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

Nexus Oops.

Hovering over the game bags (Yes thats right, game bags) the three Bracknellites (Honorary in Paul's case) were unable to make a decision or push forward a preference for the evenings main game. I floated the idea of three player Nexus with the hard sell of three being regarded as the optimum number by blogs and forums alike. Paul, unable to hide his skepticism, graciously accepted and we proceeded to unpack the mutli-various pieces that come with it.

Configured in its three player format the board looked instantly tight and set for conflict. Resources for exploration were randomly placed on the board and after the first few rounds Paul and I looked enviously over at James' industrial heartland churning out a whopping 14 Rubium per turn to our 9. I made early headway to the centre of the board hoping to poach some refineries, the games lifeblood, from James with Paul adopting the same ploy on his flank. Very quickly we began to see why this game is heralded for 3 players. The balance is perfect. In the game I played with four ended up with almost two separate battles on the same map. Downtime was noticeable and it was too slow paced. With three you always feel you are involved in the game even when it isn't your turn because there nearly always is a battle to be fought.

As the war raged on James' early advances had reaped a healthy collection of victory points and was ahead by 5. Then, he found himself fighting hefty battles on two fronts as exchanges between Paul and myself resulted in a stalemate defended weakly by disinterested troops. And anyway, since the winning margin was 12 points James had to be stopped at all costs! Even though we pushed him back and pinched his best refineries James had staged managed his final push to perfection. Breaking out from his home territories with a miner task force and parachuting into a poorly defended hex of mine he vanquished the troops and satisfied several secret mission cards to reach the required 12.

It was a close run thing. I was left wanting to know how the war would've ended even though the battle had been won. In fact James and I did play out one final conflict - Just for the fun of doing it! I was really impressed with how well this game played with 3 and look forward to the net bout.

James - 12
Chris - 7
Paul - 5

We then tried to squeeze in a game of Trans Europa. Everything was going swimmingly until James realised that he had two cards which were meant to be taken out. And we ran out of time. It was decided that this wouldn't contribute to the table. (Although for the record I was winning!)

War is hell

The outcome of wars can often be traced back to a decisive battle which swung the balance of power one way or another. This Wednesday surely will now see the battle of the Crystal Spires added to the list of D-Day, Thermopylae, Hastings and Waterloo. For in the dissection at the end of our game of Nexus Ops, James and I discerned that the outcome hinged on an epic battle staged in the opening act.

We had elected to set up the board in a configuration called "Close Neighbours" (I think) which places the opponents home bases next to each other. Bounding after far flung resources I turned back to see a rather weighty attack amassing at my border. I noticed that battlefield was a Crystal Spires hex and James had used troops which were hindered in such an environment. Sensing a chance at a devastating victory I amassed my own troops which carried an advantage in those hexes. As I advanced I placed down three special attack cards from my hand which allowed me to roll twice for each piece and add two to the roll of four of them. With such fire power I felt sure that James' pieces would be wiped of the map before he could fire a shot.

Shits about to go down

Unfortunately what happened next will go down in Nexus Ops lore for maybe weeks to come. James then laid his special ability cards down. First up was a card reversing the order! Argh! This meant he got to roll double the amount of dice first! Then a regeneration card which allowed his troops to survive and respawn in his home territory and finally he played a +2 to the roll card. His first roll was two 6's and two 5's. Blammo. A devastating attack - against me.... My remaining guys managed to hit some of his but due to the regeneration it was no hinderance.

I never recovered and James steam rollered me to an easy win 12 to 3.

Then onto 7 Wonders. James and I now have very definite playing styles in this game which is as follows. I collect brown card resources, James has a few and all the yellow card markets. I advance my military, James does enough to beat Dirk. James majors in blue building cards, I cover off a few. In the 3rd age I go for guilds and James lands the big blue cards.... We both totally disregard sciences!

In this particular game the guilds I picked were some doozies allowing me to get something like 18 points. The final tallies were the largest we've seen.
Chris - 70
James - 59

59 would have won in all of our previous games. (Checked against the old sheets)
For the record James had the Palace.

More on a theme.

Inspired by Andy's post I thought I would have a rummage around the photo's to see if I could come up with any captured moments. Sadly my records only go back to New Years Eve 1999. Yes that's right folks we saw the new century in over gaming boards at Sam's mum's house in Frome.

Does Andy still have this T-shirt?

 And then on New Years Day, we went for a walk up Cley Hill.

We never got round to making the album

Some more from the vaults....

