Match Report 21st May 2012

Saboteur 2 - The dwarves return!
Another weekend and this time we had the pleasure of seeing my Godparents and Goddaughter down in sunny Somerset. Not surprisingly we played a few games over the two days and what was so brilliant was to see my 80 year old Godparents leaning how to play Settlers of Catan with their 10 year old granddaughter. Whilst Gwen won it was very, very close with both ends of the age spectrum nearly beating her. This was followed by a couple of games of Army of Frogs.

Monday night and MORE games! We were pleased to welcome a new member of the team, Karen a defector from the pub group and the return of Ruth for one of her occasional visits not to mention all the regulars.

Match Report 5th December 2011

Racing, digging, chasing and then a party with woodland friends!

Last night saw us change venue for the first time in nearly a year and thereby have the opportunity to involve Daniella’s 3 wonderful youngsters - they told me to write that!

With Malcolm off at a Christmas Party and Gwen resting her weary feet (recovery from the operations is proving to be a long process) we nevertheless mustered 5 of the usual suspects: Natalie, Crispin, Ben, Daniella and obviously your scribe.

Match Report 23rd May 2011

Two starters, one muffin and no main course!

With Gwen still not feeling her normal self it was always going to be touch and go as to whether she stayed the course or turned in early. This together with Natalie and Ben arriving a little (or in Ben’s case a lot) late had an impact on the games played. It was a good turnout with Malcolm back from his walking holiday in the Orkneys, Daniella, Ruth, Gwen and the aforementioned late arrivals. Sadly no Crispin (suffering with a gammy leg torn a cartilage in his knee) or Pauline both of whom we hope to see again soon.

For the keen eyed amongst you, you will have noted that the ladies

Social Afternoon with Games - 22nd February 2011

The best way of promoting a games event is word of mouth

With half term upon us, it was time to break out the games and invite the parish of St Mary's, Crowborough and the surrounding Deanery along for another afternoon of fun and games. This occasion saw 15 joining us with 4 new faces and apologies from a further 5.

In many senses I think this may have been the most enjoyable one yet with people moving between groups when the games came to an end and a

St Mary's Social Afternoon - Week 4

Well it was a riotous and fun filled afternoon of board games, the numbers were slightly down over previous weeks with only 13 people; a couple of people were unfortunately kept away by health issues.

Games played this time round included:

Incan Gold – A very good new addition to the games collection that is ideal for large groups (up to 8 players) and wide age ranges. It reminds you a little of the Indiana Jones films where the treasure hunters explore deeper and deeper into a lost Incan temple. The further you go the more treasure you find but you only get to keep it if the monsters in the temple don’t scare you and send you fleeing from the temple dropping all your loot as you seek to escape. This was played by two different groups, during the afternoon and one was a very noisy affair, in part because all the adventurers except Jennie had fled the temple. This left Jennie to continue exploring on her own with the potential of gaining lots of treasure all for herself. As she pushed on she found a vast wealth of precious gems that would have ensured she won the whole game. However sadly for Jennie she

St Mary's Social Afternoon - Week 3

This week saw some previous attendees returning from their holidays and the absence of others as they headed off. Overall the number was up by 1, however the ratio was quite different with a total of 10 youngsters and a reduction of those at the other end of the scale to a mere three.

We started the afternoon with a game of Straw on one table, Zeus on The Loose on another and The Mysteries of Peking on a third table. This last game was brought along by Daniella and family and enthusiastically played by 5 youngsters and watched by one of our older friends who came in to see what we were getting up to for half an hour. In essence Mysteries of Peking is a detective game where players look for clues to solve a crime with the ability to hamper other players.

Later we moved on to play a game of Saboteur with 10 players which I believe Leonie won whilst others played Othello and Carcassonne. Interestingly not all the youngster went for the fun but light game Saboteur, preferring more thoughtful games with older players.

Castle Panic – A collaborative game 
As the afternoon continued four of us played Castle Panic an unusual game to the three young people playing with me in as much as

Match Report 16th August

With the summer hols in full swing and with all the many things going on in our busy lives the numbers attending Monday night fluctuated throughout the day. With two hours to go, the potential 11 came down to 6, before finally finishing with 7.

Apologies were received from Malcolm who has escaped to Northern Ireland, Helene and Josh with other commitments, and Pauline and Natalie needing to spend some playtime with Darcy (the wild beastie shown in previous photos) in order to ensure they got a peaceful nights sleep; sadly this meant they were not able to bring along the toffee and pecan cup cakes they had made!

We welcomed a new face to the evening session in the form of Liza, plus regulars Crispin, Ian, Daniella, and the less regular Joe and Alex.

RoboRally (Age 12+, 2-8 players, 120 min playing time)

Back by very popular demand this amazing Board Game was the requested game from at least three of the evening’s attendees. We started this game (it doesn’t seriously disadvantage late arrivals) without Alex and Joe, meaning we had 5 little robots all competing to get to the

Match Report 28th July 2010

With plans advancing for our first “Social Afternoon With Games” (Monday 2nd August 2pm ‘til 5pm in St Mary’s parish hall) it was time for a quick planning session with some of our evening gamers who have offered their support (and were available) plus two younger supporters of this exercise.

