14th September 2019
It's now Saturday evening and we're at Matakishi's. This can only mean an evening of gaming. We played 'Lords of Xidit'. Read my blog about it here.
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14th September 2019 Saturday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking means more 50 Fathoms. Location: Brigandy Bay. Now that we have sold our cargo, we are looking for a good price on goods to sell on. Unfortunately, Brigandy Bay is a 'consumer' and not a 'producer' of goods, so we don't find any good prices. We are also looking for 'winter clothing' for the next part of our journey. We find 'blue-bear' suits in a shop, but they are very expensive. Whilst negotiating with the shopkeeper Baxter had entered into an argument with him and was kicked out into the street. As he left he managed to sneakily steal a telescope. Captain Shia haggles the the price down by trading in the treasure map we had just acquired for a big discount. Upon returning to our ship, we spot the shopkeeper looking for something in the docks. It turns out he's looking for a ship. Rackham approaches shopkeeper and convinces him to come aboard our ship. At this time Aquirus disembarks and takes his leave of our company to go his own way. Finally we set sail. A few days out of Brigandy Bay and we spot something. We have encountered a frigate without any mast drifting in the sea.
Approaching closer, we see signs of a battle, cannon ball holes, bloated bodies on deck, etc. Then someone appears on deck, waves at us and collapses. The frigate is named 'Conquistador', when we go aboard we find the collapsed man has been mutilated. Win attempts to heal him. The man is named Jim Black. his ship was attacked by pirates. The captain decided to surrender, but the pirate captain had the crew butchered. Jim Black tells The description of the pirate captain matches that of James Lowe - the man we rescued when we left Coaker Mountain. The pirate ship, a galleon, was named 'Mad Dog'. Jim Black tells us they were attacked some 2 hours ago. We search the Conquistador and find no other survivors, just their personal effects. We also find a large supply of food in the cargo hold. we decide to leave, towing the Conquistador behind us. It's slow going, but after a week of travel we arrive at Baltimus. After docking, it takes a while to find a buyer for the food-salvage. But after some persuading we manage to sell it all. We put the Conquistador in to 'drydock 3' for repairs. 10th September 2019 Tuesday evening at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking is upon us. This means it's time to play board games. Concept is, in a nutshell, charades as a board game. What's in a game? All of Concept's components are quite nice and colourful.
How's it play?
Set up is quick and simple.
In concept, if you are trying to guess the 'concept. then you are playing 'alone'. If, however you are on 'the team', then you are trying to get the other players to guess the phrase or word.
Endgame Play continues until all the 2 point tokens have been taken. Then all players tally their scores. Highest score wins. Overall By the standards of the game that we usually play, Concept is fairly simple game But Concept is a fun, easy to play party game that has crossover appeal. That it plays with up to 12 is a boon. 8th September 2019 Sunday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking means 50 Fathoms. Location: On route to Brigandy Bay. After acquiring what is now called 'The Jezebel' we continue on to Brigandy Bay. The remainder of our journey is uneventful and we arrive at our destination. Captain Shia and I set off to sell out cargo. The captain seeks out one of her many contacts. When we find the fellow, he presents us with a 'treasure map'. It is signed by the name L'Omaise - who we believe to be Francis L'Omaise and he wants to sell it to us. Anyway; we find some buyers and sell the cargo for a good price and acquire the treasure map. Meanwhile: Baxter has decided to go gambling and takes Rackham with him. During the game there is a big winner at Baxter's table. Rackham has won big! Rackham know little about gambling and is suspicious of his big win and decides to leave immediately.
However on his way out he is stopped by 'the establishment' and led into 'the back room' From his table, Baxter can hear 'punishment' being administered to Rackham. In order to try and take the heat off of Rackham, Baxter accuses another gambler of cheating. But the accusation is not too convincing doesn't help Rackham. Eventually Rackham is released from the gambling den and goes exploring Brigandy Bay. 7th September 2019
Saturday evening. Matakishi's. Game night. Tonight we decided to play another classic board game. This time it was 'Britannia', a game originally published in 1986, over 30 years ago. Britannia is a historical game of invasion and conquest and when I say invasion and conquest, I really do mean constant invasion and conquest. In Britannia, players do not play a single nation or tribe or whatever. Instead they play a colour and each colour has 4 nations of varying size. Each colour will have 1 nation that benefits from a 'major invasion', this explained later. Britannia is played over 16 rounds and centuries of time. The game starts with the Roman invasion (So around 43 A.D..) and end with the Norman invasion (Around 1066 A.D..). Even though each player has control of 4 factions, the factions do not appear at the same time in the game. They appear when 'historically appropriate' in various turns throughout the game. What's in a game?
