Match Report – 9th January 2012

Welcome to the New Year

I had been unsure of when we would be able to get together and only confirmed this meeting the night before so it was tremendously encouraging that so many of our regulars where able to join us and Natalie somehow with under 24 hours notice also managed to bake some of her lovely apricot munchies.

Joining Natalie was Crispin, Malcolm (shortly heading off to Africa for four weeks on what sounds like a very exciting trip), Ben and obviously my long suffering wife!

Our first game in the 10 mins whilst waiting for Natalie to join us was the simple Fuchs and Fertig. This is a game that in the past Crispin has performed particularly badly at but he started well in 2012 only to sadly fall away as the game progressed and let Malcolm win. As the others steadily got rid of their cards I didn’t which left me feeling under pressure to remember longer sequences of my cards and whilst I was good to five the sixth card always caught me out and so I kept all of my original cards (I could blame poor health, man-flu is after an awful affliction) but I guess the first lessons of 2012 was don’t push your luck too far and learn from your mistakes!!

Review – Safranito

2 to 4 Players, Aged 10 + with a 30+ minute playing time 

A review copy of Safranito (released in 2010), designed by Marco Teubner was kindly provided by the German publisher Zoch GmbH.

Players are cast in the role of top chefs from around India jostling around Rajive’s booth in the Mumbai spice market seeking to obtain the best spice blends and thus be the culinary trend setters. In order to buy or sell the spices players try to throw roasted bread chips into the desired spice bowls. Hoping their fellow chefs do not knock their bread chips out of the bowls when they come to throw!

Safranito is perhaps an unusual game to the British eye in that it requires a degree of dexterity blended with some tactics as players try to both buy and sell spices as they seek out the winning combinations. However to those that follow publishers like Zoch in particular this blend of:

• Quality components;

• a dexterity mechanism;

• a game that can be enjoyed as much by adults as children.

is unsurprising. Zoch is after all the maker of games like Villa Paletti (a Spiel des Jahres winner) and Bausack amongst others.

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.

News Update - More Zoch Games Available In The UK

Following discussions at Essen Spiel 2011 I am pleased to be able to announce that some of the great games we have been talking about on my blog are at last going to be readily available in the UK through our friends Paul and David at GamesLore.

Aquileia	£32.49
Fuchs and Fertig	£7.49
Bamboleo	£45.99
Bausack	£45.99
El Paso	£18.49
Safranito	£27.49
Geistesblitz	£9.49

The prices are indicative and so may change.

Having only taken delivery of them today (19/12/2011) they may still show as 'pre-orders' on the GamesLore web site but its is great to see that games that we have picked up in Germany and have had so much fun with like Fuchs and Fertig, Geistesblitz, and Bausack are going to be more readily available in the UK.

Match Report 21st November 2011

An evening playing with spices, chocolate and elephant dung!

Monday night saw another gathering of our games team with on this occasion, Malcolm (with photo’s of his MG project), Natalie (with scrummy chocolate and orange buns), Ben (with news of his new job at Hotel Chocolate - we do wonder if they will have to announce a profits warning having such a chocoholic on the staff - for Ben on the other hand a dream job), Crispin (with his good looks and charm!) and obviously Gwen and myself.

As the conversation was beginning to slow and Natalie trying hard to balance her lack of interest in the photos of Malcolm’s car with not wanting to appear rude (with a car mad father she has I suspect seen all the photo’s of engines and wheels she will ever want to) we repaired to the dining room.

First up was one of our current favourites Fuchs and Fertig a silly but very funny push your luck game where the players need to guess if the next card they are going to turn over will show an animal larger smaller or the same size as the last card; the winner being the first player to get rid of all their cards.

As I sat out of this game I was able to observe at close quarters