21st January 2026
A slightly quieter session with 10 players tackling 5 different games involving odd animals or afflicted leviathans.
Oddland was a new starter game at club. Played over 7 rounds the gameplay is quite simple, play a terrain card into the tableau, which can overlap previous cards, then place one of your 7 odd animals onto 1 square of that placed card. Each animal has a different way of scoring, usually related to one of the terrain types and score up at the end. The four players were soon adding hybrid fauna like grizzleep, pangeroo and whalephant to the rapidly expanding map. In the final scoring Kathy J. and her excellent owloose diagonal forest terrain score got the win.
Terraforming Mars was back with its 10th play of this game at the club. 4 players took on lead positions of corporations that want a slice of the planet, but it was the Tharsis Republic led by Neil who managed to win it this time.
Leviathan Wilds was back on the table for some cooperative gaming, this was previously tried at session 115. There was enough time to try 2 scenarios or Leviathan rescues but the 3 players stuck with the same team of climbers for both. Kestrel the Roughneck (Kathy), Fix the Freeclimber (Richie) and Hornet the Herald (Jeremy) were soon climbing, gliding and sometimes falling around the Leviathans: Sentinel - a tall stone like giant - and Fury - a huge bull like creature with lava for blood.
Their aim was to break the crystal growths and avoid the befuddled Leviathan’s attempts to prevent them. The first game was very close with the final crystal being destroyed just before the climbers were exhausted by their fight against the blight. The second game proved a little easier with the team managing to prevent the worst of the Leviathan’s special rage attacks and still have some health left at the end.
Simon once again takes us back into the past, twenty years back, to find Caylus. Casting a shadow from 2005, Caylus is the grand father of worker placement; bringing you the fearsome duo of the Bailiff and the Provost, while building a French castle in Caylus. There have been long debates about the “first” worker placement game, Keydom (1998) and Bus (1999) are among the earliest to claim that title but Caylus put worker placement on the map – so to speak (Bus is an excellent game and has been at the club several times: sessions 98 and 101).
Caylus gives the players six workers which can be placed in buildings at a price (which gets more expensive as other players pass). After all the workers are placed, then we determine which buildings will activate. That’s right, those hard earned coins can all be wasted by the Provost walking the wrong way along the road and that building your worker sits in is unable to run. Activating a building gives you resources or lets you build a new building. After all buildings up to the Provost are activated, then anyone who wanted to build some of the castle hands over sets of resources (for points and favours). The favours give you benefits on four tracks, you want them all but will not have enough favour to achieve that. You get points for buildings, castle sections, and a few other places.
Then the Bailiff moves one or two spaces forward, this is the game clock and can be manipulated by the players. When the game end space is reached, most points wins. It’s hard to explain how such a dull looking (wow is the box dull) and plain (the art work is meh and the resources are simple small cubes; even the money feels more like Tiddlywinks counters) game is so amazing. The way money is so tight, timing your turns to get the most while not letting other players get in your way, the small variation in buildings being built having big impacts, and the ticking clock of the Bailiff all combine to make a brilliant game; a true classic that more gamers should enjoy.
Cascadia Rolling Rivers was the shorter game selected after the successful cooperative Leviathan rescues had finished and the other long game tables were still going. The Rolling Rivers version has been tried twice at club before, the first being in session 106. It is a dice rolling version of Cascadia, where the dice provide animal choices to collect and then spend on various environment cards to score points. Although it was Richie’s first game he optimised his dice rolling and animal collection to acquire the most environment points and a sure win.
Next session is on Wednesday February 4th 7.30pm at the St Ives Corn Exchange. Join in on the night and bring games then play games, or request games and book seats in advance of the session on Discord.
- Total Session Attendance: 10
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Board Games: 5