RogerBW's Blog

A short session this time as I was a bit weary. New venue, just re-opened that day after an emergency closure which hadn't done the beer much good, and mildly tricky to get to with Reading Station being rebuilt nearby.

We started with five playing Carcassonne, which generally isn't one of my favourite games but this time I quite enjoyed it. (If you don't know the game, you can watch it being played here; it's basically a matter of laying tiles in particular patterns, with a limitation on one's ability to do lots of things at once) I thought I was pulling out a credible second place, but then the farmers cut in at the end. I didn't come last, largely because all players but one (who wasn't me) had an interest in what turned out to be a 63-point city.

Then three of us played Hex Hex/Hex Hex Next, which I haven't had out for far too long. It's better with more players, and some of the really strange stuff didn't come up in the four rounds we played, but it was still as much fun as I remembered. Must push to play this more. It's essentially a card game of pass-the-grenade: a hex is in play, and when it comes towards you you deflect it onto other players by playing cards. When it reaches someone who doesn't have a card with which to get rid of it it goes off. But then you get special effects: make it more damaging, split it in two and send them in different directions, and so on. (When there are multiple hexes going, especially in bigger games, it's helpful to have a clock coordinator, someone who isn't otherwise involved in the game making sure that one hex doesn't get ahead of the other. Otherwise there can be a flurry of card play and someone ends up with six hexes in his lap at once.)