Love Letter
I arrived well before anybody else so decided to sit and read the rules to Love Letter which I had received in the post earlier in the afternoon. The rules gave me an initial impression of a very basic game and I was feeling a little unsure and disappointed with my purchase. Nathan, Chris and Will soon arrived and we decided to open up the red velvet bag and give it a go. We quickly discovered that this is actually a much deeper and exciting game than it initially seems. There's a lot of deduction going on as you count the cards around the table and try to second guess why somebody chose to play a certain card. "He's played the Countess, he must have that bloody King!". Will was the first player to score four rounds.
All in all a really fun, simple to play, and easy to transport game which I can see myself reaching for a lot as filler or to introduce new gamers to some simple concepts. £7.50 well spent.
Skull And Roses
During our game of Love Letter Liam, Graham and Mara had arrived and began setting up a game of Revolution so we decided to go for another quick filler and pulled out Skull And Roses. This is a really fun bluffing game which I am enjoying more and more with each play as the tactics and strategies are becoming more complex. Andy arrived just in time to join us. I managed to make my first ever successful bet which was a victory for me. I can't remember now who won, Andy quite possibly.
King Of Tokyo
My girlfriend purchased a copy of King Of Tokyo for me last week and it's quickly become quite popular in our group. Nathan, Chris, Will, Sam, Jason and I played and it was relatively quick to tell the truth. Nathan was eliminated in around 4 turns and the game didn't last much longer past that. Sam was the last monster standing thanks in no small part to his Nova Breath/Shrink Ray combo removing dice from everyone around the board. I made a potentially game changing misplay when I chose to use two hearts to heal rather than removing shrink tokens to increase my dice number next turn, I still probably would have been eliminated but something I'd probably do differently next time.
The Resistance
At this point the group are split between wanting to play Dominion and Last Night On Earth but Jason pulls out a copy of The Resistance and I have to beg everybody to go with this. I LOVE hidden role games and had heard some really great stuff about The Resistance, as it turns out that was all correct. The same six players as King Of Tokyo and in the first game the spies are myself and Will. I get sent on the first mission along with a member of The Resistance and of course choose Succeed to avoid suspicion. The second mission sees Will and I both sent which leads to an awkward moment as I try to second guess whether Will will put his fail card in. I choose to place mine in and Will plays a succeed that lets us sabotage the mission and immediately place all the suspicion on Will whilst I managed to avoid the spotlight by also heavily blaming him and refusing to trust any missions with him on the team. Play continued and we won quite comfortably, nobody at the table managed to guess me as a spy until the final mission had already failed.
We immediately all agree to a second game and Sam makes a rookie error when Jason instructs the spies to close their eyes again and Sam replies with "OK". I'm on that like a shot and instantly distrust anything Sam does the rest of the game. Chris and I are sent on the first mission and it succeeds. On mission two Sam decides to send me, Chris and Will and the mission fails. I immediately decide that Will and Sam are the spies and spend the rest of the game shouting, screaming and rejecting any team that features either of those two players. I shout so much that everybody else around the table no longer trusts me.
At this point I need to take a minute to explain what lost us this game. I always trust Chris. Chris is one of the nicest and most trustworthy people I have ever met so for some reason I always trust him in games (despite the spy roles being given out randomly and not by choice!). This is an absolutely rookie mistake to make and you can imagine my anger and horror when the spies win and Chris flips his role card to reveal himself as a spy. Asshole.
The Resistance is a fantastic game and is right up my street. There's a hell of a lot of strategy going on. We actually misplayed the team voting process as we played these hidden when they should in fact be public, adding a whole extra level to the bluffing and strategy going on. I honestly cannot wait to play this again.
Dominion
Chris and Will split away from our group to play some Heroclix so we decided to play some Dominion. It was Jason's first game, and only the second game for Nathan and Sam but they were adamant on wanting to try some of the Seaside cards so we went for a random kingdom of 5 base set cards and 5 Seaside cards. Sam got very excited by Pearl Diver and Thief and the vast majority of his turns went something like "Play a Pearl Diver, Play a Pearl Diver, Play a Pearl Diver, Play a Theif..... yeah I'll take all those coppers........ Oh, I only have 2 treasures to spend". Nathan also made the rookie mistake of not only taking Copper from others but also buying Copper and Estates. Needless to say by the end of the game both he and Sam were working with massive decks that did nothing whilst, despite our initial slow decks due to constant thievery, Jason and I had built two decent decks that saw us comfortably pull away from the other two and saw me finish about 4 victory points a head of him.
An interesting first game for Jason as it was a very slow paced game with lots of Embargo and Thief being used, whilst no Reaction cards and little in the way of spending power. He seemed to enjoy it though and was keen on playing again at some point.
We finished up by playing one more game of Skull and Roses and one of Love Letter.
A great evening with a good selection of games and a tough lesson learnt around never trusting Chris.
I believe Graham, Mara, Andy and Liam played a game each of Revolution and Strozzi. Both seemed well received by all accounts.
