GamesReports: 3/10/17-Feb-13 Power Grid, Twilight Struggle and Modern Art

Modern Art

With work and weddings (not mine!), I've had little enough time to sleep, never mind post-up on what's been happening at the KoffeeKlub. That being said, our gaming hasn't suffered as we try out some of the spice of life. Variety.

3rd of February Session - Power Grid
Normally we have five players for KoffeeKlub evenings and five is a bit of a sweet spot for Power Grid, one of the finest Eurogames ever created.

Playing on the classic German map, we introduced both ChrisG and DaveB to the game for the first time. I think the jury's out a little for some of the KoffeeKlub players on Euro-style games as a whole, but everyone seemed to have a good time with Power Grid and so I'll keep throwing a few into the mix every now and then.

Power Grid

10th of February Session - Twilight Struggle
I've bleated on and on about just how good Twilight Struggle is to some of the KoffeeKlub players and our 2-player games evening gave us the perfect opportunity to roll it out, even if I was taking on more of a back-seat teaching roll and not actually playing myself.

ChrisG (US) and AndyA (USSR) fought out a bitter cold war, but in the end the Soviets came out on top by a few victory points. It looks like Twilight Struggle could feature again in our next KoffeeKlub meeting, alongside 1989: Dawn Of Freedom. GaryB defeated DaveB in some Dreadball at the other end of the table.

Twilight Struggle

17th of February Session - Modern Art & Pandemic
My copy of Modern Art is the 1996 Mayfair edition (pictured) and it looks entirely unappealing, but behind the naff components is a great little auction game which again plays well with 5-players.

Modern Art

The game itself is simple enough to pick-up, but it takes a little mental maths to get the best deals in buying or selling paintings. Some players were extremely generous (DaveB I'm looking at you.) in selling some of their fixed-price paintings, whilst others (AndyA) blew crazy money on paintings worth around half the price that they paid!?

Still, lots of great speech-play and fun to be had. A classic!

I'm restricting Pandemic to a one-liner, simply because we failed at it again... Bluff remains our favourite filler, with a nod towards Bucket King too.

As always the stars are those who make it to KoffeeKlub each week. Characters one and all!

 

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KoffeeKlub Evening 10th February

It's a weekend for two player boardgames @KoffeeKlub with A Few Acres Of Snow, Twilight Struggle, Dreadball and my newly acquired 1989: Dawn Of Freedom on offer.

Why not join us if you fancy trying any of the games below.

KoffeeKlub meet at The Black Knight Gaming Centre every Sunday between 7pm and 11pm.

GamesReport: 28-Dec-12 Dreadball!

On the last Friday of 2012 I took my son Jack down to The Black Knight Gaming Centre in Larne for a try at Mantic Games newest Boardgame. I'm a big fan of Games Workshop's Bloodbowl and the classic Bitmap Brothers Speedball games so this game ticked a number of boxes for me. I wanted a game that I could play with 11 year old son so Dreadball was worth a shot.

AndyA was on hand to demonstrate the game for us and in no time Jack had a evil looking band of less than merry Orcs and Goblins facing my wimpy looking Humans. We got some of the rules wrong but we certainly got a solid feel of the gameplay in the first game. Jack's Orcs ran rampant and by the end of about four turns, called Rushes in the game, he had killed most of my team, scored a strike, and crucial removed my final player from the field. Needless to say he was enjoying himself.

We fired up a second game with Dad taking a much more careful strategy of targeting of the more squishy goblins and using dodging more often. I got the win, but some of this must be put down to a tired opponent. I can see a lot more tactical options in this game which will come to the fore after playing a few matches and having your players get more experience and abilities.

Overall I was very happy with the game and can recommend it as a light and fun game best enjoyed as part of a league.

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