GamesReport: 10-Jun-12 Thieves of Cadwallon

The KoffeeKlub welcomed back Chris McClung this week. Chris had been an occasional Arkham member before that centre closed its doors and he is a friend from the tabletopnorth club in Belfast however this was Chris' first visit to the KoffeeKlub in Whitehead Primary. He got a introduction to the style of  play that we refer to as 'friendly competition' but could be more accurately described as backstabbing and treachery.

We started with a game of Thieves of Cadwallon. Normally we like to start with a few pick-up games and GaryG had brought Bhonanza for that purpose. However after reading some reviews of the Cadwallon game on boardgamegeek we decided that if we could get done with our first game in an hour or so that we could get a game of Pandemic in afterwards. To this end we attempted to set up and explain the rules in super quick time and this probably led to some confusion of the rules and mistakes being made. In the end the game took us two and a half hours to play. Needless to say we didn't get a second game in.

We will write up a players impression post on Thieves of Cadwallon in due time, but I think it is fair to say that whilst we all enjoyed the experience there was a feeling that the game was flawed in design and didnt have the depth of play that would mark it as an instant classic. The component are lovely and the ebb and flow of the game was fun. There were ample opportunities to do over your fellow players which always goes down well.

The game started well for AndyA who amassed a large amount off treasure in a single room and faced of a number of assaults from the guards and from fellow players and took an impressive lead. This lead to AndyA being targetted by a series of attacks leaving him much weaker later in the game. Chris took the lead in the mid game with strong use of the arcana cards to slow opponent characters down and during attacks. GaryG and GaryB played the long game and gathered loot and ducats of the rest of the players.

When became clear that GaryB was planning to win the game by looting the Duke's treasury by use of scenario specific special rule all of the rest of the players ganged up to prevent this from happening but in the end through use of a character special ability GaryB was able to sneak a thief into the treasure and successfully loot the amassed coins. The game swung in the balance between the two Gary's and it was down to GaryB making a second attempt to loot the treasury in the dying turns of the game. Victory then depended on a successful roll of 4 or under on a six sided dice (GaryB rolled a 4). After the use of a teleportation arcane card the plucky thief was able to skip out of the quarter before the guards and other players were able to stop here. Victory was assured.

League results: After a game of Thieves of Cadwallon scoring 5 beans to the winner and 3 to the runner up: GaryB was awarded 5 beans and GaryG was awarded 3 beans.

League results: After 4 games of Bluff scoring 2 beans to the winner and 1 to the runner up: GaryG and AndyA scored 2 wins each totalling 4 beans each. GaryB was runner-up in all 4 games earning him 4 beans.