I arrived well before anybody else so decided to sit and read the rules to Love Letter which I had received in the post earlier in the afternoon. The rules gave me an initial impression of a very basic game and I was feeling a little unsure and disappointed with my purchase. Nathan, Chris and Will soon arrived and we decided to open up the red velvet bag and give it a go. We quickly discovered that this is actually a much deeper and exciting game than it initially seems. There's a lot of deduction going on as you count the cards around the table and try to second guess why somebody chose to play a certain card. "He's played the Countess, he must have that bloody King!". Will was the first player to score four rounds.
All in all a really fun, simple to play, and easy to transport game which I can see myself reaching for a lot as filler or to introduce new gamers to some simple concepts. £7.50 well spent.
Skull And Roses
During our game of Love Letter Liam, Graham and Mara had arrived and began setting up a game of Revolution so we decided to go for another quick filler and pulled out Skull And Roses. This is a really fun bluffing game which I am enjoying more and more with each play as the tactics and strategies are becoming more complex. Andy arrived just in time to join us. I managed to make my first ever successful bet which was a victory for me. I can't remember now who won, Andy quite possibly.
King Of Tokyo
My girlfriend purchased a copy of King Of Tokyo for me last week and it's quickly become quite popular in our group. Nathan, Chris, Will, Sam, Jason and I played and it was relatively quick to tell the truth. Nathan was eliminated in around 4 turns and the game didn't last much longer past that. Sam was the last monster standing thanks in no small part to his Nova Breath/Shrink Ray combo removing dice from everyone around the board. I made a potentially game changing misplay when I chose to use two hearts to heal rather than removing shrink tokens to increase my dice number next turn, I still probably would have been eliminated but something I'd probably do differently next time.
The Resistance
At this point the group are split between wanting to play Dominion and Last Night On Earth but Jason pulls out a copy of The Resistance and I have to beg everybody to go with this. I LOVE hidden role games and had heard some really great stuff about The Resistance, as it turns out that was all correct. The same six players as King Of Tokyo and in the first game the spies are myself and Will. I get sent on the first mission along with a member of The Resistance and of course choose Succeed to avoid suspicion. The second mission sees Will and I both sent which leads to an awkward moment as I try to second guess whether Will will put his fail card in. I choose to place mine in and Will plays a succeed that lets us sabotage the mission and immediately place all the suspicion on Will whilst I managed to avoid the spotlight by also heavily blaming him and refusing to trust any missions with him on the team. Play continued and we won quite comfortably, nobody at the table managed to guess me as a spy until the final mission had already failed.
We immediately all agree to a second game and Sam makes a rookie error when Jason instructs the spies to close their eyes again and Sam replies with "OK". I'm on that like a shot and instantly distrust anything Sam does the rest of the game. Chris and I are sent on the first mission and it succeeds. On mission two Sam decides to send me, Chris and Will and the mission fails. I immediately decide that Will and Sam are the spies and spend the rest of the game shouting, screaming and rejecting any team that features either of those two players. I shout so much that everybody else around the table no longer trusts me.
At this point I need to take a minute to explain what lost us this game. I always trust Chris. Chris is one of the nicest and most trustworthy people I have ever met so for some reason I always trust him in games (despite the spy roles being given out randomly and not by choice!). This is an absolutely rookie mistake to make and you can imagine my anger and horror when the spies win and Chris flips his role card to reveal himself as a spy. Asshole.
The Resistance is a fantastic game and is right up my street. There's a hell of a lot of strategy going on. We actually misplayed the team voting process as we played these hidden when they should in fact be public, adding a whole extra level to the bluffing and strategy going on. I honestly cannot wait to play this again.
Dominion
Chris and Will split away from our group to play some Heroclix so we decided to play some Dominion. It was Jason's first game, and only the second game for Nathan and Sam but they were adamant on wanting to try some of the Seaside cards so we went for a random kingdom of 5 base set cards and 5 Seaside cards. Sam got very excited by Pearl Diver and Thief and the vast majority of his turns went something like "Play a Pearl Diver, Play a Pearl Diver, Play a Pearl Diver, Play a Theif..... yeah I'll take all those coppers........ Oh, I only have 2 treasures to spend". Nathan also made the rookie mistake of not only taking Copper from others but also buying Copper and Estates. Needless to say by the end of the game both he and Sam were working with massive decks that did nothing whilst, despite our initial slow decks due to constant thievery, Jason and I had built two decent decks that saw us comfortably pull away from the other two and saw me finish about 4 victory points a head of him.
An interesting first game for Jason as it was a very slow paced game with lots of Embargo and Thief being used, whilst no Reaction cards and little in the way of spending power. He seemed to enjoy it though and was keen on playing again at some point.
We finished up by playing one more game of Skull and Roses and one of Love Letter.
A great evening with a good selection of games and a tough lesson learnt around never trusting Chris.
I believe Graham, Mara, Andy and Liam played a game each of Revolution and Strozzi. Both seemed well received by all accounts.