4th September 2024
Fifteen gamers got straight into the long and medium length games at this session, with two taking place in the deserts of Egypt or Arrakis and the others opting for space conflict or workplace efficiency.
Keen to try out a ‘spicy’ new purchase, Dave set up a game of Dune: Imperium Uprising and was quickly joined by Reynaldo, Diego and Ollie. This game caused a bit of confusion on its release in 2023, as the previous Dune Imperium (also by Dire Wolf games) came out only three years before. This version is puzzlingly billed as a ‘standalone expansion’ and is essentially Dune Imperium 1.1, justifying the new edition by the inclusion of four plastic sand worms (totally worth it!). The game plays largely the same as the wormless original, with players racing to be the first to ten victory points while utilising a mix of deckbuilding, worker-placement and area control to form faction alliances, collect spice and win battles. The inclusion of spies (and of course sand worms) add some new strategic considerations while only slightly increasing the complexity. The game is rated medium (3.45/5) on BGG and with two new players at the table, there were quite a few rules, symbols and board spaces to explain. After a few rounds however, players got into the swing of things and then the challenge became formulating winning strategies rather than remembering the rules.
It is hard to overcome the advantage of knowing the board spaces and cards, particularly during a first play and with a fair few games on the app under his belt Dave eventually got into a leading position. There was a particularly exciting finish though, as sensing that the end was near, Diego, Reynaldo and Ollie threw multitudes of sand worms and soldiers into the final battle. Alas it was not enough, and out of the carnage Dave was able to claim victory. All players enjoyed the experience and expressed the desire to play again.
One session on from tackling The Gallerist, the same quartet reconvened to try their hand at another Lacerda title, the slightly crunchier Kanban EV, a worker placement and time/resource management game themed around the production of electric vehicles. Steph H and Jyo K had played Kanban before, but Darren C and Steve L were again relying on how to play videos, with a headache the price to pay for those seeking a working understanding of the rules without actually reading them. Host Steph provided a pre-game overview of the key systems to make sure all were up to speed and then it was off to the factory floor to make cars.
Players take the role of employees in the same factory trying to progress their careers and avoid the displeasure of factory manager Sandra, who prowls the floor and carries out regular appraisals to identify under performers. Those on the wrong end of her performance reviews can see their production points (the game’s VPs) going backwards in a hurry. It is not all bad news though, as Sandra also conducts regular weekly meetings where employees compete for air-time with the boss. These provide an opportunity for employees to talk-up their personal achievements and earn production points. Thankfully, Sandra is played by the system so no one has to take on the role of the dreaded factory boss.
Players have only one worker to deploy but may be able to take up to four actions each day, although they must spend it in a single department. However, players must become generalists, dividing their working week between the four main factory departments of R&D, Production, Logistics and Design, each of which has only two action spaces available. There is also a fifth department, Admin, which can be used to gain some actions in the main departments if the spaces there have been taken, or perhaps if a player just fancies sucking up to Sandra for a bit? Jyo swiftly became known as Sandra’s pet, a label which might be difficult to shake off!
Once all players have selected the department they will work in that day, workers activate in that order (from R&D at the top, moving down the central corridor to Admin at the bottom) and this is also the route Sandra follows with her clipboard as she moves from one area to the next each day. Want to stay on the right side of Sandra? Make sure you have more technical knowledge about the department she will visit next than at least one of your rivals as Sandra focuses on the weakest! And if you can’t manage that, commit yourself to work as many extra (“banked”) shifts as you can to show your dedication to the company and soften the blow when it falls.
With numerous ways to accumulate production points (including meeting factory production goals, impressing Sandra at the weekly meetings, moving cars through the production line and upgrading car parts etc), many of which vary from game to game, there is no one path to career success. So, the order in which departments are visited matters less than taking full advantage of what each department has to offer when you are there. The general consensus was that this made Kanban EV easier to get to grips with than The Gallerist, where the feeling was that the first hour or so of play was spent milling around semi-randomly trying to work out what was important and what could wait.
