Hammer of the Peckhamites

Whilst a number of the other GNNers were cavorting down south on friday, my family and I headed east to London, to stay with our friends Henry and Rachel and their three girls in Peckham.
After catching up and eating and getting drunk no-one was in the mood to learn rules, so we opted for our four-player favourite, Lords of Vegas.

I sped in to the lead on account of my brown casinos paying out multiple times, but then found myself floundering as the others caught up and overtook me. It was a tense, taut game, and it ended as it so often does, with the feeling that one player had it sown up, but that a couple of extra rounds could have changed the landscape considerably. As it was Henry was the clear victor, and I think I was third or fourth.

On saturday, Henry was keen to sample the various new games I'd brought along, and we played three games of Battle for Hill 218 followed by Traders of Carthage. Hill 218 is a brilliantly clever and unique WW2 card game where you try and creep round the titular hill (titular hill?) to infiltrate your opponent's base whilst they do the same to you. There's no bluffing, just alternate playing of different types of troops, and Henry took to it in an instant, winning the first game. I can't remember who won after that, but then we tried out Traders, last played by Andrew and me at Stabcon in Jan. I like it a lot, though it feels slightly odd going from two-player direct confrontation to the more oblique passive-aggressive euro tactics, and as soon as we finished we broke out Hammer of the Scots.

This seminal block war game from Columbia Games sees Edward Longshanks attempting to quash the Scottish rebellion fronted by William Wallace - I was the english, Henry the scots.
We both needed a rules refresher, and it is brilliantly simple for a war game, though there were a fair few visits to the rule book throughout.
Despite a strong opening couple of rounds, by round four Wallace was dead, and Henry, unable to crown a scottish king or send in the french knights, was on the back foot. I had learned an important tactic since our first game last year, that the English infantry and knights raised each turn need to be brought up and used to soften the scots, since they return to England each winter. This realisation formed the backbone of my strategy, and the game was over within six or seven rounds, unlike the last game which went the distance. It is a real classic, this one, and I can't wait to play again.

Playing in the kitchen whilst overseeing cheese toasties for ten! Truly heroic.

It's all but over for the Scots now . . .

After a brief sojourn into the freezing rain, we set up Commands and Colours: Ancients. Henry and I played this once in Wales last year, but after that stuck to old favourite Manoeuvre. Having re-discovered its charms recently I was keen to have another go.
We played Tacinus River, the same scenario Adam and I played a fortnight or so ago, and this time it was a decided victory for me, winning both games 6-4 and 6-3. I think Henry enjoyed it, and suggested  he'd like to play a different scenario next time.
Matilda had been itching to play Coup all weekend, and so we then played four four-player games back to back - this is a real favourite with my girls, and Henry's eldest two really enjoyed it. Can't remember exactly who won, but I think it was a different person each time.

My sister and her partner joined us for a fabulous dinner, but despite Henry's best efforts, were too exhausted to play a game, so that was it for Saturday.

Sunday was fairly busy, but my two eldest had been introduced to Pandemic by Henry and Rachel's girls, and I think they played four times over the weekend. I'm thrilled about this, since I've been thinking it would be a good one to play with them myself, but selling the theme would be an uphill struggle. Now they know they like it I expect we will get to play soon!

Around lunch time, Henry and I managed to find time to play 7 player Incan Gold with the girls, followed by four games of The Resistance. The latter was a real hit - all four games went to the resistance, which I felt bucked the trend, though I might be wrong.

Henry and I then played a best of three return to Hill 218, and then, whilst dinner was cooking, tried out String Railways. Despite it's uniqueness this hasn't seen a lot of play, and this was only my second game. In the two player game each person takes two colours, the best single colour wins. It was fun, but the best bit remains the emergent 'artwork' you end up with . . .

I love the way you can discern each player's strategy from
the final 'board'.

A grand weekend, and lovely that our kids went off and played by themselves too, racking up the afore-mentioned Pandemic, plus Shadows in the Woods, Coup and (I think) Zombies, alongside the games they played with us. JB

We point at games we like

Thursday is the new Tuesday, say all the new fashion predictors and trend-setting guides. And Friday is the new day-before-yesterday. Or something.

