Showing posts with label Whitehead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Whitehead. Show all posts

Monday, 22 October 2012

Gamesreport: 22-Oct-12 Ascension:Storm Of Souls

In a slight change of direction from the proposed game Michael, Chris and GaryB played Ascension: Storm of Souls on Sunday evening at Whitehead Primary School. The previously announced Paths of Glory was perused but postponed due to the limited time available. We are still keen to play this game at the KoffeeKlub though we may schedule all day Saturday game to tackle it in the near future.

I was very interested to play Ascension having read positive reviews about it and also about the iOS version of the game. So Michael ran a learning game for Chris and myself and gave us a solid insight into the strategy of the game. AndyB was very kind to provide the eponymous coffee for which michael and I were very grateful. Chris was there to prove the point that you do not need to be a coffee drinker to be welcome at Koffeeklub.

Ascension is a deck building game which reminds me of Thunderstone though perhaps it is not so tightly themed. The purpose of the game is to amass honour by defeating monster and to defeat more powerful monsters by buying heroes and constructs whilst keeping your deck from bloating out of control. Standard deck-building fare by all accounts. There are multiple factions, and styles of play and with more than the two games that we got through under my belt I think I could get to the subtleties of the game.

The game plays well and feels lighter and faster than other similar type games I have played lately. The first game went very much Michael's way. He knew the cards that could damage his style of play and banished them (removed from the game) as soon as they came out. He amassed a large number of constructs which worked extremely well together whilst Chris and I, basically, played the cards as they came up mostly without any deep strategy and the result was that Michael won handsomely 110(Michael)-73(GaryB)-72(Chris)

The playing board is not really required
Chris had to bow out early and the second game was a two player match between Michael and myself. This time I played much better clearing out my weaker cards from my deck early and replacing these with stronger cards. By the middle of the game I was comfortably in the lead with and efficient deck and Michael was chasing a little. His experience showed through as he gradually clawed back the lead and finally we finished the game with a score of 78-77 honour, with the victory going to Michael.

Thank you for Michael for bringing down the game and introducing it to us. I really enjoyed Ascension and would definitely play the game again. I will be checking out the iOS version though I am a little worried that playing the electronic version of the game with its automation and ease of play could take away from the enjoyment of the physical version. I will have to see.

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

KoffeeKlub Evening 5th of August

FAB Sicily
British troops during the invasion of Sicily
At last! Three weeks of drooling and I finally get a first play of FAB Sicily from GMT games.

For this week, due to extended setup requirements, I'll be hosting the game this week from home. If you'd still like to join us on Sunday 5th of August 2012 from 7-11pm please post a comment here.

The coffee? Got to be an espresso!

 

Monday, 30 July 2012

GamesReport 29-Jul-12: A Few Acres Of Snow AAR


AndyA and I met up this evening for his first game of A Few Acres Of Snow, by Martin Wallace. I've played this a number of times face-to-face and many more times online through Yucata, so the balance of probability was strongly leaning in my direction. 

First contact was between Kennebec and Fort Halifax
That being said I'm a huge fan of the game and eager to share that experience with new players whenever I get the chance. 

I spent a good 30 minutes walking through the rules and then guided him through the first few turns to make sure that he felt comfortable with the options available.

AndyA - British / GaryG - French 

Game On!
Money, Money, Money...
During the early game I settled Kennebec threatening to raid Fort Halifax / Permaquid / Deerfield with Indians, but he managed to shore up Fort Halifax pretty quickly and made Kennebec and Quebec vulnerable to similar counter raiding actions. 

The British concentrated much of their early actions in building up cash reserves and using it to buy new empire cards (Rangers, Home Support etc.). 

This money was under a constant piracy threat from the French around Louisburg and gradually through spending and piracy the British coffers ran dry.


The British port of Halifax falls to an Indian raid
By turn 13 the British had settled both Halifax and Fort Beausejour opening up new raid possibilities between these colonies and the valuable French Port Royal. I had become a little complacent and despite taking my first cube (from Halifax), I left the 3VP Port Royal unprotected for two turns. The counter-raid however didn't happen and I got away with it, but it could have been a costly mistake on my part.

