at the pub, Gwen and I have found this to be a fast and furious game which sees pieces spinning in all directions including off the board!

Crokinole was played at some point by all the attendees and everybody appeared to enjoy it with a couple commenting about its similarities to Carrom but that it was much faster. However I think it would be fair to say that it didn’t light anybody’s fire, all were happy to play it again but nobody raved about it.

Next up was TransEuropa whilst in another corner of the room Qwirkle was given a run out by Katie, Ben and Andy (I finally managed to remember –write down – their names!). Given the poor / soft lighting it was the first game we have had to play by candlelight, although unless the lighting improves it may not be the last. It had been particularly dark for the first half hour after we arrived. For anybody that is familiar with Qwirkle they will know that whilst it is an excellent game it can prove difficult for those that are colour blind as the red and the orange and the blue and the purple are almost indistinguishable in some lights.

Ben and Andy showed some interest in Existenz (another new game, this time from Holland) but ultimately plumped to join the rest of us for a game of 7 Wonders. This and Ticket To Ride Europe were recently purchased with the proceeds of the last few months at the pub. Ben managed to win, closely followed by Katie. For myself I focussed on my lesson from the previous time I played the game (I should have been collecting papyrus) but each game plays differently it seems (surprise, surprise!) and this time it was brick that I was missing – hey ho, I can loose at any game. Hopefully my whinging about the lack of brick didn’t distract the other players too much!

I mentioned via Twitter that the money collected during our meetings through the season of Lent would go towards CAFOD and we managed to collect £8 which with the governments matched funding will see this rise to £16. Monies collected at our next Sunday will also be donated to CAFOD’s Lent Appeal.

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More photo's from the evening can be seen here.

Our next event at the Blue Anchor, Crowborough is in two weeks time on Sunday 18th March starting at 7pm - £1 per head. More details can be seen on our Facebook Page Social Gamers - Crowborough