Anyway, eight of us were at Steve and Anja's place. An unprecedented amount. Jon was able to join us and Hannah, too, made it. Of course, the more people there are, the more agonising is the debate over which game we should play. This time we struck upon the idea of all of us placing a finger on the two games we wanted to play, leading us into a Twister-esque situation which, in the seventies, would've seemed quite risqué.

In the end we split into three groups. Steve, Jon and I chose Snowdonia; Sam, Hannah and Anja went for Macao; and Joe and Adam went head to head on Commands and Colours: Ancients.

Steve and I expertly described the rules to Jon. In fact, we did so well that he was soon reminding us what they were. We built, we cleared, we bought trains. Mine broke down almost immediately, so a fat load of use that was. In the end, Steve fell just one track short of a handsome bonus and Jon won on his maiden voyage.

Jon 84
Steve 78
Andrew 69

Scipio and Hannibal were engaged in a two-leg battle. Although the game is set up in favour of Hannibal, Joe explained to me afterwards that the dice rolls had been such that Scipio had defied history and won both times: Once with Joe in charge, 6-2 and then again with Adam at the helm, 6-0, giving Adam an overall win.

Adam 8
Joe 6

Over in the lounge area, Sam, Hannah and Anja were locked in battle. "Locked" being the operative word, since apparently they all found it hard to build at first and start those bonuses rolling. I looked in on them at around the halfway mark, and Sam was in the lead, but only just. At the final count, Anja won a close game thanks to being furthest along the wall.

Anja 60 (+wall)
Sam 60
Hannah 55

As Macao ended, The five of us at the big table decided to play Coup! The hilarious game of lies and murder. It was Jon's first go at this game, but he must've used up all his beginner's luck on Snowdonia, since he was out first. Joe impressed everyone when he correctly challenged Adam, and then correctly identified the card that Adam really had. A masterful win.

1. Joe
2. Steve
3. Andrew
4. Adam
5. Jon

Finally, there was still time for one more game. Five of us chose Coup! again, and three went for Biblios. In Coup! the husband and wife team came first and second, while in Biblios Jon found himself outbid on the only two colours he was going for.

Coup
1. Steve
2. Anja
3. Joe
4. Sam
5. Andrew

Biblios
Adam 9
Hannah 7
Jon 0

And so the statistics. I take a big hit on the form table, but Anja rises to the top with Joe in close contention.

						Points
Anja	2	1	2	2	3	10
Joe	3	1	2	4	1	11
Adam	1	4	1	3	4	13
Steve	1	2	2	4	6	15
Sam	4	2	1	2	6	15
Andrew	5	3	3	2	3	16
Jon	3	5	1	5	5	19
Hannah	2	3	5	5	5	20

It's the end of the month, so let's take a look at The Division. Apart from this evening, my good form has put me in first in terms of points won. Anja has the best points ratio, and Bracknell regular James takes the medal table. Meanwhile, Chris impresses with his consistency.

On the two-player table, it's almost a complete whitewash by Chris. First in points and points ratio and sharing the medal table with Adam.

Scipio dies

Faced with the prospect of over a whole week without games due to the tue-to-thursday transfer of regular GNN fixture, I have been exploring Commands and Colours: Ancients on my own. It's a tactical level 2 player game similar to Manoeuvre, but replaces that game's chess-like 8x8 grid with a much more dynamic, sweeping sense of battle.

The game comes with a a huge number of grey blocks (the armies of Rome) and brown blocks (Carthage), and a book of scenarios based on real battles; while there's nothing to stop you setting up your own games from scratch, these scenarios offer a real two (or one) player challenge.

Infantry units are made up of four small blocks, while cavalry are three. So infantry can take four hits before they're destroyed, cavalry one less.

Hannibal's heavy cavalry, and Hannibal, a leader block peeking out from behind . . .

