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This is the home page of The Nottingham and Derby
Boardgames Club. We are a group of people in the heart of England,
who like to play low complexity boardgames - the kind of things that
win the German games prizes.
The club meets every Thursday evening from 7pm to 10:30pm at Queens
Walk Community Centre, Meadows, Nottingham. We generally get between
four and eight adults on a night and, if the next day is not a school
day, a smattering of children.
If you are interested in coming along: either turn up or, if you
need directions, a lift or someone to be prepared to make you feel
welcome, send me an e-mail.
Members bring along their own games to play, and with the likes of
Chris, Garry and myself, that ensures a regular supply of the newest
games, bursting to be played as well as a library of old favourites.
The players
This list of players is a key to the initials used in the game results
and rankings. It is in alphabetical order rather than order of importance,
otherwise my name wouldn't be at the bottom (well,... it might). If
you want to know more about the players, I am hoping to build up a
list of mini-biogs with photos, etc. It all depends on whether the
other members like the idea.
Regulars
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Occasionals (some of)
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- BH : Ben Haytack
- CL : Catherine Lloyd
- CN : Cara Norton
- DH : Dan Hanford
- GF : Goran Farm
- GT : Greg Todd
- JO : Jonathan Ogden
- KB : Karl Bown
- LN : Laura Norton
- NC : Nicki Challinger
- NS : Neil Siddons-Smith
- PO : Paul Oakes
- RL : Rebecca Lloyd
- SC : Steph Challinger
- sG : Sophie Gregory
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Recent weeks at the club
4th October
A bit of sad news to open the evening. Cartercon, the planned charity
games convention set in Nottingham for the weekend, had to be cancelled
because of not enough pre-bookings. I'm a notorious last-minute booker,
so am as guilty as anyone else, although I had been trying to raise
interest among people I knew. It's a shame, and I hope any future
attempts will be more successful. For what it's worth, my advice would
also include: getting games clubs like ours and games shps like Travelling
Man in Nottingham involved; checking for clashing events - the proposed
day clashed with the Goose Fair and England's vital World Cup qualifying
match against Greece; and speaking to people, like Andy Merritt, who
have experience of organising one-day conventions.
Anyway, back to the games, and speaking of conventions, we played
Chris's expensive signed copy of Ivanhoe,
bought at the Ramsdencon auction for £23 during a massive Chris
bid-frenzy. This card game involves collecting cards in five colours
(plus white wild cards), and playing them out in challenges. Whoever
leads off a challenge, plays a card of any colour and value. Other
players can then pass, or play cards in that colour to a higher total
value. Play continues to pass around until all but one has dropped
out, and that player gets a token in the relevant colour. Onto this
simple frame is added the action of special cards that are used to
reduce the total of other players, increase your own, change the colour
of the challenge, etc. The first player to collect four of the five
colour tokens, wins.
Steve was the first player to get three tokens and then collected
a large hand of cards for his final assault. He led off the challenge
by playing a massive total of blue and wild cards that none of us
could match - so we all passed. With the light of victory in his eyes,
Steve reached for the blue token, only to realise that he already
had a blue one and needed a different colour to win. The "cunning
plan" had been a little less foxy than he thought. And, in fact
everyone got up to three colours before the game ended. The game is
pretty good when you are involved, but can be a bit boring if you
have to miss challenge after challenge because they are in a colour
you can't compete in. At the start of the game, I had quite an even
spread of cards - not enough to make it worth joining a challenge
- and it was ages before I could get started. Still I would certainly
play again - especially after I came from that poor start to win.
Result: TC, CD+SO+GC.
While looking for another game, Steve suggested we play Carcinoma.
This caused a few puzzled looks until we turned round to find him
holding up a copy of Carcassonne. Hmmm.
Anyway, we got out my new copy of Warhamster Rally instead. This
is a first published game (I believe) from Frank Banham ('Moo', of
internet fame). I had read a description and it sounded fun, so I
bought it and, apart from a few weak points in the game production,
it was a good game, showing the signs of good playtesting. It's just
a shame that the finbished article was rushed out once the design
was finalised.