This proved to be a bit of a wake-up call for me and a turning point in the game. Both decks were getting unwieldy and needed more than a little thinning with the governor cards. I purchased a settler card and began a program of upgrading settlements so that I could dump the location card through my governor. Soon I was down to only 3 or 4 disks remaining, whilst AndyA still had 8. 

Niagra, Presqu'ile and Detroit. Key expansion for the French
This deck thinning was coupled with a westward push to settle Fort Niagra, Fort Presqu'ile and ultimately the hugely valuable Detroit. 

The British had little in response, although they did settle as far as Cumberland to the west and threatened Indian raids along that side of the board. 

The final French play


It was all too little too late and I managed to close off the game by upgrading Fort Niagra and using up the last of my disks.

Scores  

AndyA - British 43 
GaryG - French 63


Final Thoughts

A hugely enjoyable game as always, but over-confidence on my part would have proved costly against a more experienced player. AndyA played very well for his first game and picked it all up very quickly indeed. Hopefully he now has a taste for the game and is already thinking about what he could do differently next time. 

Ultimately, AFAOS is a game that offers many strategies, but doesn't often reward you for trying to encompass too many of them into one game. 

Cheers again for the game Andy!

Thursday, 26 July 2012

GamesReport 22-Jul-12: Caylus Magna Carta

AndyA - Holiday Snaps
With AndyA (aka "Captain Pugwash") back-from-sea, we opened up with Caylus Magna Carta, a light Eurogame from Ystari Games. I've been a big fan of Euro-style games ever since I picked up a German version of Settlers of Catan back in the late 90s. Indeed for a number of years during my time with BGA, a local gaming group currently based in Bangor (County Down), I collected few other types of games and added the likes of Notre Dame, Auf Heller Und Pfennig, El Grande, Euphrat & Tigris, Ra, Thurn Und Taxis, Lost Cities, 6 Nimmt! and many more to my collection.
It all started in Catan

Great gaming years, but ones that drifted as board gaming became more mainstream again and so-called Ameri-trash titles caught my eye. I still have most of my old Euros and hope to continue drip-feeding them into KoffeeKlub's line-up in the coming weeks and months.

Caylus Magna Carta
Caylus Magna Carta (CMC), set in 1289 and themed around building a new castle for King Philip "The Fair" and is a lighter version of the Caylus board game. Whilst the theme and mechanics are similar CMC uses cards to represent the master builder's (players) progress in creating infrastructure along the road to support the castle being built. Like many Euros, CMC distills the actual building of the castle into a player drive for prestige points which can be gained from constructing new buildings, providing "batches" (1 stone + 1 food + 1 wood = 1 batch) of goods to build the castle and using effects from buildings already in play.

CMC: Food, Wood and Stone
Players begin with the same deck of buildings, drawing three random cards at the beginning of the game. Actions can be used to place workers on existing buildings, draw new cards, build new buildings from your hand (adding them to the road), building prestige buildings or passing out of that round. Once all players have passed they can pay to move the "Provost" (in pass turn order) up to 3 spaces along the road in either direction. A worker on any building beyond the Provost does not have an action this turn, so this can be a nice little way to mess with your opponents. Nice!

CMC: The Road
End-game is triggered once the last prestige point token has been claimed and the final prestige point totals are calculated for each layer to establish a winner. Careful resource, buildings and worker management are necessary for victory.

CMC: Player's Buildings
Our game went very smoothly and after a 20 minute rules walkthrough we kicked-off picking up the flow of play pretty quickly. In the end the final scores were pretty close...



Caylus Magna Carta: GaryG scored 48 points and was awarded 3 beans. AndyA scored 46 points and was awarded 1 bean. GaryB scored 39 points.

I like CMC, but feeling that it's play-time is a little too long for what is essentially a light Euro. Great to get it played again after so many years on the shelf.

