RogerBW's Blog

1 Player Guild UK Meet 30 January 2018

The 1 Player Guild is a group of solo game players, organised on BoardGameGeek. I do this occasionally, and when the inaugural real-world meeting was suggested in the UK, I went along. What could work better than a bunch of solo gamers getting together in one place? Actually, it was an excellent day - in a village hall in the middle of nowhere, bring your own food and drink (but much in the way of snack makings provided by the organiser), eleven people.

With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

The day began with F**k. The game, which is more or less the Stroop effect system of "say the colour rather than the printed name of the colour", with bonus swearing. Actually quite fun, though I wouldn't want to play it often.

We went on with Grand Prix, since all eleven of us could play at once. It's all about careful positioning and getting your cars carried along by other people's movement as well as moving on your own. There was very heavy elimination in the early turns, and I got knocked out significantly before the end; I'd really want to fix that, though it's probably better to remove cars from the race when they've fallen far enough behind than to get them to carry on hopelessly.

I'd brought along Firefly: The Game, and three of us went on to that, playing Monty in the Artful Dodger, Mal in Jetwash, and me as Atherton in the Interceptor. The story was Niška's Holiday, so heavy on the Misbehaves; I was able to put together a solid and keyword-heavy crew, which allowed me to avoid the worst consequences of the new Crime & Punishment misbehaves. I even got by without any wanted crew most of the time, though I couldn't resist a forgotten Zoe at Silverhold. One player was a turn or two behind me, but I made it to the end to claim the prize.

Some people had gone to the pub for supper; the rest of us had an eight-player Lost Legacy, which is a bit like Love Letter on steroids, with a "ruins" series of cards and a single treasure card that everyone's looking for. It's all a bit uneven but rather fun.

We went on to Die Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsburg, a social deduction game where I felt completely lost: some players managed to work out their team-mates and what to do, but I didn't get the information I needed until it was too late to use it. Nonetheless I wouldn't mind giving this another try some time, and the art is pretty decent.

Some of the others had wanted to try Aeon's End, so I got that out next. We had a very tough fight, but did manage to beat the Rageborne, with one non-exhausted mage and Gravehold just barely hanging on. Great fun, and I think some of the others will be buying it.

Last game of the night for me was Sagrada, where I had a great time coming last. Alas, nobody has this in stock at a sensible price at the moment.

All in all it was a very fine day, and I look forward to possible future meetings.

[Buy F**k. The game at Amazon] [Buy Grand Prix at Amazon] [Buy Firefly the Game at Amazon] [Buy Lost Legacy at Amazon] [Buy Die Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsburg at Amazon] [Buy Aeon's End at Amazon] [Buy Sagrada at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]


  1. Posted by Dave in Ledbury at 10:22am on 30 January 2018

    Great to see the photos and hear about the day. Hopefully I'll be able to make the next meet-up!

  2. Posted by Lee at 11:56am on 30 January 2018

    Sounds like I ought to bring 'that German game' along next time. Thanks for the write-up and the photo's, Roger.

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