Steve's revenge was particularly aimed at Mick, who had knocked out
the first car, rather than his son, who had knocked out the second,
so Mick ended up with no points from the first race either. Victory
in that one went to Neil, quietly avoiding the vendettas. Mick came
back to win the second race and, by the third, the attacks and counter-attacks
had gone so far that it was won by the blue cars, deemed to belong
to Colin, our perennial dummy or 'extra-man' player (also someone
who used to come to the club once). Adding together the points for
each car in the three races on the usual 10-6-4-3-2-1 basis, the result
was very close at the front, with my 17 points narrowly ahead of Jonathan's
16, and just as narrowly behind the pretend Colin's 18. Steve, after
some concentrated revenge, managed 4. Result: Colin (dummy), TC, JO,
NS, MH, SO.
As last week, we finished with Rage,
although this time we only had time for three of the ten, decreasing
hands. Of the players, Mick's total score got progressively more negative
each turn (although he did say afterwards that he liked the game),
I was leading after the first two hands and third after the next (doh!)
and Neil started with a gentle 4 and 0 for the first two hands and
then surged ahead with a massive 17 for the third. Result: NS, JO,
TC, SO, MH.
27th September
Time for an oldie tonight. I arrived just as they were setting up
Acquire, the classic game of competitive
investment from Sid Sackson. We also had a new face along - welcome
to Neil Siddons-Smith, in Nottingham to attend university and, although
more into wargames, keen to give German-style games a try. Chris also
arrived late because of traffic and was feeling ill, so didn't want
to stay around.
We decided to finish the Acquire off quickly. However, the others
rapidly got fed up of waiting for me as I explained the game and my
actions to Neil. Some might argue that anyone who actually succeeds
in understanding my actions must be on some kind of drug... Anyway,
the final result seemed to pretty strongly reflect the amount of experience
of this game among the players. Result: MH, SO, TC, JO.
Next we played Formula Motor Racing.
This is an old Gibsons game by Reiner Knizia and has just been redone
as Grand Prix by GMT. I have had the
game for some time, but not played it before. Each player has two
small racing cars in their colour and these are laid in a line indicating
their position in the race. To start with, one player is placed first
and last, another second and second-to last, and so on. Then play
begins. On your turn you get to play a card that could allow a specific
colour of car to move forwards, or backwards, or even suffer an engine
blow-up and be out. This last fate was particularly relevant to Steve,
who sat two places after the start player and found that each of those
previous players had destroyed one of his cars, leaving him with none
by the time he had his first turn! Oh, how we all laughed - well,
all except Steve, who vowed revenge. As the game is played over multiple
races, and you can still play cards, even with no cars, there are
plenty of opportunities to affect others' overall scores.
Steve's revenge was particularly aimed at Mick, who had knocked out
the first car, rather than his son, who had knocked out the second,
so Mick ended up with no points from the first race either. Victory
in that one went to Neil, quietly avoiding the vendettas. Mick came
back to win the second race and, by the third, the attacks and counter-attacks
had gone so far that it was won by the blue cars, deemed to belong
to Colin, our perennial dummy or 'extra-man' player (also someone
who used to come to the club once). Adding together the points for
each car in the three races on the usual 10-6-4-3-2-1 basis, the result
was very close at the front, with my 17 points narrowly ahead of Jonathan's
16, and just as narrowly behind the pretend Colin's 18. Steve, after
some concentrated revenge, managed 4. Result: Colin (dummy), TC, JO,
NS, MH, SO.
As last week, we finished with Rage,
although this time we only had time for three of the ten, decreasing
hands. Of the players, Mick's total score got progressively more negative
each turn (although he did say afterwards that he liked the game),
I was leading after the first two hands and third after the next (doh!)
and Neil started with a gentle 4 and 0 for the first two hands and
then surged ahead with a massive 17 for the third. Result: NS, JO,
TC, SO, MH.
20th September
It's a good job I came tonight, as I found three players with no
games between them... So, first up, I got us to try out Land
Unter. This is a new edition of an older game - Zum Kuckuck.
It used to be about cuckoos and nests and is now about rain and floods
- essentially the theme is quite thin. Players use weather cards to
win low valued water level cards. After each play, the player with
the highest water level card on display, loses a lifebelt (a point).