With the planning done we inevitably thought it a good idea to have a game or two or indeed four, albeit none were very heavy or serious.

Straw (Age 6+, 2-6 players 30 minutes playing time)

We started with Straw, a new addition and filler type game which has beautiful cards on very good quality card. The idea being to place objects on the camels back without breaking it. Each object has a positive or negative (if a magical object) weight with some cards altering the direction of play, typically when you least want it. The looser of a round is the person that

Match Report 19th July 2010

The team line up for this week was denuded by the absence of Pauline(at a BBQ), Natalie still recovering from her graduation celebrations – well done (actually working with a judge this week but recovering from a party seemed more interesting), Josh up north with his girlfriend, Alex still in Kerry discovering what the Irish mean when they say it’s a ‘soft day’, day after day, after day, after day…., Ben briefly back in the country but with other commitments, and finally Helene having run out of time, after a day out and finding that there are sometimes just not enough hours in the day.

On the positive front our numbers this time were augmented for our second game by two youngsters we found loitering around in Daniella’s house looking for a game It seemed churlish of us adults to be playing such fun games and deny the opportunity to them. It might be analogised to showing

Match Report 21st June 2010

Well in the midst of chaos (to call Ian’s efforts decorating, given the that he is knocking down walls, boarding lofts, putting in loft ladders, covering our artex ceilings with plaster board, wallpapering and painting would be to significantly undersell his talents and the level of work he is putting in, more like house renovation - see inset photo of our bedroom) somehow we found time to play a few games and had a bumper turnout to boot, with many comings and goings but 8 yes that was 8 people at the high water mark of the evening.

Our team for the evening were our old favourites Pauline, Daniela, Natalie, joined once again by Ian and Helene joining us for her first evening, plus obviously myself. Malcolm sent his apologies being called away to a committee meeting. Again for the mathematically minded you will spot that makes only six. To find out who the remaining two were you will have to read till the end (ish).

As an aside Daniela commented on her arrival on the reason for the two very large white containers at the foot of our drive. My initial answer of we wanted something different from the standard lions and griffins met with a very sceptical response. Thankfully this was asked outside the hearing of Gwen who has been asking me to move them for a few weeks now. So having a guest commenting on these eyesores would have vindicated her frustration at the slow rate of progress I am making on this particular element of the renovation project.

Bohnanza (Age 12+, 2-7 players, 45+ min playing time)
Our initial game of the evening was Bohnanza played at a very sedate pace and with a much more open trading system than normal (i.e. most of us had our hands face up so we could explain to Helene how the game worked and how we played the various options presented to us). This game was notable for my

Match Report 7th June 2010

Sorry no photos this week.

We had so many people turn up this time that we had standing room only. However this might be to slightly misrepresent the facts. The house is still like a tip as we move more and more out of the areas being decorated into the dinning room  and so with 6 players (and one in reserve, more on this later) we were snugly gathered around the table. This week saw the return of Daniela, plus Pauline, Natalie, Crispin and Malcolm.

We need to watch Malcolm, he is showing signs of competing with Daniela for being the bandit of the group, this was only his second evening with us and he showed a grasp of the game from the very beginning that would ensure he would finish well placed when the points were counted in this weeks game, in spite of the fact that he was the only person not to have played it before. Hmmm very worrying!

UK Games Expo - Day 2, Saturday 5th June 2010

Well after a good night’s rest (hmmm finally going to sleep at 1pm, woken up at 2pm by a friend currently in the US forgetting the time zone difference or was that getting his own back for my earlier text in the middle of the American night - so at best 4 hours) off to the show across the road with the aim of beating the rush. An idea obviously shared by a number of other keen punters as the queue went round the block. Thankfully the pre booked ticket collected the day before soon had Paul, Stewart and myself ushered through the throng.

Early purchases
After a quick look round (avoiding the Daleks and Imperial Storm Troopers) I bought the first game of the day. As Tim had indicated the night before Patrizier (the English game being Patrician) was being sold for a mere £8 (from JKLM) albeit with the rules in German (the English ones being on BoardGameGeek, I hoped!).

The participation games (in the Kniziathon & Mynd Games area) were yet to start so more browsing led me to a couple of fantasy artists (Ralph Horsley being one) and their stunning work albeit not necessarily something I would want on the wall at home. A second look at the bring-and-buy stand highlighted once again how far games had moved on since I started. At one point I suspected that my wife had arrived via the Tardis to sell off some of my older games, things like Azhantai High Lightning, Machiavelli and a number of others. Maybe when I get home I will I will box these up and archive them to some dark corner rather than waste good shelf space with games that whilst good are not the types of game either I or our group enjoy playing and whose boards and components look rudimentary and amateurish compared with today offerings.

Working with children

One of the nice things about the show was the opportunity at every corner to play new games and meet new people. In particular the effort put in by Nigel Scarfe of Imagination Games to run an area devoted to children’s games I think is worthy of note. Not surprisingly there was a huge amount of energy and a great buzz through the morning with an awards ceremony in the afternoon. Meeting Nigel was one of the highlights of the weekend for me, hearing about the work he has been undertaking in taking games into schools, libraries, old people’s homes and more and the tremendous reaction he has been getting.