For our last hour we drank coffee, chatted and played Bluff, which always raises a laugh or two.

Bluff: GaryG had two wins and three second places scoring 7 beans. GaryB had 3 wins and 1 second place scoring 7 beans. AndyA had two wins and 3 second places scoring 7 beans. Honours even.

Great gaming guys cheers!

Thursday, 19 July 2012

KoffeeKlub Evening 22nd of July

Caylus Magna Carta
This week at KoffeeKlub our featured game is Caylus Magna Carta, by Ystari Games. We'll be in Whitehead Primary School on Sunday 22nd of July 2012 from 7-11pm.

Moka Pot
Our coffee of the week will be a Percol Colombian grind brewed up in our Moka Pot. Please join us if you can, but be aware, coffee makes me nervous when I drink it. Mmm.

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Off The Shelf - Hammer of the Scots


Every so often KoffeeKlub looks at a game that's gathered a little too much dust on the gaming shelf. Through it's components, rules and general play we'll decide if it should have stayed there.

#1 Hammer of the Scots

Designers: Jerry Taylor / Tom Dalgliesh

Publisher: Columbia Games (2002)

Players: 2

Playing Time: 2-4 hours

Type: Block / Wargame

Ranked: 26th in the wargames category on (BGG)

Overview

Hammer of the Scots, now in it's 3rd Edition, is a block-based wargame that brings the War of Scottish Independence (1297-1314) to life. As the English player you seek to subdue a rebellion led by the Braveheart, William Wallace, and Robert the Bruce. As the Scottish player you must defeat the invading armies of Edward I and Edward II to win freedom.

In The Box

>A Full-color (22" x 25") map board of Scotland and Northern England with heraldry of the important noble families. This 3rd Edition features new artwork for the map and is shown below.
>58 wooden block counters including leaders, nobles, archers, knights, and infantrymen.
>Stickers for the wooden blocks.
>25 Event Cards.
>4 D6 dice
>An 8-page rulebook including two scenarios "Braveheart" and "The Bruce".

What's In The Box?
The Map
Generally the components are fine, especially the wooden block counters which have a nice feel to them. The stickers do need to be applied to the blocks before your first play, but this only takes ten or fifteen minutes.
Ol' Blue Face

The event cards are of average quality, so you may wish to consider sleeves to protect them during repeat plays.

My main gripe would be that the map board is not a mounted map and therefore requires some reverse bending to get it to sit properly on the table.

The Rules & Learning To Play

The 8-page rulebook is not too taxing and fairly straight-forward to follow. In fact I'm wondering why I haven't made the effort to tackle this one before now...

Beginning with "Braveheart" the first scenario, I was coming to terms with the fourteen nobles in the game. Each side has there own copy of each noble counter apart from the Moray counter, which comes only in blue (Scottish). These counters are switched in and out of the game as the nobles change allegiance, with only one version on the board at any given time.


I found a very useful example-of-play document on the geek to guide me through a staged opening to "Braveheart". I won't breakdown the rules here, but if you don't own the game already you can find a downloadable copy of the 3rd Edition rules at the Columbia Games site. (PDF Download of the rules)


Having now played a solo-game to walk-through the rules, I felt confident enough to set-up a game to teach a friend how to play. The best way to learn any game is to have someone who has played it before teach you. We didn't quite have that in this case, so I hoped that my preparation work would be enough to see us both through a full scenario successfully.




First Play AAR

Following a brief run-through on the rules, we dived right into the first scenario "Braveheart", with GaryB taking control of the Scottish vs. my English invaders.This particular scenario runs from 1297-1305 incl. a total of nine game years, but we only managed to get to 1300 in the time we had available.


"Braveheart" starting position (English Viewpoint)
Braveheart has a preset board position with little for either player to play around with in terms of set-up. A random element of this set-up was the four English unit selected randomly from the pool to begin the game in Northern England. The picture here shows my starting position in our game from the English viewpoint.