For much of the game it looked as though Steve‘s cursed yellow meeple was on for a famous win thanks to some nice blue SUVs with a lot of upgraded parts which gained him a veritable car-load of performance points. However, it ended in career frustration for him and it was Steph who got on the fast track to promotion up the corporate ladder, this despite being heard to ask herself on at least one occasion “why am I in Logistics?”. A very good question! The others could at least console themselves that Steph’s margin of victory was much smaller than last time as only a few points separated the top three, with Steve just edging out Sandra’s pet for second place. Looking around, was that Darren waving from the other side of the factory floor? We wondered where he had got to, probably hanging around the canteen again.
All agreed it was an excellent game and plans were swiftly laid to give it another run out at the next session.
The BGG/Leder Games hotness was back again (from last session), Simon, Richard and Craig sat down to play Arcs. Richard and Craig were playing for the first time, and the strangeness of the card/action mechanic was a source of some frustration. There were some very lucky/unlucky dice rolls (depending on your point of view), and the game was almost over in Chapter 4 but a twist of fate (that’s a bad pun linking to the Campaign) combined with a destroyed city caused it to roll into a fifth chapter. Craig and Richard managed to take each other out (scoring ties are not friendly, you all get bumped to the lower score on the tile) leaving Simon to sneak a last minute victory. Having the fuel and material cartels out meant the Tycoon ambition flipped from player to player based on the latest raids (where you can steal court cards); while Richard and Craig sat on all the relic resources for most of the game hampering the Keeper ambition. There were lots of battles, lots of destroyed cities provoking outrage, many captives from taxing controlled cities, and many court cards swapping around from raids - it was, in a word, wild.
The final table started with Cleopatra then switched to Forbidden Island both coincidentally games that featured on the very first club session back in 2019. Kathy J. gave a quick rules run down but Cleopatra is fairly simple with a lot of its mechanics being very similar to Ticket to Ride by the same games company. You either visit the market and acquire cards with various resource types or a few special roles like Envoy, Scribe and Courtesan, or you go to the quarry and build parts of Cleopatra’s temple. The difference is the market has three stalls to choose from with a mixture of face up and face down cards and there is a hand limit of ten cards to manage. Then there are six different parts of the temple to build (obelisks, sphinxes, mosaics, column walls, doors and the throne) with differing resource requirements, the game ends when five of the six have been completed. The final catch is that some of the resources are of poor quality or corrupted and Cleopatra is a shrewd client and will catch out the architect that uses the most shoddy materials and throw them to the crocodiles, which is obviously a loss for that player.
The game has many nice components and even uses the game box as part of the temple construction and the players enjoyed seeing that all come together as the game progressed. However they had also heeded Kathy’s warnings about the fate of those using dodgy materials and paid close attention to opportunities to remove some of that corruption, and in the end when the pyramids that hide the corruption tokens were lifted it was Kathy that found herself just ahead and hence crocodile lunch leaving Graham to claim the title of best architect.
Then they changed to a cooperative game Forbidden Island trying to liberate treasures from the sinking islands and escape with only wet feet. There were three seasoned players and one newcomer so the first game started on normal difficultly with an engineer, messenger, explorer and navigator and so Jason soon got the hang of the mechanics and dangers of the islands. Although well over half the land had disappeared the team made it to the helicopter with all the loot in time. So as the night was still fairly young and the other tables engrossed in their games a second expedition was launched and the roles randomised leading to the diver and pilot joining this game and the difficulty was raised a notch. However partly due to some lucky card drafting it was not too challenging to swap the cards so the treasures could be efficiently claimed and with the diver and pilot skills available to navigate the diminishing route to the helicopter pad for another success.
The next session is the 18th of September, do come along and see what interesting and diverse themes will be on offer or join us on Discord in advance and make some suggestions of what you would like to play.
- Total Session Attendance: 15
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Board Games: