16th July 2019

It's a Tuesday and the 3rd and final game of game evening at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking is 'Honshu'.

Wikipedia describes Honshu as 'the largest and most populous main island of Japan'.

Honshu the game describes itself as a 'trick-taking, map building card game set in feudal Japan'.

So, there you go!

What's in a game?

• 60 map cards, each card has 6 'squares' and each square represents a type of terrain. The cards are numbered 1-60.
• 6 starting province cards, these are double sided. So you can have identical starting provinces or asymmetrical ones. Like the  map cards, they have 6 terrain spaces.
• 40 resources equally distributed in 4 different colours. These are depicted by tiny coloured wooden cubes. You know it's a proper 'Euro' when you get wooden cubes!
• 8 end of game scoring objectives.
• 5 turn order cards.

How's it play?
The objective of Honshu is to lay down map cards to create your province. When laying a card, generally the objective is to lay cards in such a way that matching terrain types are next to each other.
First thing though, is set up.

• Randomly deal a starting province to each player. This is put into the player's are and is the first part of their province.
• Randomly deal a turn order card to each player.
• Randomly deal 6 map cards to each player.
• Randomly select an 'end of game' scoring card (This is an optional rule, but it's worth mentioning.).

A turn is divided into 2 phases, 'trick-taking' and 'map-laying'.

Trick-taking

• Each player plays one of their map cards into the central area, this is done in the turn order that was randomly determined during set up.
• Once all players have played a card, a new turn order is determined. As explained above, all cards are numbered, the player who put down the card with the highest number is now first, the 2nd highest is not 2nd and so on.
• Once the new turn order has been determined, beginning with whoever is first can now take any of the cards that were played by any of the players.
• This means that the order the cards were put down will not be the same when they are picked up.
• In later turns, players can spend resources (That they have accumulated.) to increase the value of the card they have just played by 60!

Once everyone has collected a card, we go on to the map-laying phase. When players put down their map cards, there are certain rules that must be followed.

• When laying down a map card, at least one of its 6 squares must overlap another of the player's map cards (Or starting province in the first turn.).
• A card may be placed underneath another card instead of overlapping on top of it.
• Squares that contain water cannot be laid underneath other cards.
• At least 1 square of the new card must remain visible.

That's it for map-laying.

Play continues for 3 turns. Then before the 4th turn, players pass their 3 remaining cards to the player to their left.
Once the 6th turn is completed, the players will have run out of cards. 6 new cards are randomly dealt to each player and play continues.
After the 9th turn has been completed, players pass their 3 remaining cards to the player on their right.
After the 12th turn, the game is over and we go to scoring.

Endgame
So once the 12th turn is over, it's time to score. There are several different terrain types and each type scores differently.

• Forests: All visible forest square scores 2 points each.
• Towns: Only the single biggest town district in a province scores points. Each square in the biggest town district is worth 1 point. A town district can be created (And increased in size.) by connecting town squares orthogonically. 
• Lakes: Larger lakes score points, whilst the smallest lakes score none. Each connected square in a lake other than the first is worth 3 points. Thus a lake consisting of 1 square is worth 0 points. A lake consisting of 3 squares will score 6 points.
• Fallow: Fallow squares score 0 points.
• Productions: There are some squares that are called production squares. These squares will produce 1 good in one of the 4 colours as shown on the production square is the map card. A cube in the relevant colour will be placed on the production square
• Factories: Some tiles will have factory squares on them and and like resources, factories come in 4 colours. During the endgame, if players can move resources from production squares to factory squares (Of the same colour.), then they can score points for it, the value of the score is dependent upon the individual factory.
• End game scoring cards: Finally the end game scoring card is scored. There are 8 different end game scoring cards that each provide varied ways to score additional points.

Overall
Honshu is a small game that packs a lot in.
It has a trick-taking mechanic that can be exploited to good use if you're canny, as well a a drafting mechanic​. Which is quite interesting.
The map-laying phase gives the player quite a lot of flexibility when putting map cards down, so you get a lot of choices and decisions to make.

Honshu reminds me a little bit of 'Isle of Skye', both games are broadly divided into a acquisition phase and a map laying phase.
Both games give players options for strategies (And both games allow you take another player's map tile/card!).

Honshu is a little simpler, but quicker to play.
And like Isle of Skye, I think Honshu is a good game and definitely worth trying.

16th July 2019

Tuesday gaming at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continued with 'Noctiluca'.

You can read my blog post about it here.

16th July 2019

Tuesday evening has come back around and we find ourselves back at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking for board gaming night.

We kicked off with 'Just One' a quick game that makes a good opener for the evenings distractions.
You can read my blog about it here. 

14th July 2019

It's a Sunday lunchtime and it's 'The Sovereigns' in Woking.

​We should be playing 50 Fathoms, but plans can go awry.

Instead we're playing a 'oneshot' adventure called 'Isis and the Seven Scorpions', a pulp action adventure set in the world of 'Spirit of the Century.

Our diligent heroes begun their adventure in London.