We played Settlers back then!

This was one of our first games weekends in 2007

7 years later, T-shirt still going strong

And we didn't just play games in those days

Oh no.....

And one from our time in Devon....

Don't know this game

So anyway.....James and I played a game of Nexus Ops last night. A very tactical battle was played out as I had only enough refineries to produce 10 rubium to his 17. After I had cancelled out his early gains and stolen a number of his refineries James produced a move which saw him claim 6 victory points in one fell sweep and therefore the game 12 - 8. Up until that point it was on a knife edge as I was making major in roads into his side of the board, but alas it was not to be......

Cannon Fodder

Due to one thing and another games night this week was pushed back to Tuesday and so it was that James appeared on my frosty doorstep* at the allotted time of 7.30.

We decided to revisit Nexus Ops seeing as we hadn't for a while. We set it up as a standard game but with the alternate resources thrown in for variance. After three turns the board took on a very lop sided appearance. James had benefited from discovering three free warrior units, whereas I had an abundance of mines and nobody to protect them. Also the mines were all squashed down the left side of the board making for a horrendous bottleneck. As in most games of Nexus that I've experienced a strong front and build up of arms ensues until one side feel they are mighty enough to force the issue and so it was here with trenches being drawn up across the middle. 

In previous rounds James had laid a double whammy of energise cards which allowed him to accrue a whopping 20 Rubrium (Currency) on top of his already mined store.  This meant I was facing an advancing hoard of Rubrium Dragons....the games strongest pieces. 

Through some desperate troop deployment and incredibly lucky dice rolling I was able to dent the attack so severely that it looked as though the tide of the battle was swinging in my favour. Then James revealed his new tactic! Stocking up on the cheapest unit, humans, and then using them as a rolling mass of cannon fodder interspersed with crack units, like infantry following a tank. His blue swathe of an army swarmed over my positions and on to victory 13 - 9.

The game took most of the night and we certainly played it differently than before: a lot more tactically. My strategy of sending out small skirmishers to bother his back line was only partly successful and not sustainable as my supply lines became stretched. It looks as though James' policy of might makes right will be the go to tactic going forward.

*Due to the cold, not because my house portal harbours a resentment to visitors.

Three orthogonally-adjacent days of fun

Friday began like any other Friday. The sun rose, trains rattled out of sidings and into service, the recycling was collected, children went to school. But for a few of us, the heart beat a little faster. Because today was the first day of the games night weekend.

Sam, Joe and myself set off for a converted chapel in the middle of nowhere in the early afternoon, and arrived at around half past three. Paul and Chris turned up half an hour later, and we stood around for ten minutes or so chatting, before we realised: what are we doing? We should be playing games!

The weekend starts here...

Tsuro was the game to kick it all off. We trailed, we blazed, and we eventually toppled off the edge of the board like an ageing old man sinking face first into his soup. We then played Incan Gold twice and by now Joe had sped into an early lead with two wins out of three. But it was early days, and nothing substantial had been brought to the table.

When Jon, Steve and Anja arrived, all that nonsense ended. We split into two groups and set ourselves a real challenge. Anja, Steve and Joe went for that family favourite of recreating the German postal system, Thurn and Taxis. How anyone can call board games "niche", I've no idea. The rest of us (Sam, Chris, Paul, Jon and me) became Lords of Waterdeep. Sam talked the newbies through the rules and I tried to help, too. I remember explaining that you didn't get the owner's bonus if you used your own buildings by saying "... because you can't tickle yourself, can you?" I meant: you don't get an extra benefit from your own actions, but I don't know if that's how it came across.

"It looks like a pub" said Charlotte when she saw this photo.
Like that was somehow a bad thing. JB

(By now, you may be wondering where the scores are. Well, that would turn this blog post into an epic. So to save time, when I've decided to list the people playing I've put them in the order they ended, from first to last. So in the last paragraph, Anja won Thurn and Taxis, and Sam won Lords of Waterdeep.)

While Jon, Anja and Steve prepared food, we all played Lost Temple. Sam won this slightly silly race game by a tactic of finding a "Go forward five spaces" bonus tile five spaces before the finish line. Well done him.

Steve and Anja discovered some ancient artifacts to prepare food in. JB

After we ate some delicious food, Anja, Steve and myself played Wallenstein. I upset Steve by ignoring the unwritten rule of always going after whoever is in first halfway through. Instead, I went after him since he was in second and I was third. It made no difference.

