22nd February 2023
This was an 18 person session, including 4 newcomers, and saw the return of role playing with a Dungeons & Dragons one-shot. Also many of the board games had an exploring, mapping, or treasure-seeking theme.
Most of the Clank team returned for another attempt (see session 47), this time hoping to make it out of the dungeon still walking or at least limping, but they knocked the action up a notch with the Mummys Curse expansion. This time 1 adventurer did make it out under their own steam, 3 were dragged to safety by helpful villagers, and there was only 1 fatality in the depths of the tomb. Everyone had fun with the Egyptian theme, the addition of curses, and either avoiding or towards the end actively seeking out the Mummy.
Short games this session were club favourites Ecosystem and Tomb Trader, and also new games for the club Ukiyo and Night Clan.
Ukiyo is a very short (approx. 5 mins) tactical puzzle-based card game with a deck of just 18 cards. Players lay cards from their hand down horizontally or vertically to create patterns of symbols within a 6x6 grid aiming to complete the task on the last card left in their hand.
In Night Clan players start with an identical 13 card deck and place their cards face-down 2 at a time in different locations around the town of Bergen. The aim is to hide your Daughters and Riches (both point-scoring cards) in locations, and avoid them sharing the location with Trolls, which negate points. You can protect from Trolls with Mistletoe, or move cards with the Nightwatch. Once all cards have been played, each location is resolved and points scored. As cards are placed face-down, each player must remember what they have placed in each location, and guess what the other players have placed, to protect as many Daughters and Riches as possible.
When the longer games started the other 2 tables tried Verdant, back for an second session of houseplant arranging and last seen on Session 44, and new to the club Endeavor.
Endeavor is about exploring the globe and claiming territories for your seafaring empires. Victory points are based on glory acquired for your empire, which are obtained through Industry, Culture, Finance, Politics, and occupying cities. The game is played over 7 rounds with 2 phases. The first phase is building, gaining population markers, and retrieving finance markers based on position on the various progress tracks. Then there is an action phase: Ship, Occupy, Attack, Payment, or Draw. Shipping opens new regions for Occupation and Drawing, and generates Trade Tokens. Once a shipping track is full, the player with the most influence in that region gains the powerful Governor card for that region. Occupation of a city results in glory and Trade Tokens, while Attacking steals a city from an opponent! Either Occupation or Attacking can result in claiming the connection between 2 cities. Drawing gains a card from a region up to the maximum hand limit based on the player’s Politics track. A player’s influence in a region determines which cards they can draw. The round is over once all players have passed. In the end Graham W.’s slavery-based tactic prevailed as it gave him an early advantage and no one had abolished slavery by the end of the game, which would have generated penalties.
After Verdant finished the table tried a roll and write game Cartographers. Here the Queen has sent out her cartographers to map and reclaim the Northern lands. The Queen announces which lands she prizes most but the Dragul will be building outposts to contest your influence. Played over 4 seasons the player who can earn the most reputation by satisfying the Queens edicts will win and everyone should have produced some interesting maps.
Last but not least, the role-playing table had a busy night starting a one-shot 5th Edition D&D scenario. Read about what went on…
The next session is on Wednesday 8th March. There should be another nice mix of games on offer and more role-playing. As always let us know if there are any games you want to try so we can bring them along and matchmake some other gamers in advance. Contact us via Discord, Twitter or email for more information.
- Total Session Attendance: 18
- Board Games:
- RPG: