Code Red

Paul arrived this week with armfuls of reduced halloween goodies which ensured for an evening of sugar filled craziness. What better way to compliment statements of "Have you eaten a brain yet?" than a bloody rampage in cardboard and plastic form which is Nexus Ops. This week I suggested that we played the King of the Hill variant which meant that occupiers of the centre hex (The monolith) can opt to take a victory point rather than two energise cards (Special bonus cards). James was unsure, preferring the game in its purest form, but agreed to give it a try.

After all of the initial exploration of tiles had been performed James' surge through the middle in a hope to reveal warrior pieces proved fruitless and instead placed a few of the much coveted refineries on his stretched out forward line. Paul pounced and won a quick succession of battles with his red army to set up a nice line of victory points. It was a counter attack that neither I or James could react quickly enough to and when Paul lumped his best piece (A Rubium Dragon) on the Monolith and James' attempt to dislodge him failed the writing was on the wall. The next turn Paul executed what he referred to as his "Bastard move" and attacked James' home base to reach 12 points after completing a special mission.

Checking back over the game the King of the Hill didn't really add that much. Only 3 points where taken and it did seem to finish the game just as it was getting interesting. I could have happily played on for several more rounds.

Paul - 12
Chris - 5
James - 3

Next up was Revolution! making a quick return. I totally sucked at it last time and my abilities hadn't improved in the interim. Suffering again from choosing the same roles as either James or Paul and losing out completely, I ran out of steam, whereas Paul and James seemed to have it all worked out. James' strategy this time was to extend as great a lead as he could around the scoring track and leave the buildings largely to Paul and I. Suddenly, after counting up the difference and checking the building totals it seemed impossible to catch him. However James wasn't so sure and to his credit didn't listen to my inadvertent sandbagging as the end result was closer than it appeared.

James - 180
Paul - 166
Chris - 129

I was pretty dismissive of the game after getting walloped at it for the second time and after some reflection feel I was a little hard on it. My main gripe is that I can't establish a cogent strategy, which is my fault not the game's, as Paul and James don't seem to have the same problem.

There was just enough time for Hey thats my fish, the kids game that's more suited to my skill set. And so it was that I managed to stay on the board long enough to hoover up the remaining fish and score a small victory..... I'll take them where I can.

Chris - 39
Paul - 30
James - 25

Come the revolution!

In the week prior to Wednesdays meet James had mentioned that he had been routing around underneath the back tables in the Works and had prised out another bargain worthy of a try. Precious little information was divulged about it until the big reveal on games night with the promise that it was a quick learner. Being a bit behind with the kids bedtime routine meant that the time I entered the kitchen Revolution! (Remember the exclamation mark!) was in the end stages of being set up.

Revolution! is a fast paced influence/territory game with cruel bidding mechanism that achieves it's design to stymie the plans of your opponents. Set against a back drop of the American Revolution players are to use their influence tokens, a red fist for force, a black envelope for blackmail (geddit?) and gold coins for good old fashioned bribery to coerce 12 different upstanding members of the community to your cause. The public figures include people like, the captain, priest, merchant, general and err... spy and are all laid out in a grid in front of you complete with their varying support conditions i.e. the merchant allows you to win 3 support points (General score) 5 Gold pieces and influence the Market. On the brightly coloured playing board is a representation of a small town complete with dock, fortress, market etc. Each one of the venues has an influencer that allows you to put a marker in it. These have a finite amount of spaces and only the the clear winner in each wins the support score attached.

Colourful revolution

The clever bit of the game is how the tokens work. Using the VERY sturdy screens to hide your grid players are to choose which character they want to win over. The tokens work in an olympic medal table kind of way. Therefore force (Gold) will beat any amount of Blackmails (Silver) or Coins (Bronze) and combinations there of will always start biggest first and then down. Ties mean neither player win that characters benefits. Additionally gold coins can be used to influence any role but you are forbidden to place tokens on the same colours, so you can't force the captain or blackmail the magistrate... Ooer.

In the 3 player there was always spaces left over but often the case was players were competing for the same options. I came a cropper a few times with Paul either matching my choice or beating it therefore seeing my lovely tokens disappear to the supply piles.

Have ever seen such sturdy screens?

The game reminded me of a lighter version of El Grande and the association harmed neither game. Toward the end I began to fall behind on the score track and wasn't winning enough token for the next rounds and slipped out of contention. James, however, got to grips with the mechanic the best and edged away as the last spaces on the board where filled.

James - 205
Paul - 154
Chris - 86

Next up was another new game to the Wednesday night trio although not Paul and I in Modern Art. This early Knizia classic has its roots wedged in the brilliant game designer's economics past. Balancing out the right amount to pay for each range of paintings in the different types of auction requires a little bit of business nous. Which, unfortunately, I didn't have. Unlike Medici where bidding big can still bring in the goods in the art world buying low and selling high is the name of the game. Who'd of thunk it. Anyway I was completely bowled over by the figure James and Paul had managed to accumulate compared to my poor return. Paul rather charitably tried to cheer me up by saying the amount I had made would have been good for any company in real life, but really I sucked.

James - £520,000
Paul - £482,000
Chris - £342,000