Wallenstein by sunset

Hannah and Joe and Sam played Glory to Rome, while Paul, Adam, Chris and Jon played the multi-coloured strategy game Nexus Ops which really does look like armies of models from Games Workshop fighting over some puke.

But despite the dusk having long gone, a hardy band of gamers determinedly carried on. Joe, Adam, Chris and Jon tried Sewer Pirates (or Die GulliPiratten), a game which looked quite pretty, but baffling. Something about boarding boats. And snails are rubbish. I was too tired to watch for too long, and left them to it, well past one a.m.

The next day, I awoke at seven, and went for a walk in the early morning mist.

Outside. Complicated rules, but some great artwork.

When I came back, Joe was up and about so I taught him how to play Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small. This became the game of the weekend, with pairs of gamers using it as a filler while they waited for games to end or food to be served.

This was followed by me, Chris, Adam and Joe playing Alhambra while Sam, Anja, Hannah and Jon played Ys. But soon after that game, Jon retired to his room, ill, and wasn't seen again til the afternoon. Paul, too, didn't emerge from his room until noon, having not slept for thirty-six hours due to work shifts. Steve stayed in bed for hours, too. No idea why. Maybe he was still annoyed about Wallenstein.

There followed a flurry of short two-player games. Adam beat Joe at Manoeuvre, Hannah beat me at Mr Jack and Chris beat Sam at Scrabble. Once Steve and Paul had risen and dinner had been eaten (my hand made pizzas, although I shot myself in the foot since I'd put my own pizza sauce into a Sainsbury's pasta sauce jar. Didn't look very home-made.) we could start gaming in seriousness again.

Chris, Sam, Steve, Anja and a-still-not-100% Jon played Bohnanza and Joe and Paul played Aton. Then Hannah beat Adam at Mr Jack, and Sam, Chris, Paul and Joe played Biblios. Chris came second which, by now, was becoming a recurring theme.

But as Joe had always wanted, Saturday afternoon hosted a game every bit as epic and American as the old western that was probably on Channel Five at that very same time. Railways of the World: Eastern US is a monster of a game, and with five players, it was expected to last. Joe spent some time preparing the gaming area with comfy chairs and set up all the pieces beforehand. He reminded me of a bird preparing its nest.

Home-maker Joe

While Adam, Paul, Joe, Anja and Steve played Railways..., Sam, Hannah, Chris and me played San Marco. The three of them fought of first place, while I fell further and further behind. Then, with the railways of the Eastern American sea board still far from complete, Jon (looking healthier now), me and Hannah played Power Grid. I'd played this once before, and did not have great memories of it, but found it a more enjoyable affair this time. Perhaps in the years since then, I've learnt more about what makes a board game work. Sam and Chris played Macao.

Finally, after three and a half hours, Railways of the World was complete. Adam won, and I was impressed by their stamina. They all stood around and reminisced about the last few hours as if it were some great ordeal they'd all been through, and come out the other side as better people.

RotW in progress, with Power Grid in the background.
This is the exact moment Adam realised he could get his revenge
on me for denying him access to the rulebook. JB

The final board and scoretrack from space. And my socks. JB

After this, some of us went for a walk in the country side. Steve had the map, which lead to some... "creative" navigating. Leading us into a dark cluster of trees, insisting "It's all good" was only the high point of a series of exciting new rambling options he found. Meanwhile, Joe was startled by a cat and Jon trod down brambles like a real man.

... and we never saw them again.

Back at the house, Paul beat Chris by one point in two-player Agricola. Then with everyone back from the walk, Joe dug out Pickomino. This dice-based worm-collecting game is easy to learn and agonising to play. Sam, me, Joe, Jon, Steve and Anja battled out one game, and then Anja, Steve, Sam, Paul, Chris, Jon and me played a second round.

After food supplied by Hannah and Adam, we split into two. Adam persuaded Paul and Hannah to play Puerto Rico, and then duly won. Meanwhile, Joe and I convinced Chris and Sam that Lords of Vegas was the perfect game for a Saturday night. We adopted bad gangster accents, and rolled them bones while trying to set up successful casinos along Sunset Strip. I quickly built up a very commanding lead, but then watched in horror as Chris slowly gained on me, with me keeping one step ahead by some lucky dice rolls. For the last two rounds, I was just wishing each card would be the End Game card, which thankfully came just in time. Meanwhile Joe and Sam languished far behind, which shows up the game's flaw. Very few opportunities for catching up if you fall too far behind. Some games claim to be fun for all the family, but I'm not even sure if Lords of Vegas is fun for all the players. I like it, though.

