Art for art’s ache

This week’s regular meet was held at Adam and Hannah’s. There were seven of us (Adam, Hannah, Martin, Sam, Joe, Gonz and me) but despite 7 Wonders being the only available option if we wanted to play a game together, we passed over that option and went straight into the evening’s main courses. There was a four-player game of A Study in Emerald (Martin, Gonz, Adam and Hannah) and a three-player game of Bruxelles 1893 (me, Sam and Joe).

The three of us went into the front room where we had to spread the game across three occasional tables, delicately balancing the main playing areas on the largest oval table. Just getting the layout right took several attempts, and quite a few minutes. It was to be an omen for what was to come.

We explained the rules to Joe, who asked insightful and intelligent questions. This made me think he already understood the game better than I did. I had a plan in round one, but even by round two I was being squeezed out of auctions and when round three finally began, I’d pretty much forgotten what the plan was at all.

If it was long with two newbies, it was a dirge with three. We added at least an hour to the recommended playing time for three, and this is not a game that gets better the more it goes on. While it has some nice ideas, it has far too many of them. They may overlap, but they never really gel.

I popped into the next room to see how Victorian London was coping against a battle between anarchists and octopuses, but I found that board equally baffling. In the end, Martin went mad in order to end the game at an opportune time, putting his colleague Hannah in second and leaving the two beastly loyalists in last.

Martin 9
Hannah 4
Adam 5
Gonz 3

When they’d finished, we were still knee-deep in art. Our game was taking so much time we even quipped "Bruzelles 1893? That's when we started playing it." So they began another game: Kingdom Builder. Another new game for Hannah, I think. Gonz took revenge for his recent last place.

Gonz 70
Hannah 51
Martin 51
Adam 37

When Bruxelles finally came to a close, we even had a few minutes debate about the score track, since it only went up to eighty before resetting to zero. Sam scored over one hundred, so should he put his counter on 20 something or 0 something? By now I was exhausted. If a game can’t even get the scoretrack right, it’s a bad sign.

Joe 133
Sam 126
Andrew 85

And there the evening ended. Sam suggested a final game of Raj but sorting out who’d play a five-player game out of seven people was one logistical puzzle too many for our frazzled brains, and in the end the offer was never taken up.

And if the evening wasn’t long enough, on the way home Adam called me to say that Sam had left his bag behind, with his keys etc. in them. Sam dropped me and Gonz off before one last dash across Bristol to round off quite a fraught evening for all concerned.

						Points
Joe	1	2	1	1	3	8
Martin	2	1	1	1	3	8
Sam	2	1	2	2	1	8
Gonz	1	4	2	1	2	10
Hannah	2	2	1	3	4	12
Steve	4	1	3	3	1	12
Andrew	3	3	1	4	3	14
Anja	2	3	2	4	5	16
Adam	3	3	3	3	5	17
Will	3	2	5	5	5	20
Matt	5	5	5	5	5	25

And on the monthly division, Martin leads on points and medal table, while Steve still holds on to points ratio.

The Belle Epic

Thursday is too far away for some gamers. Sam and I met up for an evening’s entertainment, and we chose new arrival Bruxelles 1893. It’s very pretty, neatly designed in a convincing Art Deco style. Quite fussy, but still easy to pick out the various game areas.

We began to wade through the rules. This turned into something of an ordeal. The basic mechanic is worker placement but, most of the time, putting down a worker achieves three things: makes an action, places a bid on a bonus card, and tries to claim a shield that sits between the action spaces.

Worker placement, area control and bidding, all at once

On the other hand, you could place your workers on another board, which allowed cheap actions with the caveat that whoever had the most players on the board would lose one of those workers to the courthouse, and you had to get them out by using a particular bonus card.

If that weren’t enough, there are several ways to score. You can place your point-scoring cards next to a particular bonus. If you think you’ll end the game with lots of money, then put your cards next to the money multiplier. Similarly, you can bet on number of workers, materials or works of art. Or you can build up your architect bonus and get points for how much of your delightfully designed house you build.

Sam and I read through to get an overall understanding, but after a lengthy spell with the rule book we were keen to jump in and give it a go, even if we weren’t sure about some of the areas or, indeed, the finer details of the final scoring.

Sam heads off along the lovely score track.

It was pretty good. After all those rules, it’s actually pretty easy going. It’s certainly quite short: six rounds, and the rules suggest twenty-five minutes per player. It plays up to five, though, so I can see it being a bit of a grind with many opponents.

But otherwise, it was a fun game. Kind of dry, but that could be because we didn’t know what to go for. But there was certainly enough there to bring it back to the table soon, I hope.

In the end, Sam won by 80something to my 60something, since I misunderstood one of the final scoring rules. But that’s my mistake.

Wut?

However, as we packed away, we were still baffled about the City Hall area of the game board. It didn’t seem to do anything or score anything. Sam reread the rules, but couldn’t find anything about it. Eventually, he even went on the internet to see what other people were saying, but apparently we are alone in our bemusement. We must be missing something obvious.

City Hall. Your guess is as good as mine.