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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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Oops - I seem to be getting behind on the blogging front. Prepare for a quick double salvo from the Welsh Marches.
A gratifying turn-out this week, with Ad and Elaine visiting from Hereford, plus a fair sprinkling of regulars, for seven all-told.
With Boydell predictably lagging behind, Ad introduced Becky, Ben, Bill and JP to King Of Tokyo, a gratifying little Monopoly Yahtzee clone with Godzilla theming and a deliberately huge deck of modifier cards. I really enjoyed it, and regretted turning down the opportunity to buy it the week before (when, not having BGG access for reference, I opted for the irredeemably poor Zombies instead). I can only hope Waterstones in Gloucester still has a copy to spare next time I'm in.
With Tony having arrived, it was time to get down to meatier things. Becky and JP were as keen as ever to play Guilds Of London (one of the best of Tony's designs, a cross between area-control and hand management, and one which I'm surprised to see shuffled behind Snowdonia in Surprised Stare's print queue). According to later reports, they promptly got thrashed by the game's designer on colony placements, which is something of a rarity for prototypes around our way. Meanwhile, I taught Ad and Elaine Ankh-Morpork as promised, and made them learn the hard way by snapping up The Shades to support my Dragon King Of Arms trouble-spreading efforts. Good to play with two people who know the theme, though!
With Guilds still ongoing on the other table, we opted to break out Dominion for a quick three-hander while JP and Tony weren't looking (they do NOT play Dominion...). I usually make a record of the Kingdom cards but I seem to have omitted to do so this week - I do remember, however, that there were no 2- or 3-cost cards, which meant a lot of initial silver-spamming. Ad amused himself by creating long chains of Inns, Elaine crucially neglected to go Big Money enough (although she came back for a surprisingly strong endgame), and I went in for Farmland and Harem combos, picking up enough to buy a couple of Colonies at the end. So both tables had a winner on colonies - hence this week's title!
Switcheroo time: Bill joined Ad, Elaine and I for Snow Tails, while Becky, Tony and John went in for some abuse of Innovation. Despite Becky's incessant Pirate Codes (man, does she like that card?), Tony managed to come through relatively unscathed; meanwhile Elaine found dog-sledding very much to her liking and cruised through what was supposed to be a medium-difficulty track, leaving me a pathetic last. Hmph.
JP's table had, by this time, moved onto King's Gate - a game about which I heard nothing but complaints - so we had time for one last card game. Bill professed to know the rules to Bottle Imp, although the explanation left me far from convinced, so we played one very befuddled hand, with the promise that I would look up some clarifications in short order.
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Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