Both foot and mounted units come in three strengths, light (green circle), medium (blue triangle) and heavy (red square). Light cavalry can move four spaces a turn, but only hit with two dice, heavies move two but hit with four. Infantry have similar firepower, but can move half as fast.

Scipio with some medium cavalry, and light infantry in front.

Leader blocks aid the units they're attached to, making them less likely to retreat, more likely to hit.
Like Manoeuvre, you play a card from your hand to order a certain number of troops. Those troops can move, and then attack - you roll the custom dice, and hope to roll the symbol associated with the units you're attacking, and purple helmets if you're attacking with a leader.

The order cards . . .

. . . and the dice.

The scenario I've been playing a lot is Ticinus River, which pits Hannibal and his light and heavy cavalry against Roman Scipio with his light infantry and medium cavalry.

Scipio (grey) facing off against Hannibal (and two other Carthaginian leaders), ready to go.
That's the Ticinus river in the foreground - it's all quiet apart from the babbling brook . . .

Most scenarios are skewed in favour of the side that won the actual battle, which in this case is Hannibal. For each unit or leader you defeat you win a banner, win six banners and you win the game.

Carthaginian and Roman banners in the dice tray. And a box of horses.

The idea is that you play two games, switching sides. The player who wins the most banners over-all is the winner. Games of this scenario last about 30 - 45 minutes, so it's easy to play two back to back - but playing alone I just play one - I always win anyway!

In the first three rounds, Hannibal swept in with his light cavalry on both flanks, and the Romans met them head on with their six light infantry units. Both sides took damage, but no banners were won.

Hannibal's right flank sweeps in, and Scipio's light infantry rises to the challenge.

Hannibals left flank, which Scipio blocked with more light infantry.

Then things got interesting. Hannibal played Darken the Skies, allowing his light infantry to unleash several waves of nasty arrows. Two infantry units were lost, the rest driven back against the Roman edge of the board. 

A great card to have with the right units in the right places.

Roman infantry in tatters.

Rome retaliates with his medium cavalry, trying to hold back the advancing cavalry. They successfully take out a weakened unit, but the leader escapes.

Rome recoups. A bit.

Round 5, and Hannibal unleashes his heavy cavalry - but they can only move two spaces, so they're not within combat range yet - perhaps he has something up his sleeve. Scipio plays counter attack, allowing to copycat Hannibals order for his own men - he brings the rest of his medium cavalry up to meet the Carthaginian heavy cavalry. One of Rome's units got in a pop at Hannibal himself.

He got two hits in, but then Hannibal battled back and took him out completely!

Round 6 - Hannibal plays the Mounted Charge card he had up his sleeve, allowing five ordered units to battle with an extra die. This could well be game over for Rome.

But amazingly, the Roman cavalry fall back without a single hit! Unfortunately Scipio's out of good cards, and has to order his straggling infantry. Thy manage to take out a wounded cavalry unit, but the Carthaginian leader escapes again. Score is now Carthage 3 banners, Rome 2.

Round 7

Hannibal orders his left flank, which successfully takes a fourth banner, and sets up his line for a commanding push next round. Some of the cards allow you to order troops that are adjacent, so it is imperative to hold your line. And it is equally imperative to try and break your opponent's line if you think they're gearing up.

Rome has picked up one such card, but need manoeuvre Scipio in to position to be able to use it. So he plays an otherwise useless card to move Scipio . . .

Round 8

Hannibal plays his Inspired Leadership card to drive his heavy cavalry against Scipio - they take out a unit for banner five, and have Scipio pinned. 

The final push

Scipio's attached cavalry unit is destroyed for banner five,  leaving him defenceless.

When a leader's attached unit is destroyed, he has to roll a Leader casualty check. One purple helmet and he's done for. They think its all over . . .

Purple helmet!

. . . it is now.

Final score Carthage 6, Rome 2.

So that's how I've been filling the gaming void. Whether you like a bit of direct conflict or not, you've got to admit, it makes for a better play by play than Tinners Trail.

