Match Report 10th October 2011

Games, munchies and is that somebody in a balaclava?!

Monday night saw 7 players gather around our table for an evening’s gaming; Ruth making one of her occasional visits (with a big cake), Ben, Daniella, Natalie, Crispin, Gwen (with pins!) and yours truly.

We started with a quick game of Cloud 9 where players take turns to pilot the balloon (throw the indicated number of dice and discard the appropriate number of coloured cards from their hands) whilst their fellow players try to guess if the next pilot will have the cards available to meet the requirements indicated on the dice. It is simple, light and amusing – a good way to start the evening, although some may have disagreed as I won the game.

We then moved onto Stone Age with Gwen, Crispin and Daniella at one end of the table and “War on Terror The Board Game” at the other end. Having played Stone Age on the previous Monday the guys were keen to give it another go and Crispin once again showed his mastery of this attractive game through a combination of large population (he now understand you need to send two meeples to the ‘Love shack’ to produce a

Match Report 19th September 2011

A very unusual evening, 2 games with dice!

Monday saw the welcome return of both Natalie and our pilot friend Alex (so often in other parts of the world and rarely able to be with us these days). To these two were added our regulars Crispin, Daniella, Gwen (with pins sticking out of her feet!) and Ben. Alex and Ben were a little late so we began with a couple of hands of Straw.

Once all seven expected players had all arrived we split into two groups, the oldies and the youngsters. Although I think my presence in the latter and Alex's in the forma my undermine this naming!

At one end of the table Alex, Gwen Crispin and Daniella decided to play Stone Age, a game Alex had never played and Crispin and Daniella had each played only oncebefore. It is one of Gwen’s favourites and she regularly beats me when we play the 2-player version, so I duly warned the other players to watch Gwen very carefully.

At the other end of the table 3 of us tried Pirate Cove. This is a Days of Wonder game with delightful components and a good reputation on boardgamegeek as a fun game. With the game board laid out before us Ben, Natalie and myself set sail in search of fame and fortune. Early in the game Ben and Natalie's ships arrived at the same island and as you would expect with rival pirates

Family Camping Holiday In England

Friday saw us heading up to Rutland for the Bank Holiday weekend to meet our nephew and his family for a few days camping - in the pouring rain!

It was no surprise that both he and I took quite a few games with us and that given the weather we played many of them. More details on these a little later. However it struck us that there were some important points to note from the weekend that might be of interest to other families and parents with young children.

1. That the two 7 year old boys had each bought only one cuddly toy with them so improvised endlessly (when it stopped raining) with sticks, logs, trees, etc (found around the camp site) and their imaginations in re-creating Star Wars speeders, light sabres characters and situations. It is amazing to see how much fun children can have when

Match Report 11th April 2011

Our first evening playing two games simultaneously

The 11th April was a while ago now and we have been distracted by many different things, not least two 7 year old boys, so apologies for the delay in getting this post together.

We had a good turnout and after much discussion over the weeks we finally took the plunge and broke the group in two with Gwen leading one and me the other. So at one end Gwen played a game of Stone Age with Crispin and Daniella. A simply brilliant game that I was lucky enough to be given by my Russian

A Christmas Match Report for 2010

Here in brief is a summary of the gaming activities of the last two weeks, at our house, allowing for a combination of the appalling weather (some days Ian and I cleared our drive of snow 3 or 4 times), my wife’s broken leg (meaning increased duties around the home) and all the socialising over the Christmas / New Year period. 

The 20th December saw Crowborough deep in snow and ice with the sad result that only Crispin (who lives within walking distance) ventured out to join the regular Monday night session. In truth I am not sure whether it was the allure of games or the promise of seasonal munchies that encouraged him out but he is always a welcome guest. Food aside we had a good game of Dominion plus Hick Hack and Sushizock im Gockelwok (details of all the games played over the holiday season can be found here).

More games were inevitably played through Christmas and Boxing days, perhaps the most memorable ones being a game of RoboRally where not only did I not end up spending the whole game on a conveyer belt and but was actually winning when it was time to break for food. The other was a game of Dixit (which Gwen agreed to play despite her previous view that it was the game from hell) with Effie and her children on Boxing Day. This turned into a really