As members of the glamorous 'Century Club', a gathering place for the derring-do and adventurous. We had been invited to a presentation about 'Isis and the Seven Poisons'. However destiny intervened and the presenter was poisoned and fire started! The poison was not treatable by conventional medicine, but we vowed to find a cure.

Our investigations led us to the conclusion that we needed to go to Turkey. Our journey was uneventful and bought us to an antique shop. After some intense 'negotiation' we managed to secure the item vital to our task. We managed to evade the nefarious agents sent to foil us.
Next stop Egypt!

Upon reaching Egypt, we found the trail led into the wilderness of the desert. This took up to some ruins. They were guarded by a band of German soldiers.
We managed to sneak past and our searching found a hidden trapdoor. Descending, we encountered an elaborate puzzle.

Our investigating and puzzle solving led us to the conclusion that the 'Seven Poisons' was a reference to the 'Pandora's Box' of legend and ultimately led to the creation of the box.
Continuing to investigate, we explored further and found a mysterious box.

We chose to not open it... 

We managed to further evade the German guards and left the ruins. We took the box with us and returned to London and handed it over to the Century Club for safety.
The knowledge that we had accumulated allowed us the formulate a cure to the poison and the victim made a recovery.

Years later, we would discover that after the outbreak of what would we called 'World War II' mysterious and terrible plague would strike in central Europe in Germany. Bringing the war to an early conclusion...

As previously stated, this scenario was in the 'Spirit of the Century' setting. It's a 1930's pulp action setting of dramatic, rip-roaring adventure and larger than life heroes.

The default rules for the RPG are FATE. But because time was tight. Ares the GM decided to use a 'bespoke' system to facilitate quicker play - which worked out fine.

Fun was had by all.

13th July 2019

Gaming night at Matakishi's continues. The second game of the night was Machi Koro.
Read my blog about Machi Koro here.

13th July 2019

Saturday has rolled around again. So gaming at Matakishi's is on tonight.
We started the evening with Tiny Towns. 2 nights on the trot playing this - last played last night!
You can read my blog about it here.

12th July 2019

The 4th and final game of WFRP substitute night was Tiny Towns.

You can read my blog about it here.

12th July 2019

Friday gaming in lieu of WFRP continues with the 3rd game - 'Pit Crew'

We've all seen it, when a racing car pulls into the pits and the pit crew goes mental changing the tyres and refuelling the car.

Pit Crew is a 'team-based' card game that attempts to emulate this frenzied burst of activity by being a 'real-time' game.
How does this work? Well let's get to it.

What's in a game?
Pit Crew is a team based game and players will be in up to 3 teams of 1-3 people each. Thus the game supports 2-9 players. Components include:

• Game board: Depicting a oval race track.
• Wooden cars: To go on the race track.
• Car sheets: These each depict a racing car, one is given to each team. Each car sheet has 5 numbers, one of each tyre and one for the roof (Which represents fuel in the game.).
• A large deck of cards: Numbered 1-10 in black and white.
• A smaller deck of cards with special abilities.
• 2 Dice: normal six sided dice.

The components are fine, unremarkable and completely functional.

How's it play?
Firstly, all players are split up into teams of up to 3 each.
Each team is given a car sheet and each team is dealt a hand of numbered cards (Split between the team players.).

The objective of Pit Crew is to change the tyres and refuel your car as a team and then race it around the track on the game board. All of this is done in real time!

Changing tyres
To change tyres, the team must play 4 cards next to each tyre.

• The value of the first card must be 1 high or lower than the number shown on the car sheet. Thus if the car sheet has a 7 next to a tyre, the value of the card played by the team must be 6 or 8.
• The value of the second card must be 1 higher or lower than the first card played.
• And so on, until all 4 cards have been played.
• This must be done for all 4 tyres.

Refuelling
In order to refuel the car, multiple cards must be played on the refuelling number on the car sheet. The combined values of all of these cards must equal the value on the car sheet. Thus if the car sheet has a value of 23 for refuelling, then playing a  6, 4, 10 & 3 would equal 23.

Exiting the pits
Once all 4 tyres and refuelling has been completed, the car can exit the pits and enter the race.
However there's a little twist here. The better the pit change, the quicker the car comes out of the pits (The more spaces it moves.).
How is this calculated?
This is where the colours of the cards come in play.
If the cards used to change tyres are of a certain colour combination, then the car gets a bonus when leaving the pits.
The same is the case for refuelling.

Conversely; if the cards played on the tyres or fuel are the wrong numbers, then the car will suffer a penalty when leaving the pits.
If the penalty is bad enough, the car might crash out of the game!

Racing
Once a car exits the pit lane and begins racing, the team rolls a die to move. This rolling is real time and the quicker they roll the dice, the more they can move.
However once all cars have exited the pits, real time rolling ceases. From now on all rolling is done in turn order until the race is completed.

A game consists of several races. After a race is completed, each team is given a 'bonus' card.
Bonus cards confer random special abilities that can help a team or be used to hinder an opposing team.