As a balancing mechanism the weather cards are marked such that the
more cards you have of the middle, bad values, the more lifebelts
you start with. Another balance is that you play as many hands as
you have players, and each time you pass your previous hand to the
player on your left. So everyone gets to play with every hand. I got
off to a bad start (I usually do badly on simultaneous play games),
but managed to rally from the one point I got in the first two hands
to add seven more for the last two. Steve G, on the other hand, only
failed to get four points on the first hand, where he got three. There
was a definite advantage to those who had played before, so I was
pleased to buck that trend slightly - especially after the ridicule
that the Ogdens were dishing out after the first couple of rounds.
Next, we had Traumfabrik (now renamed
to Fabrik der Traume), my game of the
year for 2000. My plans for a steady income of points from my green
film were scuppered when Jonathan got a better one just afterwards.
The only thing I was guaranteed in this game was the oscar for worst
film, while Steve O raked in stacks of points for four medium to high
scoring films and three end-of-game oscars. A massive victory. Result:
SO, TC, SG, JO.
We finished off the evening with Rage.
This is a recent edition of an older game. It is basically nomination
whist (where you have to predict how many tricks you will win each
hand) with some more chaotic cards added to make it less dry. The
special cards allow you to alter the trump colour or to add a points
bonus or penalty to the trick - often accompanied by curses or even
cheers from other players. Steve O felt that the game had too little
control, and scored particularly badly. Steve G, on the other hand,
seemed to demonstrate that skill was still a factor by getting his
prediction correct on seven or eight of the ten hands - impressive!
His winning score of 74 was more than the rest of us put together
(29, 27, 6). A fun game, that adds interest to the basic nomination
whist format - like Canyon does. Result: SG, TC, JO, SO.
By the way, don't miss the advert for CarterCon at the top of the
page. Get along if you can.
13th September
I arrived tonight in time to join in a game of Speed
Circuit. This is a motor racing game that probably descends
from Formula One. Each turn, players simultaneously choose the speed
their car is going to travel at, and this determines how many spaces
they move. There are maximum speeds for each space near a corner -
although these can be exceeded slightly if you can stick to the racing
line through the whole corner. At the start of the race you get to
spend points on customising your car's top speed, max acceleration,
max braking and reliability - I won't waste points on top speed next
time. I wasn't very impressed with it. I started at the back, managed
to make up a couple of places around the middle, but ended last again.
I would be very surprised if it was possible to win from starting
at the back. Even if you could, I still think it would be a bit tedious.
Result: SG, SO, GC, MH, TC.
Next up I got out the new edition of Shark
that I'd just got. It is pretty much the same as it's always been
except that the layout of the areas has changed and there are a few
mysterious grey hotels - that none of us felt any reason to use. The
new layout didn't help a lot and it was clear that the game was going
to go to those two who had cornered the valuable and stable green
shares early on, before the game ended when they reached a value of
15. Both of them got nearly half their score from green shares alone.
Result: MH, SO, GC, TC, SG.
6th September
Back at the club tonight after missing a few weeks through holidays,
etc. In that time, I had also discovered the delights of the on-line
boardgames site Brettspielwelt.
If you want to know more about this excellent games playing web site,
drop me a line. And if you already know about it, look me up there
- my user name is Trev (believe it or not...).
And in fact, our games evening had a bit of a flavour of Brettspielwelt,
with three of the games we played being available at that site. First
up was Carcassonne, the extremely popular
Spiel des Jahres winner. I explained the third edition rules on farmers
to the others and we played using those. Result: TC, CD, SG, MH, GC.
Next up was Bier Börse. I had asked
Chris to bring this along as it was a version of Bazaar - that I had
learnt and become attached to at 'the Welt' (Brettspielwelt). Each
turn you are able to collect a token or swap a combination of tokens
for another combination based on an equivalence chart. By doing so,
you attempt to fulfill one of the four 'contracts' of five tokens
on offer. You then score points depending on how many unused tokens
you have left after supplying the contract. This version of the game
was less pretty than the version reproduced at the Welt and the use
of beer adverts and labels made the patterns of colours harder to
see than in the visually simpler version that I was used to. Still,
my experience didn't help me a huge amount and Mick sailed away with
the game. Chris, on the other hand, said he wouldn't be playing it
again - but also wouldn't let me buy it cheap. Huh! Result: MH, GC,
SG, TC, CD.