I had mostly Irish and Welsh units, which need to roll 1-4 when heading into battle or run off! 
 
(S) = Scottish Unit (E) = English Unit

1297 - The Scottish noble Moray (S) headed North for some easy pickings in Ross (E), but the local Lord sent him packing, nose bloodied and tail between his legs. The not-so-hardy Angus (E) switches to the Scots before our first major conflict in the game, "The Battle of the Scone". Wallace (S) & co manage to push the English back from Fife, but Angus (S) switches back to the English, demonstrating how fickle some of these Scottish Lords can be. Further south Galloway (S) is lost near Glasgow and towards the end of the year, having already engaged with the English once, chooses the easier target in Atholl. The Noble at Atholl (E) briefly rebels, but this is quashed quickly by Wallace (S).

1298 - Following a harsh Winter turn, the English attempt to take back some of the ground lost last year. Indeed, the now Scottish noble Atholl (S) is almost defeated, but instead finds shelter in the nearby Lochaber. A surprising "Truce" (event card) is played by the Scottish player, delaying the English advances. The year ends in quiet unease.

The English prepare for total war in 1299.
1299 - Frustrated by the Scottish political manoeuvres, the English amass a large force on the Anglo-Scots border. 

A large 5-unit (E) invasion of Annan, targeting "The Bruce" (S) is almost foiled by Wallace. Entering round three of battle it becomes clear that all will be lost for the Scottish due to some fine English dice rolling :). 
The Bruce is taken!

Wallace (S) preserves himself and flees to Carrick. The Bruce (S) is not so fortunate and the man who would be King switches over to English control. 

Elsewhere the Scots have more luck in Ross (E), taking control of the noble there and in late 1299, Wallace (S) recovers to take and unprotected Lanark (E) nobleman. 

Honours are close to being even for the year, but surely the loss of the Bruce will have an impact on the Scottish strategy!

1300 - A quieter year for both sides as they recuperate from the heavy fighting in 1299. Moray (S),  trying to cause trouble in the Grampians, is pushed back by some stern English resistance. Lanark is retaken by the English and Wallace sees a little action chasing the Dunbar noble out from his homestead. 

We retired this "learning game" at the end of the year 1300, the English perhaps slightly ahead having taken The Bruce.

Closing Impressions

Moka Pot
A tricky one for me as I really want to enjoy Hammer of the Scots. The game-play is quite straight-forward, but we needed to refer back and forth to the book to check on the numerous exceptions to various rules and this ultimately slowed us down a little. My main concern would be the timings. We tried to motor through the turns, but only got 4 from 9 turns completed in just under 3-hours.

I do like the battle system and the fog of war elements, but I feel that we need to get to grips with some English/Scottish strategy options in order to get the most out of the game. I just hope that the play-time doesn't prevent this from getting to our table on a fairly regular basis.

Conclusion

I need a couple more plays to iron out my concerns.

Online Play?

Instructions for Online Play via VASSAL. Be warned though, this is only for the really committed as the interface takes a more than a little set-up work.


Wednesday, 11 July 2012

KoffeeKlub Evening 15th of July

Hammer of the Scots
Potentially a quieter week for us this Sunday as some KoffeeKlubbers head off on their holidays. GaryB and myself will still be around for our weekly game night in Whitehead Primary School on Sunday 15th July 2012 from 7-11pm.

Moka Pot
Our featured games this week will be Hammer of the Scots, by Columbia Games. As always, we have an open invite for anyone who would like to join us as we introduce the Moka Pot!

...they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!

GamesReport 8-Jul-12: Race For The Galaxy

Race For The Galaxy
We were a man down on Sunday evening, so the War On Terror was delayed pending final confirmation on those WMDs!

Eh?
First-up was Race For The Galaxy (RftG) with the "Gathering Storm" expansion, by Thomas Lehmann. RftG is a card-game themed around building galactic civilizations through technical, economic and social developments. It's similar to the older (and simpler) San Juan in that you pay to place cards into your own area (tableau) by discarding other cards in you hand.