Garish colours? Artificial lighting? It's Vegas, baby!

As we finished our game, Paul beat Hannah at Agricola; All Creatures... and Steve, Anja and Jon played Lords of Waterdeep. Then, once we were all between games, we decided on the only ten-player option we had: 6nimmt. The game was quite different, since every card in the deck was in someone's hand or on the table. There was no point in putting a card down, hoping that the cards immediately below it wouldn't be in play. Still, it was fun, once we'd worked out how to show that everyone had made their decision (place a finger on your card). Sam won.

After that, people retired to sleep, except Chris and Paul who played one final game of Nile. A card game of harvesting and speculating. I watched, and I think I understood it, apart from the speculating bits. Not too clear on harvesting, either, but apart from that...

Sunday dawned, grey and wet. Perfect gaming weather. Once again, Joe and I were the early birds, and Joe taught me Castles of Burgundy. Hannah and Jon played two games of Hey, That's My Fish!, sharing a victory each. Joe commended Jon on getting the emphasis right on the title. Jon called it "Hey, That's MY Fish", stressing the ownership of the fish in question. Joe had always said "Hey, that's my FISH", stressing the nature of the thing being argued over. But, Joe reasoned, what else would a penguin have to argue about? A stereo? Some flapjacks? Of course not. So Jon's pronunciation must be correct. Chris, Adam, Sam and Hannah played a third game, quite oblivious to Joe's eureka moment.

Following that, Adam beat Joe at Agricola: All Creatures, while Steve and Anja shared a Thelma and Louise moment, throwing themselves off the board in Tsuro at the same time.

Breakfast was done, and time was ticking on. For the majority, there was just one last game to be played. Adam, Joe and Jon chose Railways of the World, but chose the smaller, faster Mexico map. In the end Adam won a very close game by a tie-breaker on money. Hannah, Chris and I played Macao. I went for a new tactic of ignoring the items and relying on bonuses for cards. It didn't work.

Pretty little railways down Mexico way, at the end of the game. JB

Paul, Sam, Steve and Anja played Genoa. Paul won by delivering messages and bartering, with no contracts or owning any buildings. Quite an impressive strategy. Finally, it was time for some of us to leave. Chris and Paul went first, and then after a little cleaning (and discovering that the vacuum cleaner really smelt odd when you used it) Joe, Sam and I leapt in the car and sped away into the rain.

This left Jon, Steve, Anja, Hannah and Adam to finish off with one last game, Il Principe. Adam texted me the results, and it must have been a frustrating game for him, since he ended the text with "Don't ask."

So those are all words, what about the numbers?! There is no form table, since we didn't stop playing long enough to think about our recent form. (Forty-three games in three days, by the way. That's about that same we play in three months.)

Instead it's all about the Q-system. And we find a very interesting new face on top of the pile at the end of the weekend.

Chris' consistent form at coming in second is just what you'd expect from an Arsenal fan. But unlike his beloved Gunners, it puts him at the top of the pile. And well done to Sam for highest points ratio and for leading the medals table. Judging by his gloomy review of his own form as we drove home, I know he won't be expecting this result.

Sam wins on points and Anja takes the points ratio, demonstrating that these two aren't sprinters but are grand master tacticians, preferring a deeper challenge to the silly lightweight games.

(In this table, the points you get on the Q-system are multiplied by the number of hours a game lasts. So, a thirty minute game would see your points halved, while a game lasting an hour and a half would be multiplied by 1.5. Game lengths taken from boardgamegeek.)

A quick note to end, Paul wins on the absolute score. If you take his games and add them all together, he scored 1070 points, beating Anja (998 points) and Sam (997 points). Well done, Paul. I suspect winning Genoa helped. Here are all the numbers!

Thanks everyone for a great weekend. Quick wits, quicker strategies and some very good food.

Oh, and the list of labels was too long for blogger (200 character maximum, apparently), so a lot of the games are missing from the list below and that's why it says Agricola, not Agricola: All Creatures etc etc.

Paul makes his Point

Before the main meal of the evening in the form of Nexus Ops a few small game nibbles were partaken. Hey That's My Fish is becoming a firm favourite with us for its simple play and set up, and surprising depth for game that only cost me a tenner. After two quick games I had collected a victory in each but by only one point in the second game. After musing what the game would be like with two sets mixed in and 8 people playing (Septcon anyone?) we moved onto a new game Nile. 