Into a club favourite, Und Tschüss.
This time, Steve shot ahead and won by 39 points, while 13 separated
the rest of us! Result: SG, TC, GC, MH, CD.
And lastly, to get it off my chest, I introduced them to a hand of
Tichu. This is another excellent game
I have discovered at the Welt and have made a set from a normal pack
of cards until I get to buy a pretty 'real' one. It is a four player
partnership card game in the same mould as Career Poker, etc - where
you have to get rid of your cards. There is a lot of depth to the
game and the interplay between you and your partner is one of the
attractions of the game. No result, because we only played one demonstration
hand. I'm hoping to reintroduce it sometime we get four players.
9th August
Crikey! I wasn't late today for a change. Mostly because Steve G
had given me lift. We started with a game of his - Espresso.
This is one of those 'all play at the same time', speed games. Everyone
deals themselves a stack of twelve cards and turns three face up.
Then you turn over the rest of your cards in threes with the aim of
playing cards to a discard pile for each suit. However, you must play
cards in sequence - 0 through 8, back to 0, etc - rather like a game
of patience. If possible, you play cards from the twelve in front
of you, if not you play from your other cards to try to create openings
for the twelve - or the three face up ones anyway. The trouble is
that there is only one discard pile per suit shared among all the
players, so just as you think "Oh, there's a space for my blue
3", someone else puts one there first - and probably the 4 and
5 as well...
One of those games that leaves you edgy and jumpy, a hand ends when
someone knocks their twelve initial cards down to three - that player
gets a five point bonus. Otherwise, you score the value of the cards
you manage to play to the discard pile (everyone's set has different
backs). I did appallingly on the first hand, scoring only 8 compared
to Mick's 47! However, my score per hand improved with each hand,
whilst the others tended to be more variable - including Steve's drop
to 10 points for the last hand. Mick scored pretty well on all rounds
in order to seal an easy victory. Result: MH, TC, SG, BH, sG.
Next we played a couple of races of Ave
Caesar, the excellent game of racing chariots, in which I seemed
to have a one-legged horse as I lost badly - I was even beaten by
one of the two dummy chariots we had in the races. Actually, I chiefly
lost the first race by not being able to get into the 'pits' after
the second lap when Mick managed to block me after I played my cards
particularly badly. Doh! By, they way, Ben sat out this one as he
doesn't like it - he read some rules for my Cheapass games instead.
Result: sG, MH, SG, dummy1, TC, dummy2.
And so on to another old favourite that I got well and truly stuffed
at - Exxtra. Steve soon led the
way round the board and got very close to the finish line where we
all concentrated on keeping him back. The others closed the gap while
this was going on - passing me in the process, but eventually Steve
broke through for the win. Result: SG, MH, sG+BH, TC.
It was a day for old favourites, as we played Space
Beans next. At last I had some better luck at this, getting and
keeping a lead from about mid-way, although Steve was very close behind
at the finish. Result: TC, SG, BH, MH+sG.
We finished off with a game (or maybe two) of Fluxx.
I think really there were two games and Ben won the first one, but
there was some confusion about whether face down keepers (because
of Government Cover Up card) could count for a victory. I said 'not'
at the time, but I think I was probably wrong, now. Anyway, we carried
on and Mick won the 'second' game. Result: MH+BH, TC+SG+sG.
2nd August
Very, very low turnout. I arrived quite late to find that Steve O
had been with his boy Jonathan, but they had left before I got there
because they brought no games.
26th July
Good turnout tonight, including a couple of children now that the
school holidays have started. Everyone was playing something when
I got there, so I watched Chris and Cara finish off a game of Sumo.
Chris had just bought this two-playre game which features large models
of the sumo wrestlers and the sumo ring. Players play cards simultaneously
to represent their attempted move and the combination of these determines
the outcome - with one of the wrestlers moving backwards until one
is pushed out of the ring. It seemed to have been quite fun and certainly
looks nice, but I don't know how good the actual gaming is. The result
was one win each from two bouts.
Everyone else was still playing, so we carried on with Klunker.
I seem to have trouble getting people to play this excellent Rosenberg
card game. Perhaps it's because you have to have played once or twice
to appreciate the subtleties and how to manipulate the cards to your
advantage and others detriment. There is a balance required, for example,
in what you put in your window - too good and you help the others
too much, too bad and you can't shift it. The experience told this
time and I won fairly easily, but I think the others were at least
interested and would play again. Result: TC, CD, CN.