Initially the game seems to be quite complicated due to it's heavy use of iconography on the cards. This can put some gamers off, so get someone who understands the game to teach you if you can. It's much more straight-forward than it appears.

I enjoyed a lot of luck in the first game by drawing cards that enabled me to get some good early trade going. Meanwhile AndyA was struggling a little to turn his resources into victory points quickly enough to keep pace and GaryB had all but hobbled himself with an early "6" cost development purchase, reducing the number of cards he had during the first third of the game. Final scores for game one - GaryG 43, GaryB 33 and AndyA 16.

RftG: Each player's area is know as his "tableau"
Game two seemed initially a lot closer, but again I managed to run my trade and military resources well enough to close out my tableau for victory. Final scores for game two - GaryG 50, GaryB 38 and AndyA 20.

Overall, RftG is a fine game that offers players multiple strategy option to achieve victory. Inevitably there have been a number of expansion releasesfor RftG.

The Gathering Storm - Adds a 5th player, additional cards, goals (opportunities to gain extra victory points chosen at random at game start), and rules and components for solo play against a "robot" player.
Rebel vs. Imperium - Adds a 6th player, more cards, and limited direct interaction between players.
The Brink of War - Adds more cards, and a new "Galactic Prestige" mechanic offering more ways to earn victory points and/or cards. It also introduces a once-per-game action which allows you to dip into the deck looking for a card to meet specific requirements.

RftG is not a heavily interactive game. Instead players seek to build their galactic civilization more efficiently than their opponents. The expansions have introduced some level of direct interaction, but not enough to satisfy players looking for that sort of experience.

Custom built containment for Arkham's runaway expansions
Another new expansion "Alien Artifacts" is due out anytime now (as of July 2012). Apparently it is incompatible with the other expansions and pairs only with the base set to take the game in a different direction.

What is it about expansions to games...? I must have them, but often they add little to the overall experience and just clutter your game up with more and more "bits". That's not a knock at RftG, which is a class game. Just a general frustrating observation on my struggle to manage the expansions for games that I already own. Arkham Horror, I'm looking at you!

Roll Through The Ages
I've always liked the idea of Civilization building and picked up the dice-rolling Roll Through The Ages a couple of years ago in an online sale.

It's been a while since it last got a play and this was the first time I'd brought it to KoffeeKlub. The guys seemed to like it's simplicity...


 

Roll Through The Ages: Dice
 

 

 

In Roll Through The Ages players roll dice equal to their current number of cities in an effort to generate resources, money and/or workers to build up their civilizations and ultimately score victory points.

 

Dice can be re-rolled twice with the exception of skulls, which must be set aside as a potential disaster. Based on the outcomes of these rolls players can assign "workers" to build additional cities (for additional dice) or monuments (for victory points), assign "food" to feed their people and gather "goods" and "money" to help develop their civilization.

 

Play continues with each player keeping track of his/her progress until all of the monuments have been built or one player achieves five developments. At this point each player totals all of his victory points (taking out any minuses for disasters).

 

Roll Through The Ages: Player Board
Interaction between players is limited to disaster resolution and the race to build monuments first to gain the most victory points, but this doesn't take anything away from what is a quick and enjoyable little game with nice components.

 

In our game on Sunday evening, GaryB won by a country-mile on 25pts, I came in second on 15pts just ahead of AndyA on 14pts.

 

It's good to see that even when our numbers drop slightly we can still get some great gaming in. AndyA is on his holidays next week, so we may be down to 2-players and a run at Hammer of the Scots.

KoffeeKlub League:
Bluff - GaryG was awarded 5 beans for two wins and one second place. GaryB was awarded 3 beans for one win and one second place. AndyA was awarded 1 bean for his one second place.
Race For The Galaxy - GaryG won both games and was awarded 4 beans. GaryB came second in both games and was awarded 2 beans.
Roll Through The Ages - GaryB was awarded 2 beans for his win and GaryG was awarded 1 bean for his second place.


