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Oxford Meeples Boardgaming Month - November
Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Oxford Meeples
 meet every Tuesday in North Oxford. This list is to catalog our months gaming.
We have our own website http://www.oxfordmeeples.org where you can find directions to where we are. Please feel free to contact us and come down and play, we are looking for new members.
My prediction for the month is that many many Essen releases will get played (though none of us went, we did have friends that attened, plus we are pre-ordering everything off our favourite board game webstores (or is that just me!).
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 1/11/11
Plays: 2
INCLUDED: Survival expansion
After downloading v2 of the rules on the day of club, I proceeded to read the rules while (working) at work. These updated rules helped a lot when explaining to the 3 others playing. The explanation took a long while, plus leaving the trading aspect of the game until the end might of been a mistake.
Game 1: No one was the host from the initial cards drawn out, the 2nd person in the group then explored, moved into a room and searched for 3 cards (rooms 'ability'), guessing he could get infected I shouted out, well he's now the host! It seems that this was enough to draw him out of cover and attack us all (very stealthy)! In fact, with it very clear who the host was, the first game was very enjoyable and the human team came out winners, though it was extremely tough with all parasites on the board/cards/rooms!
Game 2: Because the rules took so long and the game play seemed nice but short, we went straight into a 2nd game. Again, the host was revealed nice and early. Basically after a trade happened with the host and another human, the human walked out the room, turned round and then chucked a grenade in. This action alone made all other humans non trusting of the host and we all spent the next turn either shooting him or knifing him to death! So, after a quick scan to reveal no infections, the 2nd game was purely parasites vs humans! This battle was actually quite difficult, especially as all players had only a couple of actions each from parasite attacks! But eventually the humans did destroy the hive.
Fun first experience, but a learning curve for the hosts!
I'm sure this will be played at club again soon.
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 1/11/11
Plays: 2 (well one and a half really as we ran out of time)
Game 1: All 7 players joined up at the end of the night to play Bang, we had 1 sheriff, 2 Deputies, 1 renegade, and 3 outlaws. I was an outlaw, so clearly after the sheriff, the only problem was that the person sitting next to me had pulled out a howitzer early, so everyone (within range) round the table ganged up on him and eliminated him early! He turned out to be the renegade so no harm done. Now, before attacking the Sheriff, I was bizarrely after another member of the group (there are no friends at Oxford Meeples), this guy had won all 4 games of Bang! before and he was a very proud winner ... I couldn't have that. So after he was knocked out (I think or someone might of got the sheriff first, he did turn out to be the deputy so either way he did lose his first game ... tasting his first defeat for some time!), we did kill off the sheriff!
Game 2: I went after the sheriff in this battle very early, and he picked on me as well. I love PvP games, there are extremely fun to pick battles, especially with lighter and enjoyable/light-hearted games (which is why King of Tokyo is one of my favourite games)! The sheriff managed to kill me off and I was revealed to be ... the deputy!! This shock revelation was highly amusing, as the Sheriff seemed very happy to get rid of his back stabbing deputy  ... the game ended short, but in truth the sheriff was in a very strong position.
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 1/11/11
Plays: 1
I didn't get to play this game, but all accounts were that it was an extremely good game. In fact, the response I had was, "Pete, you have to play this game, it's Bril" ... that'll work for me. Great game, with cards ... everyone knows that I'm a cards fanatic. I am really looking forward to playing this game, plus it looks like it scales well!
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 1/11/11
Plays: 1?
Again, I didn't get a chance to play yet another Essen released game, but from watching the video that BGG created with Martin Wallace, this game looks like a truely awesome filler and I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to play it. Great to see the proceeds going to a worthwhile charity
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 8/11/11
Plays: 1
Finally the other half of the group got to play with Essen release game. I have to say that I'm seriously impressed with the amount of depth to the game considering it has two decks of cards and a few tokens. Ok, it's no L5R, but it's a great game with many paths to win and such a well thought through set of mechanics as well as layers of complexity. I completely missed this game when the list of Essen games were being announced thick and fast, this game was well picked up by Andy!
As for the events of the evening. Everyone started off quite slowly, being dictated by the current conditions on the game (superb mechanic that). As the game started to click with people some clear strategies became clear. One person went after ships and commanders, I went after money (once I increased my hand size slightly), others were creating an engine to amass big points late on (a typical tactic of Andy's), but the winner went for the get 1-9 and a gold strategy! He got it while I was on 71, 4 points away from winning!