Nile is a card game of fairly simple mechanics where you take on the mantle of an ancient farmer along the flood plains of the Nile. Your task is to plant crops and harvest them if you are lucky enough each turn. It has the feel of lots of other games merged into one. It plays very fast once you have the turn sequence down and there is a nice amount of stitching up that you can do. The scoring borrows from Euphrat and Tigris where you score your weakest crops first.

In the two games we played Paul won one 5 - 1 and I tipped my game 2 - 1.

So to Nexus. Paul got to take the sometimes powerful first turn and right from the off he was marching across the board spoiling for a fight like I had called his beer a shandy. Probably coming off better in regard to revealing bonus tiles, Paul's massing ranks were making headway into my controlled areas. In a futile attempt to stem the flow I tried to get in behind his defences only to see my away party squashed lazily like a dopey fly. Despite all that I still was managing to keep in touching distance. In a last ditch attempt at victory I went for all out attack taking on a series of soft targets to gain victory points to take my total to 12 (The winning amount). It all came down to one last roll. My warrior only needed to roll 2 or over on the D6. It came up a 1. The next round Paul's onslaught returned my posterior to me with and with it my crushed hopes and dreams…...

Paul the Variant King! (All hail)

After the fairly 'strategy linear' games of Hey Thats My Fish and Ticket to Ride were played the more variable Nexus Ops was brought out for a second week. Feeling like there was some unfinished business due to our truncated game last time we set up the board in good time for a probable finish. We decided to add in the option of different resources and Paul made the early running by winning the toss. Going first has an advantage but this is offset by the player going second getting more rubium (Money). With subsequent turns Paul's army of alien 'things' encroached on my side of the board taking up strong positions. A kind of western front developed where my quickly amassing 'things' made a stand.

Then the dice rolling might of Jefferies began to whittle down my lovely troops with him picking up victory points willy nilly. Even my counter attack down the left hand side could do nothing to stem the tide of attacks although, my VP count rose to threaten Paul's total. Then, the Jefferies tactical variant mind kicked in. Using the entire wedge of Rubium he had accumulated to purchase an army of miners and then in conjunction with two energise cards, he air dropped his shock troops right behind my lines. I was Banjaxed.

Although in a dominant position the score was only 12 - 11 to Paul. For the record I won the first two games so: ner. 

(Which is a direct quote from Hitler)

Rubium with a View

Bracknell Branch Reports:

Due to silly work commitments the regular Tuesday nights games session had changed to Monday night. Sitting at my dinner table in the day a thought popped into my head that I hadn't bought any new games recently. After a brief unsatisfactory interaction with the resident game board geeks in my local games shop I returned home with GNN favourite "Hey that's my fish" and new title Nexus Ops. I'd had a hankering to obtain a direct conflict game to offset all these lovely balanced euro games where everyone/thing gets on fabulously. There are plenty out there but it's sci-fi theme appealed to me. The reviews highlighted that it might not be everyones cup of tea, as it involved a fair amount of dice rolling and was played over a hex board, but coming from a war-games background this was no put off for me.

After two quick fun games of HTMF where honours were equal (Chris 53 Paul 46, Paul 50 Chris 48) the main feature of Nexus Ops was broken out. At first the box size seemed at odds with the contents as three sheets of game board and chits, two packs of cards and six dice spilled out. However after further inspection a satisfying wedge of playing pieces was stored under the insert. My worry of this game being a rule fest was quickly eased as we discovered them to be very well thought out and easy to take in. There are a lot of variations to this game but they can be mixed and matched to taste on top of the classic game. The basis of Nexus Ops is to achieve either the annihilation of your opponents or to gain a set number of victory points. The confrontation takes place over an ugly changeable hex board where you deploy either your warriors to win battles and collect victory points or miners who collect the mineral Rubuim which can be exchanged for more troops or miners. There are a bunch of restrictions and advantages for every unit and all of them can fight. It plays a little like the best elements from Small World and Risk; although that might not be a favourable comparison.

Pros - Fast play, easy rules, nice components, lots of variations.

Cons - Ugly board, dice (although not masses), can get a little repetitive, a little bit of referring each turn to start with. 

Anyway with a late start we had to bring proceedings to a close early with me winning 8 VP's to 6.

I liked it. It was what I was looking for when I bought Small World only to be disappointed by its awful conflict and deployment mechanic. Apparently it really comes into its own with 3 or 4 players, but I don't have those, so sucks to be me yeah?