Game(s) Played:
The Chinese New Year brings about the great Exodus of old where peoples (both Chinese and those who want to be Chinese) leave their homes and travel back to the home of their parents to share a reunion dinner together, visit relatives and friends in the vicinity and unleash their single children upon married couples who will shower them with ang pows (red packets) filled with $.
It is also a great opportunity for people to get together and get their boardgame on!
Session – Harbour
Game: Harbour
Designer: Scott Almes
Players: 1 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 60 minutes (This Play: 60 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Worker Placement
Player(s):
It is always fun to return to the harbour town called Harbour (genius naming conventions), because you never know what personality you are going to play or what businesses you will be able to find to invest in this time around. I played as the Speculator, who has a curious fascination with stone.
Maybe he just needs some solidity in his undulating life
Our journey to Harbour saw many buildings that used the "anchor" ability and unfortunately not many of us starting with characters with an "anchor". I thought it would be interesting to try and rush 3 buildings with "anchors" since I had the "discount" ability. Which leads us to tip #4!
TIP #1 – Play To Your Character's Strengths
TIP #2 – It Is The Net Effect That Counts
TIP #3 – Anticipate The Market
TIP #4 – NEVER Try For 3 Anchors
I tried this in this 4 Player game and the 3 Player game below and find that it simply takes way too much time. In fact, unless I'm already starting with a character with an "anchor" ability, I wouldn't even aim for a second "anchor" on purpose. Simply too much effort with too little reward.
Our little Harbour filled with lots of high powered economic buildings
So this time around, we had lots of fun and interactive buildings crop up like the "Tax Office" which allows the utilizing Player to "tax" other Players 1 good of their choice. It sounds really powerful but we had fun giving Henry a good that he had already maxed out on, essentially providing him no benefit whatsoever. We also had the "Stock Market" in play, a very powerful building that doubles the quantity of any 1 good type you have as well as the "Bank", which allows you to change the value of any 2 goods in the market. Taking full advantage of the Efficiency Expert character, Luke made full use of the buildings available to demolish us which gives the Efficiency Expert a win rate of 100% in my copy of Harbour.
Results Of Game(s)
Winner – Luke "Taking 2 Actions In 1 Turn" (33 VPs)
2nd – Jane "The Price Is Not Right, Change" (25 VPs)
3rd – Justin "Why You Change The Market?" (21 VPs)
LAST – Henry "Give Me All Your Goods" (19 VPs)
Session – King Of New York
Game: King Of New York
Designer: Richard Garfield
Players: 2 – 6 Players
Playing Time: 40 minutes (This Play: 60 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Dice Rolling, Area Movement, Player Elimination
Player(s):
The slightly-latecomers decided to open up with the monster slugfest that is King Of New York. The game is already fun in and of itself but when you pit our most competitive Players in the same game, the heat starts to get turned up and things can start to get a little personal. To find out in who's favour did the dust settle, I asked each Player for a quote on their experience on the boardgame equivalent of Rampage the movie.
Results Of Game(s)
LAST – Sean: "Probably shouldn't have stayed in Manhattan for so long."
4th – Meng Yoe: "The only reason I lost was because nobody told me I could move to adjacent towns. And the dice hated me." (Meng Yoe could not roll a heart to save his life and succumbed to friendly fire from his borough)
3rd – Edward: "All's fair in love and war, and this ain't love."
2nd – Moses: "Unpredictable. No strategy, pure luck". (Stayed too long in Manhattan as well)
And your Winner!
Session – 7 Wonders
Game: 7 Wonders
Designer: Antoine Bauza
Players: 3 – 7 Players
Playing Time: 30 minutes (This Play: 30 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Card Drafting, Set Collection
Player(s):
7 Wonders is a game I enjoy playing with a high Player count. It gives off a strong vibe where you are competing with surrounding civilizations, paying more attention to the armies of your closer neighbours but still keeping in touch with the resources of nations afar off. And so the two veterans in Edward and Sean sat side by side to take on the newcomers, Jane and Luke.
Only one Player is not posing for the camera and he is the one Player you should never take your eyes off of
And I even semi-shouted across from the other table to never let Edward play technology (green) and yet Sean was too preoccupied with Jane's amassing armada on his borders to deny Edward his free upgrades.
Wonder building also seemed to be a very popular activity this time around
Results Of Game(s)
It's funny how success in many civ games is measured in terms of points
Winner – Edward (69 VPs) "Free Free Free"
Second – Sean (59 VPs) "Guild Power"
Third – Jane (52 VPs) "Taste My Spear"
LAST – Luke (45 VPs) "I Want To Do Everything"
Session – Harbour
Game: Harbour
Designer: Scott Almes
Players: 1 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 60 minutes (This Play: 60 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Worker Placement
Player(s):
Henry has an aversion to 7 Wonders for some reason so Meng Yoe & I sat down together with Henry to dive right back in to Harbour once again.
This time we played until the first person to build 3 buildings. Meng Yoe being a first time visitor to Harbour enjoyed the simplicity of the mechanics in the game, the hardest part of the game being the selling goods, buying a building action which is not very hard to grasp at all.
It is always interesting how you can tell whether someone is doing well in a game by their smile
Results Of Game(s)
Winner – Justin (25 VPs)
2nd – Meng Yoe (22 VPs)
LAST – Henry (18 VPs)
Session – Dixit: Journey
Game: Dixit: Journey
Designer: Jean-Louis Roubira
Players: 3 – 6 Players
Playing Time: 30 minutes (This Play: 30 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Storytelling, Voting
Player(s):
I absolutely love Dixit: Journey. More so because every experience is different because of the different people I am playing with at the time. And so today's unique experience in Dixit: Journey comes on the heels of Henry's amazing ability at playing Dixit: Journey. His cards were uncannily close to the storyteller's clues and he was the first to hit the 30 VP mark.
We decided to keep on playing though just to finish the deck and to see if we could beat Henry by exceeding 30 VPs. It was quite comical at the end when we specifically chose not to guess Henry's card as he was the storyteller in order to deny him further points. Nevertheless it was all for naught as we could not exceed Henry's score in the end. But what a funny turn of events to the way we played.
At least Luke managed to equal Henry's score
Results Of Game(s)
Winner – Henry (30 VPs)
2nd – Luke (30 VPs)
3rd – Jane (29 VPs)
LAST – Justin (26 VPs)
We will probably try to get a medium weight euro to the table next month to switch things up a little. I know I have also mentioned Gloomhaven before and you might be wondering what's happening with that. The update is yes, I now own my very own copy of Gloomhaven and everything has been prepped. I am now simply waiting upon the painting of the miniatures to be complete and we can start our very first session. Look forward to that sometime in late March.
Until next time, keep calm and play better.
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