The children were looking for a game at this point, so we let them
join us for a game of Big Deal that Chris
had picked up for me. This is one of those games that has grown on
me over my first two playings and is one of those rare business games
that I like (along with Tycoon). Generally it is quite a quick moving
game of buying and selling resources (four types whose price is dependent
on demand), opening companies (with two or more shares and certain
required resources and, best of all, taking over other players' companies.
The game strongly features these hostile takeovers, which are conducted
by the attacker showing one or more shares in the company and then
offering a price per share for those of the defender. The defender
must either accept and sell the company, or must offer an increased
price per share for the shares of the attacker. Eventually someone
gives in, but the rules favour the attacker because the defender can
only use cash in hand, whilst the attacker can sell things to raise
the necessary cash after the deal is struck. Also, if the attacker
has the resources to immediately re-open the company, they get a bonus
payment from the bank. As if all that wasn't bad enough, takeover
cards allow the attacker to get out of paying for one or more of the
purchased shares!
So, all in all a game that encourages fairly aggressive behaviour.
Chris pointed out that it was also a useful game for introducing non-gamers
to as the theme, artwork, etc, while attractive, is very adult and
respectable. It can also take a long time and players need to keep
things moving if it is to be finished in under two hours. Sophie suffered
a bit from this as she was having some trouble with the ideas and
was obviously tired (being the youngest), but we didn't have the time
to keep explaining all the possible repercussions of what she could
do and so had to leave it to her - crikey, I feel really heartless
just now... :-( . Result: TC, CN, CD, JO, sG.
I didn't record all the games that happened tonight. Mick was keeping
notes from the other table, but I forgot to get them off him. What
I did record were:
- Tally Ho. Result: JO, sG
- Venture. Result: SO, SG+MH, SK.
- Mamma Mia. Result: SG, ??,
etc.
19th July
Only five of us tonight and we played games most of us were familiar
with. I turned up to find three of them playing Mamma
Mia, with Steve K watching. Result: SO, GC+SC.
Once they'd finished that, I showed them Limits,
which Steve had been keen to play for a while. See a few weeks ago
for a description. I'm finding that experience at memorising the current
limit cards and counting the other cards played is helping me play
it better and I seem to be able to beat any inexperienced players.
Tonight was no exception. It's not easy though, and leaves my brain
throbbing. The other thing about the game is that it is virtually
impossible to talk during a hand for fear of all that card-counting
collapsing in your head. So it tends to be played in bouts of extreme
concentration and even muttering, interpersed with brief periods of
relaxation as the result of each challenge is worked out and the next
limit card is turned over. Result: TC, SO, SC, SK, GC.
We then played Andromeda -
somewhat easier on the brain as there is a respectable element of
chance in it. Although I got off to a slow start, I won with a late
surge. Steve O was mid-game leader although he kept denying it and
claiming he was doing badly - despite the fact that this is a game
where there is very little you can do about the leader anyway. Habit,
I suppose. Result: TC, SO, GC, SK, SC.
12th July
I arrived to find that Chris had just explained the rules for Barbarossa.
This is a reissue of an older Klaus Teuber game and Spiel des Jahres
winner. It sounds a little odd at first because players have to make
models out of plasticine and then guess what each other have made.
This tends to make you think it is going to be a bit childish (or
drunken adultish - much the same thing), but don't judge it without
playing as it is quite fun and mentally challenging. You can ask each
other yes/no type questions to get more information, but you don't
want too much given away as someone else may guess the model before
you get a chance (you can interrupt a certain number of times). The
game also gives points to the makers of the models which are guessed
neither near the beginning, nor near the end of the game, so encouraging
players to pitch the realism of their models just right.
There wasn't enough space for me to play, and Geoff hadn't liked
the sound of it, so we agreed to let them carry on while we played
some two player games. Chris was happy with this as it enabled him
to make the same models that he had done every time he'd played the
game so far - I won't tell you what they are in case you have a game
with him. Anyway, it didn't help him win. Result: SO, MH, CD, BH,
JO.
First off Geoff and I tried out Fight City.