Endgame
Once all the races have been run, the team that has won the most races wins.

​Overall
Pit Crew is a small, quick and easy game to learn. Which is good, because stopping to query the rules in the middle of a real time game could prove tricky.

This is the first real time tabletop game I've played and I've always been a bit suspicious of the concept. But Pit Crew was fun. I think this partially because each team plays separately and does not interfere with each other during the real time phase of the race. You have your teammates to consider!

Pit Crew is a cooperative game about completing tasks quickly, but accurately in a team. The Pit Crew theme fits it very well.

I think that Pit Crew is a game worth trying.

12th July 2019

It's time for the second game of 'not WFRP' night. 

The second game of the night is 'Kingdomino'.

Kingdomino is a tile placement game that's about creating a kingdom with dominos. Hence the name kingdomino - those professional 'board-game-namers' earned their wages with Kingdomino eh?

What's in a game?
Unsurprisingly, the main component of Kingdomino is... dominoes.

• Dominoes: There are 48 dominoes. These are not typical dominoes. Instead of 2 sets of dots, the dominoes depict different landscapes such as forest, field, lake, etc. Some dominoes will have crowns on them. The other side of each domino is numbered from 1-48.
• Castles: There are castles and starting tiles in 4 colours.
• Meeples, there are 8 meeples in the same 4 colours as the starting tiles and castles.

That's it for components. It's worth adding that all of the components are cheerful and bright with colourful illustrations on the dominoes.

How's it play?
First there is set up.

• Each player is given a starting tile and matching castle and meeple (2 meeples are only used in a 2 player game.).
• Shuffle the dominoes: The amount of dominoes used is equal to the number of players multiplied by 12. Take the required number of dominoes and put them into a draw deck face-down. Any remaining dominoes will not be used for this game.
• Draw a number of dominoes equal to the number of players. Keeping them face-down, lay them out in a line, arranging them in ascending numerical order. Then turn dominoes over so their fronts are showing.
• Determine a starting player.

Now you are ready to go. There are 2 stages to a round. Firstly selecting and dealing dominoes and then laying dominoes. Selecting and dealing dominoes is explained below.

• Beginning with the starting player and going to the left, each player puts their meeple on a domino that they want (A starting player is only determined for the first round, after that meeple placement determines turn order.).
• Once all players have chosen a domino: As described deal a second line of dominoes face-down, then rearrange them in ascending order and turn them over.
• Now; in ascending order, each player takes back their meeple and the domino it was placed on. The domino is placed in the player's 'kingdom'  and then the player puts their meeple on to a domino they want in the new row.
• Once all players have selected dominoes again, a new row of dominoes is dealt again as described above.
• This is the method for dealing and taking dominoes.

Next are the rules on how dominoes are placed to create a player's kingdom.

• The face-up side of each domino has 2 halves that depict landscapes. some of the landscapes will have 1 or more crowns on it. This is for scoring and is explained below.
• The first domino must be placed with any one of its 6 sides against the starting tile.
• Subsequent dominoes can be placed against the starting tile or against another domino.
• When a domino is placed against another domino, the sides that are 'touching' must have matching landscapes.
• The objective of the game is to create the biggest 'regions' of the same landscape type. So you want to match landscapes as much as possible.
• All the dominoes must be placed (Along with the starting tile.) within a 5x5 grid. If placing a domino would make the kingdom bigger than that; then it must be placed in a way to not exceed that limit. Otherwise it must be discarded.
• Play progresses until the deck of dominoes has been depleted.

Endgame
Now that all the dominoes have been placed, it's to score them.

• For each 'region' count the number of spaces in that region. Then multiply the number by the number of crowns in that region.
• If a region has no crowns in it, it scores no points.
• A single space is still a region and has a size of 1. Thus if that space has 2 crowns, it would score 2 points.
• Tally points for all regions.
• Highest score wins.

Overall
Kingdomino is a clever and unique game that seems to genuinely draw some inspiration from dominoes.

Players are usually always given a meaningful decision to make.
Which tile to take?
How to place a tile in your kingdom?

Kingdomino also has an interesting mechanic to determine turn order. The  most important dominoes (Those with crowns on them.) have the highest numbers on their backs. This means that taking a valuable domino in one turn will result in being further down in the turn order in the following turn. It's a clever balancing mechanic and something to think about when selecting dominoes.

There's also a potentially higher level of play. Watching your opponents gives your the opportunity to try and anticipate their moves and guess which landscapes they want to prioritise. Although, as with a  lot of games, you have to be careful not to scupper yourself when trying to mess with other other players.

Kingdomino is a small, colourful, quick to play and easy to learn game. Perfect for a start or finisher to an evening of gaming.

It has enough depth and variation to give it replay value. And that's a good thing.

12th July 2019

It's Friday night and this means WFRP... Except some players can't make it. So we decide to play some board games instead.

The evening of games starts with 'Sleeping Queens', a light but charming little quick to play card game.

You can read my blog post about it here.