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 8/11/11
Plays: 1
Another Essen release game, or in fact it's a re-release game.
This is a game of confrontation and chaos, and certainly not everyones cup of tea.
The premise for the game is very clever and the execution is equally impressive.
You have heroes to fight the dragons and then you split the rewards. The rewards need to be split with mutual consent and within a time limit!
My problem is that I either didn't always agree, or got a particular gem that I didn't want. My frustrations level rose a little, but then it's not really a game to take too seriously. One reason not to get too involved with your turn/state is the random (seriously random) event cards that you can play on each other. There really is some bizarre stuff you can do on opponents!
The game went down well, but I can see people shying away from it at times (or maybe that might be just me!)
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 15/11/11
Plays: 1
A two player evening started with Ankh-Morpork. After reminding myself how the game is setup, we finally got started. Typically one of us had a Lord card as a secret mission, but the other was Lord Vetenari, which was the first time I've played with him in play. The game finished with the lord getting 7 area controls, but I hadn't noticed that Vetenari was only to minions away from sneaking a victory! Close game!
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 15/11/11
Plays: 2
First attempt at playing this two player, and it played really well, I think the game has a sweet spot with three players though! Great little filler this! After winning the first game, it was my opponents first time playing it so he was just getting used to the mechanics and actions on the clans. We played another game straight away and this game was a lot close, the lead was swapped many times thanks to low scoring supporters!
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 15/11/11
Plays: 1
Expansion used: Bonus Planets
A close game with two very different strategies again, for the first time I went for a colony strategy and not a warfare approach. Then I went for planets with bonus icons, but only colony and research (plus big scoring planets). The other player went for a warfare plus research/trade strategy. the game was really close, but the colony strategy won again! I haven't watched a warfare victory yet!!
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Andy Gordon
United Kingdom
Carterton
Oxfordshire
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It was also the next monthly installment of the the Oxford Meeples D&D campaign.
As per normal it involved lots of epic fails on the dice front mainly from Danni the groups rogue.
She now is on a quest for glory,
in a muddy pit fighting ghosts for a posh set of sparkly daggers that only exist in her mind, 
whislst upsetting as many other group members as possible,
all thanks to some evil demonic gold 
and the voices in her head telling her everything is OK.
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Andy Gordon
United Kingdom
Carterton
Oxfordshire
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The best game of the night was lets find the hall keys that I lost.
After vast amounts of swearing, a phone call, mild panic we won the game and found them.
WOOT
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Peter Jackson
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Played: 22/11/11
Plays: 2
After a slighlty late start, (I think myself and Robin thought we'd end up alone and finding a PvP game to continue our rivally on!) Dave and James turned up along with a new member, Chris.
Our first game of Sentinels included, Dave as Legacy, Chris as Fanatic, Pete as Absolute Zero, Robin as Bunker, and James as Tempest.
We decided to fight against Baron Blade on 'easy' mode, though it didn't sound that easy. Oh and we fought in some Jurasic world!
The theme in this game is excellent, though we soon realised that each character did have a unique feel and I was struggling to come to terms with the idea of damaging myself and not the opponent (I clearly didn't have the right cards in my hand to deflect the damage!).
It actually turned out that the Baron wasn't too difficult, espcially as Bunker had setup a small gun barrage from every possible place within his suit!
So with Victory in sight, Absolute Zero decided take go for a massive hit on Baron and Bunker (who said we should fight together  ) ... and when Bunker got his go that round he also went for multiple targets!!! So, with Baron dead, the earth saved, and super heroes 'almost' back on speaking terms, we went for a 2nd game!
This time we went up against some guy called Voss, again on 'easy' setting, this fight took place in Mars, and the heroes were, Dave was Legacy once more (though he did take a most of the damage in the last game, and we let him!), James was the Wraith, Chris was Fanatic (who seems a tad awesome), Robin was Bunker (a character which looks a lot of fun to play) and I was Ra!
This time we had Minion overload and all of us were balancing health and waves of troublesome Minions! I think it took all of us a while to gather enough power attacks and defence to move all the minions out the way, but then really went to town on Voss. With time running out in the evening, we just defeated him!
Overall the games 'could' of gone a lot quicker, but in truth it wouldn't of been such a fun game, with every new power and ability being added to everyone's hand, we all shared in discovering new abilities. This game has shot up to rival any other co-op game I've played or own!!
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Posted Sat Nov 5, 2011 9:56 am