How's it play? The rules for Britannia are relatively simple. The complexity comes from the interaction with the other players. Before the game begins we have set up. Each player chooses a colour and is given all the relevant tokens for that colour, the play begins.
One other thing worth noting are 'major invasions'. Each player will have a faction that has a major invasion at some point. A major invasion means that the relevant faction gets to turns in a row. Endgame Britannia is played over 16 rounds. Scoring occurs throughout the game, but not on every round. In fact not all the factions score at the same time, some factions score on entirely different rounds. Additionally, when scoring is carried out, different factions score different points for controlling different areas of the board. Which means that different factions may have different priorities. However quite often opposing factions score points for the same regions, invariably pushing them into conflict with one another. After all the rounds have been completed, points are tallied and highest score wins. Overall Britannia is a wargame and as such is very confrontational. It's a game that charts the historic invasions and conquests of early Britain. It turns out there were a lot of invasions and conquests! Players will more or less be in constant conflict with other players and there's no way to avoid it. Combat is a key component in Britannia: Luckily, the basics of the rules are simple to remember. Mostly players will be looking into how to expand into and hold high scoring areas and this drive most of the game's conflict. Asymmetrical rules make Britannia interesting and quite unique. I like how the asymmetrical factions give different players advantage at different times. So for example; whoever has the Romans will gain an early lead, but after that they will have smaller factions appear. Combined with the asymmetrical scoring that gives different players different objectives means that the end score is always unpredictable. I do have a couple of minor criticisms of Britannia. Britannia should only really be played with 4 players. Sure you can play with 3 or 5 players, but it's not optimal. Britannia can take about 4 hours to play, so it requires quite a time commitment. I guess a millennia of invasions of Britain can't be played out quickly! But these small criticisms aside; Britannia is an involved but entertaining game to play, provided you don't mind a game about conflict with other players. 3rd September 2019
It's Tuesday and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking, which means it's game night. Tonight we played a 5-player game of Wingspan. You can read my blog about it here. 1st September 2019
It's Sunday lunchtime and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. This means it's time for 50 Fathoms. Location: The Teeth. Having just listened to Tressa's message and left her tower; we depart for civilisation. We need to sell the precious stones we've acquired to buy winter clothing and more provisions. We decide to sail for Brigandy Bay, the journey is expected to take a week. During the journey we encounter a galleon flying an English flag. As it draws closer to us, it drops its English flag and raises the 'skull and crossbones' - pirates! Battle is met. In the open moments of the battle, Baxter leaps over to the other ship and engages several of them. As the conflict endues, Captain Shia taunts the pirate captain and dares him to come aboard. The pirate captain jumps across, intent on attacking Shia. However Rackham uses his magic to blow the pirate captain into the sea. The haul the pirate captain out and take him prisoner. Then Captain Shia manages to convince the remaining pirates to surrender to us. We have taken their galleon as or prize. Captain Shia renames the galleon from 'The Flying Irishman' to 'Jezebel'. 31st August 2019
Saturday evening means gaming at Matakishi's On this evening, we decided to indulge ourselves in an old classic; 'Kingmaker'. History lesson; Kingmaker was orignally released in the mid 1970's. It was republished in the mid 1980's, but since then has not been in print! Kingmaker is set during the 'War of the Roses', a time of civil war and strife in 15th century England. Player's take the role of factions attempting to grab power for themselves. This is done by acquiring a member of the royal family and having them crowned as King (Or Queen I guess?). What's in a game? All the components in Kingmaker are 'old school', but they are all perfectly acceptable.
How's it play? The basic premise of the game is accumulate power and resources use them to acquire a member of royalty and have them crowned as king. Set up At the start of the game, each player is given a number of Crown Cards to represent their starting resources.
Then play can begin. Actions occur in the following order.
Endgame Once a player crowns a member of a royal family and all other potential threats have been eliminated, then that player has won. Overall Kingmaker is a classic and no doubt about. But it plays very differently to most modern games, particularly 'eurogames'. Kingmaker is very confrontational, with lots of conflict between players, military and political conflict. This is not everyone's cup of tea. But it's also a game of sometimes biding your time and avoiding confrontation. When you're outmatched, then you're outmatched. Talking of conflict. I have to mention that I really like how battles are resolved. I like that if you significantly outnumber you opponent, you are nearly always guaranteed winning the battle. But you always risk losing your nobles, even if you win. It means you can't really risk going into battle frivolously. It also means that you need to think about how you distribute your forces to your nobles and how you put those nobles into battle. So I think that Kingmaker is an interesting game to play. 27th August 2019
Gaming night at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues. The final game of the evening was 'Villagers'. My blog post about it can be read here. 27th August 2019
It's a Tuesday, it's the evening and it's 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. This means it games night. The first game of the evening was Race for The Galaxy. I've blogged about it here. |
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