Welsh Rare Bits

For the first week of the Easter holidays, Charlotte, the girls and I went to Wales with old friends Rachel and Henry and their three daughters. Both R and H are keen gamers, and Charlotte will happily play a game in the evening, so while I was sure that Henry and I would find lots to get stuck into between days on the beach, long walks and cooking, I was interested to see which games would be hits and misses for the four of us.

We took a bevvy of two-player games, including Hansa, Manoeuvre, Commands and Colours: Ancients, and the big daddy, Twilight Struggle. The first game Henry and I broke out on arriving at the cottage near Pembroke was Manoeuvre. It's a game of Napoleonic-era battles, players assuming control of one of eight available armies, ranging from French, English, Ottoman all the way to the United States. Each army has eight units to go on the board, typically 6 infantry and 2 cavalry units, and a dedicated deck of small cards with which to battle and issue orders. The gameplay is simple; discard and draw cards, move one unit, attack with one unit.

A total rout by the French. Marvellous.

The typical attack by a single unit is very unlikely to eliminate its target, merely flip it to its weaker side, and next turn your opponent may well be able to restore it. So you really need to try and plan attacks so that you can add cards from your hand to strengthen the attack, possibly bringing in more units, leaders etc. The game plays in about 40 minutes once you know what you're doing, and is great fun. We tried out a few of the different arrmies - and each has it's innate strengths and weaknesses.

D6s, D8s and cartoon beer. Mmmm . . .

In the evenings, Charlotte and Rachel joined us. For the first couple of nights, the main event was a few rounds of Pickomino, which works brilliantly as a casual game with four - the perfect combination of push-your-luck, nicking each others tiles and not quite knowing who's winning until the final tally. It also allows for a lot of chatting in-between goes, which is certainly a plus as far as Charlotte is concerned.

Grubby dice. Unacceptable.

The first big game we all tried was Manila, which I got in the Euro Maths Trade the week before we went away. Though some of the mechanics (auction, worker-placement, a smattering of share-manipulation) are very familiar, it's nicely different from lots of the other games we play, definitely has its own niche, and plays in under an hour. It's essentially a game where you're playing the odds and betting on which boats will make it ashore and which will end up in the shipyard. It didn't quite catch fire for the four of us - though I can imagine it going down well with the GNN-ers.

We also played London, which is a favourite of Rachel and Henry's - it doesn't quite do it for me, and had a suspicion that it wouldn't be Charlotte's kind of game either, which turned out to be right. It's a game you really need to play a few times to get your head around and develop a strategy - there's simply no way a new player can hope to keep up, which can be dispiriting enough to put you off for good. I had played a couple of times with R & H before, and with Sam, enough to have a grasp of what to do, though that still put me in a distant third place. I can't quite put my finger on why it doesn't grab me; it's something to do with the complexity of the way city-size/boroughs/poverty/money formulae interact - it remains just a little too opaque for me to be enjoyable, though I can imagine getting into it as a 2 player over a few successive nights and finding it satisfying. I think it lacks the elusive 'fun' factor for me.

Another of our 2-player daytime staples was Hansa - a very stripped down Euro about trading in the Hanseatic League (not to be confused with recent GNN newbie Hansa Teutonica). In a way, it's similar to London in that the various components are symbiotically linked: money allows movement and buying of goods; goods allow placement of markets; markets allow conversion of goods into VPs, and get you more money. It's all wrapped up in a very pretty, refined package, and plays in about 20/30 mins. It can be played with four, but loses a lot of the strategy, I've heard.

Hansa by firelight.

As well as London, Henry had brought Ora et Labora with him, the latest big game by Uwe Rosenberg. Having bought it during last half-term, he and Rachel had not got round to playing it, despite a couple of attempts - on opening the box I could see why. If the number and variety of resources and playing boards weren't terrifying enough, the combined rulebooks, covering set-up, general rules, specifics and a multi-page glossary of buildings are positively fearsome. We decided not to attempt this with the women, at least not without a thorough playthrough between the two of us, and so we tackled it on a grey afternoon.
As it turns out, there was little to fear, and lots to enjoy. The rulebooks, if taken in the correct order, have you set up and playing within 20 minutes, and we found we could happily ignore at least half of them.
It is very much in the vein of Agricola, with players building up their monastery in either Ireland or France, felling forests, clearing peat bogs, brewing beer/making wine and gradually amassing victory points. It is apparently closer to Le Havre than Agricola, though graphically it definitely takes its cue from the earlier Rosenberg game. It took us a couple of hours to play, and at the end I was a little bit underwhelmed - it's very wide-open compared to Agricola, and consequently felt a bit flabby. In Agricola, you're operating at the bleeding-edge of subsistence, and every action counts. The world of O & L feels altogether more of a cornucopia, and whilst there are clearly strategic paths aplenty to amassing VPs in bulk, the fact that they are floating around from the very beginning and relatively easy to come by makes it feel less focussed. However, though we didn't manage to get it to the table again during the week, something about it has stayed with me; building your little cloister into a vast, all-encompassing monastery; brewing fine beer and distilling barrels of Irish Whisky, all wrapped-up in the cosy, inviting Agricola-esque hues. I want another go, and if any GNNers have their eye on a new game, I'll happily play it (not buying any more games, see?)

On wednesday evening, the four of us got to Lords of Vegas. I had my concerns, especially since the 'gambling' aspects of Manila had been a bit of a damp squib, and I couldn't remember quite how straightforward the mechanics of LoV were. As it turned out, it was a perfect fit - tense, exciting reversals-of-fortune, enthusiastic dice-rolling and a close finish with Rachel (I think) eeking a win against Henry. Henry particularly took to the risk-reward spirit of it, at one point betting $25 million on a single roll in Rachel's casino in a bid to scupper her plans. He lost.

Lords of Vegas: busy board, busy tablecloth.

We played again on thursday night, and it was even better, and closer, me edging in to first place on the final strip pay-out by virtue of my newly-acquired four tile casino. It was more coherent than when we played it at GNN, and I think we should give it another go. There are subtle strategies for staying in the game in the face of what seems like a runaway leader, which may have eluded us on the two outings we've given it.
On Friday night, we played Catan for old times sake, and R & H cleaned up, Rachel eventually squeaking the win from Henry, Charlotte and I languishing 3rd and fourth.

Ah, the familiar coastline of Catan. With an off-shore stockpile of cities.

Back on the two-player front, Henry and I had dabbled in a bit of Commands and Colours: Ancients, which felt a wee bit fiddly compared with the ultra-streamlined Manoeuvre, though with a more epic, majestic sweep, and probably a bit more depth. We'd also played a few games of Igloo Pop with the older daughters, and they played a few games of Alhambra and Mr Jack amongst themselves. We also played 6 player Shadow Hunters, though that was a bit unsatisfying - four of the six players won . . .

And in amongst it all, Henry and I found time to take on not one, not two, but three games of Twilight Struggle. We got to it a couple of days in to the holiday; Henry had hankering for a game since their last visit to us in September 2011, when I had just received it in a Maths Trade (we took one look at the rules back then and put it away). Since then I've only played it twice, so we were both eager to explore its intricacies.

In actual fact, we found it to be nowhere near as daunting as its reputation might suggest, especially since, on advice gleaned from Ryan Sturm's most recent How to Play, we all but ignored realignment rolls, further streamlining the learning curve. It is an awesome game, and we found that the game lasted longer, getting to later rounds without an outright winner, the more familiar we got with the cards and strategies. That said, Russia won all three games, though Henry, determined to break the Soviet stranglehold, put up a valiant fight in the last game (and enjoyed getting to prod me in the chest as he played the Kitchen Debates). And it's not stupidly long - all three of our games lasted between two and a half and three hours; though none lasted beyond turn six - an epic struggle that went the full ten rounds could last four, even five hours. In that sense it bucks the general trend, in that the better both players know the game, the longer it will take.

All in all an awesome week of gaming, perfectly intertwined with a very lovely week away, thanks to Henry and Rachel and their delightful girls. Roll on the new season of GNN, my loins are girded!
JB