Welcome back to Season 3 of KFCgamers! Besides our regulars, we had some new and returning friends to join us for a great boardgame session today. Without further ado, let's get into what went down at KFCgamers today.
Session – Sushi Go
Whilst on a family holiday in Singapore, I managed to get in a few 2 Player games of Sushi Go during the afternoons whilst the kids were asleep. I thought this would be a great way to start our day as some of us were running a little late.
Player(s):
Sushi Go is a combination of set collection and card drafting where Players take turns to play Sushi cards of varying values, in the hopes of collecting "expensive" sets that would give them the most points at the end of the game.
Clearly I had a slight advantage being 2 games more experienced than the others but since I was sitting next to Sean this advantage was probably diminished. Still, I managed to squeeze in a Sashimi set with the help of Chopsticks in the first round which was probably what carried me to victory. Sean & I stayed away from the Puddings and let the others battle it out over the Maki Rolls. Sean had really good second and third rounds with the help of Wasabi and I had to squeeze in a single Pudding at the end so that Sean would get the -6 point penalty from having the least amount of Puddings (i.e. none) and pull a win from right out under him.
Serious sushi connoisseurs despite the fun theme
Time Taken: 30 minutes
Results Of Game(s)
Justin 16 + 9 + 10 = 35 Points (Winnah)
Melvin 9 + 4 + 12 + 6 =31 Points
Sean 11 + 11 + 14 - 6 = 30 Points
Jimmy 8 + 6 + 10 = 24 Points
Moses 5 + 6 + 10 = 21 Points *
* Mo would kill me if I didn't add the disclaimer that he wrongly assumed that Sushi cards played remained on the table across rounds due to my inept teaching skills.. All these win lawyers
Sushi Go is a filler that is light due to the speed of Players' turns as well as the happy foodie theme. Yet at the same time, there is enough depth here to get "heavier" gamers cogs' warmed up as Players who "play to win" need to be well aware of what is going on around the table, particularly so when you're playing with a big number of Players. Best of all, it accommodates five players which always seems to happen when your collection primarily serves four.
Session – Specter Ops
I'll be honest and say that everything I know about Specter Ops comes from second hand information. Two things I have heard, the game is very good and it is a hidden movement game.
Here's how the game board looks like
So Specter Ops is a game about sci-fi espionage where one Player will be the infiltrator and the others will be the hunters whose objective is (no brainer here) to eliminate the infiltrator. The drama and excitement comes from the fact that the infiltrator does not appear on the game board at all and all his/her movements are hidden from the other hunters.
The pro boardgamer look... which come to think of it, why isn't this profession a thing yet?
In today's game, Moses was the designated infiltrator and boy did he run, based on the screams and shouts coming from their table. Based on snippets of the conversation, I understand that the hunters caught sight of their prey pretty early on in the game and managed to hurt him pretty bad. However the injured infiltrator proved a wily one, staying one step of ahead of the radar scans of the hunters until the inevitable end came when there was nowhere left to run and the infiltrator was put out of his misery.
The hunters and prey having a light moment whilst our youngest attendee takes a nourishing break
Time Taken: 90 minutes
Results Of Game(s)
Hunters - Gideon + Sean + Edward (Winnahs)
Infiltrator - Moses (KIA)
I personally am not a big fan of hidden movement games as I am paranoid over the fact that people have the incentive to cheat in games of this kind. Yes I know that I am probably playing with responsible adults but I nevertheless have this paranoia hanging over me resulting in me never even attempting to give boardgames of this nature a try. My suspicion is that this stems from one of my siblings cheating at Battleships with the ever-moving Patrol Boat. Shame on whichever one of you it is.
Session – Glass Road
And on the other table I originally wanted to do Seasons but I suspect that it would be far too heavy for our group of Players and so we settled on something in between: Glass Road.
We've played Glass Road before but that was nearly two years ago and with a different group of people altogether. The game should have been really easy to get into but I had not refreshed myself with the rules (bad bad boardgame host) so it took a little time to get adjusted in again. I've covered gameplay before in this post so you can go there to get a basic idea of how the game works.
I rarely feature in the photos here but there was enough of us that Moses could take a few
In the background you can see everyone waiting on Moses to take his turn, so much Analysis Paralysis
My role selection was pathetically atrocious this time around. The others somehow kept picking the same roles that were different from what I was picking. This is surprisingly crucial in Glass Road because it means you potentially take less actions than other Players.
The other difficult thing to teach in Glass Road without manipulating the game setup is strategy because each Player's strategy is largely determined by the available buildings on the board and honestly the random buildings we stared with did me no favours when I was trying to show new Players what they should be aiming for. Jimmy did me one better by using the Feudal Lord (draw 3 buildings as your private offer) to find the buildings that would fit what he was doing.
So whilst the rest of us were fiddling around trying to max out our points, Jimmy just built all the buildings he needed for the easy win.
Time Taken: 90 minutes
Results Of Game(s)
Jimmy - 19 Points (Winnah)
Alan - 15 Points
Justin - 12 Points
Melvin - 9 Points
Glass Road is by no means a heavy game as Player turns consist primarily of doing just one thing, which is choosing one of five Specialist Cards to play and resolve the Specialist's abilities. It moves things along nicely and although I'm a bit miffed Jimmy managed to break the game so splendidly I think it is more my fault for not spotting what the turn after turn plays of Feudal Lord were leading up to.
Player(s):
Here's where I try something new with the blog. Instead of writing about Bohnanza, I thought I would let my two one-minute videos do the reporting for me. So far maintaining a blog has taught me html & photo editing and now I've learnt how to upload videos and add write srt (subtitles) files. When watching please remember to add captions as the audio quality is not exactly spectacular.
Time Taken: 60 minutes
Results Of Game(s)
Gideon - 11 Coins (Winnah)
Edward - 10 Coins
Alan - 10 Coins
Sean - 9 Coins
Jimmy - 9 Coins
Moses - 8 Coins
Melvin - 5 Coins
This goes to show that those who accuse and abuse tend to win at games like Bohnanza.
So until next time (sometime before May hopefully?), keep calm and play boardgames everyone.
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