This is an older two player game from Cheapass that has recently been
re-released in 'box and glossy cards' format. I'm afraid we didn't
really get into it before it had ended and we certainly weren't keen
to play it again straight away. I'll try to get some more games in
somewhere, to see if things improve. Result: TC, GC.
Next it was Geoff's turn, and he showed me The Seven Hills Of Rome
from Knizia's Neue Spiel Im Alten Rom
collection. This is perhaps a very early version of the ideas that
led to Lost Cities and Schotten Totten. There are seven hill cards
valued one to seven and players take it in turns to play cards against
them for control. When only one player has played against a hill,
they play face down, however, when the second player plays against
the same hill, the cards there are turned face up. Each player has
the same set of cards. So, ideally, you want to gain control of some
hills by narrow margins and give away some others (of lower total
value) by large margins. There is a distinct advantage in going second
- so predictable that, in both the games we played, the player who
went first scored 13 and the player who went second scored 15. Another
one I won't be rushing back to. Result 1: TC, GC. Result 2 : GC, TC.
There was a rearrangement of the groups at this point and I only
seem to have got details of what my group played. We continued with
Wyatt Earp, the excellent 'mystery rummy
but not mystery rummy' game. This is a nicely balanced rummy, but
I think it needs the maximum four players to work well. I even managed
to walk away with a massive 25 to 15 win, the next two places being
close at 13 and 12. Result: TC, GC, CD, MH.
So then we ended up with another game of Pepper
(see last week). This time I did a lot better than last and got zero.
Geoff attempted to repeat his performance from last week, but could
only get 78 points rather than infinity. Mick had the double problem
of getting 32 points AND of having Ben leaning over his shoulder near
the end and telling him how he had got zero last week and that Mick
really needed to get less points if he wanted to win... Chris will
think it remiss of me if I don't now report that he almost took the
lead with a score of three. As last week, the game was generally enjoyed
by all - possibly even Geoff. Result: TC, CD, MH, GC.
5th July
Much like a couple of weeks ago, they were warming up with one hand
of a card game for fewer players, although this time, with Und
Tschüss, they had a game that plays well with six or seven,
despite what it says on the box. Geoff won the one hand they played.
Splitting into two groups, my group of five played Africa.
This game from Reiner Knizia has come in for a lot of bandwagon criticism
for being too simple, especially from intellectual snobs. I've enjoyed
it every time I've played it and find that, although it is a light
and fast moving game (which I like), there are ample opportunities
for strategy and interaction to come into play, especially with five
players, when there is always someone close enough to dash in and
take away your carefully built scoring opportunity - or to put a hippo
right in the middle of it.
So, despite all that - I stll managed to lose quite badly. I led
round the scoring track for most of the game but was always low in
the end-of-game scoring stakes. The others didn't give Steph quite
the run on gold that I expected them to. Result: SC, GC, SK, TC, BH.
Afterwards, I introduced them to Pepper,
a game I just picked up at my local games shop sale. This is basically
a simple trick taking game where the idea is to keep down the number
of cards you win and to certainly avoid winning any pepper cards (the
value 1 cards in each suit). Pepper cards are never held in your hand,
but are laid face up in front of you for all to see - however they
are still be played as though part of your hand (except that you cannot
lead with one). Also, if you win a pepper card in a trick, you add
it to those in front of you - it can still be played to further tricks.
At the end of the hand, you score negative pints for each pepper card
you have - and for each other card you have of the same suit as your
pepper cards.
This is one of those games, like hearts, where you need to get rid
of dangerous, trick wining cards early and avoid having the lead late
in the hand - otherwise you will find all those pepper cards wending
their way back to you.... Ben sailed through the game, picking up
no points and was keen that I reported here that it was "remarkable
how perfect he was". Hmmmm. Meantime, Geoff had so many points
after the third hand that we rcorded his score as 'infinity'. Result:
BH, SC, SK, TC, GC.
And while we were doing that, the others played Wettsreit
der Baumeister (Result: SG, MH, NC, SO) and two games from
Neue Spiel Im Alten Rom, the collection
of small games by Knizia.
After Geoff took his kids home, the rest of us rounded off with a
full game of Und Tschüss.
Result: BH, SG, TC, SK, SO, MH.
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