RogerBW's Blog

SpringCon 28 July 2018 03 August 2018

The day after the excessively hot weather broke, I went back to this small quarterly boardgames convention in Watford. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

First game of the day was Azul, at which I did quite remarkably badly… but still had fun. This still isn't going to make it onto my shelf soon (I prefer the gameplay of Sagrada and they're pretty similar in some respects) but I'll play it when someone else wants to.

While waiting for the next game to be set up, I played a cut-down version of Go (which counts for my "black and white game" in the 52 Game Challenge this year). I can see how one could easily dedicate one's life to this; as a gamer who likes variety, there's no way I'm going to spend the time to go deep enough into the play to become competent.

Flamme Rouge next, with the six-player expansion, but no three-lane sections, which may have been an error; there was quite a bit of blocking, and very little drafting, which is normally one of the important parts of the game. Still enjoyable, and one of my riders kept up with the leaders and took third place.

A smaller group played Xenon Profiteer, with a mostly uninspiring set of upgrades and contracts… and I won by one point. Having distill-all-nitrogen and distill-all-oxygen upgrades definitely helped…

Army of Frogs (by John Yianni, creator of Hive): as with that game, you build and modify the board as you play, but there aren't all the separate piece moves to remember. It does have the problem as a game for more than two players that one's likely to be forced into kingmaking at some stage.

Parade, where I thought I was doing well, but this was the first time I've lost this game. Still had a good time, though.

Finally, Witching Hour, only the second time I've played this… and I managed to pull off a runaway victory. Now, if only I could work out how I did it…

[Buy Azul at Amazon] [Buy Flamme Rouge at Amazon] [Buy Xenon Profiteer at Amazon] [Buy Army of Frogs at Amazon] [Buy Parade at Amazon] [Buy Witching Hour at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1