 

Friday, 6 July 2012

KoffeeKlub Evening 8th of July

With a Geek rating of 6. I'm scared!
It's close to that time again and as usual the KoffeeKlub will be meeting in Whitehead Primary School on Sunday 8th July 2012 from 7-11pm.

Our featured games this week will be War On Terror, by Terrorbull Games and Race For The Galaxy, by Rio Grande Games. Feel free to drop by and join us picking beans and making fresh coffee, right off the trees.

Thursday, 5 July 2012

GamesReport: 1-Jul-12 Castle Panic


Gratuitous pussy stroking shot!
The KoffeeKlub on Sunday night was a fun packed game fest as usual. Pandemic, Castle Panic and Bluff all getting their limelight through the evening. First on the stage, Pandemic. This is becoming an old foe. Blowfield to our James Bond. Dracula to our Van Helsing. In short, it's a right bugger to beat!

Pandemic: "What now?" "I dunno!"
Randomly selecting our roles Trevor, GaryG, GaryB and myself set about saving the world from the four deadly diseases. A tough battle was fought throughout the game, and slowly we cured one disease before we ran out of player cards. Pandemic is a tough game and we are only on the first tier with another two tiers above. One of which is an insane level. The next time we bring this to the table, we are going to choose the roles ourselves and distribute these roles randomly.

Castle Panic: Stay Calm And Play Co-Op!
Next up was the main feature of the evening. Castle Panic. Bought at Q-Con, Trevor brought this down after seeing it played on TableTop. You are in a Castle that is being besieged by Monsters from the forest. You are to defend your Castle the best you can with as little damage being suffered. This is a simple game to setup and play.

Castle Panic: Great draw there Trev!
Trevor started us off and off to a bad start we were. You begin your turn with drawing up to 5 cards followed by trading 1 card with another player. Then you play as many cards as you can and afterwards move all monsters 1 ring towards your tower. You pull two monster tiles from the pile adding them to the edge of the board and that is your turn done...
 
...well Trevor pulling his 2 tiles from the pile almost crippled us within the first couple of turns. Pulling an action tile that made him take another 3 tiles from the pile and then another that wiped out our swordsmen and knights before a tile that moved the monsters closer to the Castle. Before we knew it, it was like a scene from Gladiator with things running out from the forest at our little Castle. We had boulders rolling through our Castle and Trolls moving through our halls tearing down Towers. We depleted the monster tiles rather quickly which had me sad a little as I did enjoy this little game. I think in total it was about 45 minutes to play but seemed a lot faster. Time flies when you are having fun!

During our game, one of the other gamers came down for a visit as Trevor's wife had given us some baked goods to munch on while playing games, and he longingly looked at the cookies and cakes while chatting to us as we played our game. Shortly after, he wandered back to his own game. A few minutes later, another player came down, chatted to us a little and wandered back to his game. We never noticed anything unusual until a 3rd gamer came down in, chatted to us, gabbed a handful of baked goods and told us that the other two guys had came down to get a cookie themselves but when they were there, they went completely shy and clammed up. 
Some "shy" Deathwatch players being presented with buns
Well that gave us the idea of presenting them with a cookie on a platter and off we went. The guys were mortified when we burst through the door, cookies on a platter and presented them each with a choice of treat. I think that perhaps in future, they may not tend to be as shy as to asking us for a cookie or they may end up getting the same treatment.


Bluff:  Definitely a 4-star game!
Our final game hitting the table was a firm favourite, Bluff.  At Q-Con we had a large tournament of this game and it went down a storm. On Sunday the competition was fired up. I was out first in both games. I think I may have lost my touch at this game yet Trevor had really got his game on.

By the time I was out, Trevor still had 5 dice and GaryB had 4 and GaryG only a few. Trevor removed GaryG quickly still holding his own GaryB and Trevor started the showdown. A battle of the giants commenced with GaryB getting taken out, unfairly in GaryB’s eyes.

Until next time!

Wednesday, 13 June 2012

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.