I went to Airecon Northwest again, this time in August rather than
December but still in the convention centre in central Manchester.
With images;
cc-by-sa on
everything.
After a slog of a trip out, we popped into The Briton's
Protection
to recover a bit.
Then we colonised the far corner of the main hall—it seemed a bit
busier than last year, but there was never a shortage of space
First games were Kabuto
Sumo, much
silly beetle shoving for the win.
Then Imperium:
Horizons
with someone I'd played with before but apparently completely blanked
(sorry Justin!). Magyars, Celts and Romans.
And we started Sea Salt &
Paper,
but the hall was closing. But since the only thing carried over from
round to round is the state of play, there was no problem picking it
up again in the morning.
Then we tried another recent acquisition,
Courtisans,
still good fun (I'm starting to get a feel for how informal alliances
might work).
Somewhere in here was a game of
Tinderblox
where the new player got two of the hardest cards in the game…
I've been promising to write a review of
Radlands for
over a year and finally tried playing it. Interesting, not as complex
as some of these duellers can get at least on this first play, and
I'll try it some more.
On to a very swingy Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive
Edition
game: Unity, Wraith and Fanatic against Akash-Bhuta (in Megalopolis).
Unity had trouble getting bots out, Wraith kept drawing and losing her
damaging cards, and Fanatic did 20 points of damage with a Wrathful
Retribution, followed a round or two later by an End of Days that
wiped a bunch of Primeval Limbs to deal 90 points in a single attack.
(She also used at least three Aegis of Resurrection; it was not an
easy fight.)
Then Project
L, four players
and no Finessa expansion (I like Finesse but I don't want to use it
every game). I fear that I haven't been taking this to gaming
opportunities simply because the box (full of Kickstarter extras) is a
bit inconvenient.
Several other people wanted to play Heat: Pedal to the
Metal,
which I keep thinking I may like if I play it once more, but I really
don't. (In this game I carefully allowed heat to build up just before
a section where I could potentially dump it, only for all of it to end
pu at the bottom of the draw deck.) Good company but still meh game
for me, I'm afraid.
I showed them my idea of a racing game that isn't Rallyman GT,
Lemminge: Wer Springt
Zuerst?.
(It continues to be a great shame that this is out of print.)
And regular favourite Nokosu
Dice, which
one seasoned trick-taker player didn't love but it went well all the
same.
Finally for the day, some more Imperium:
Horizons
(Minoans, Persians and Scythians); alas we didn't have time to finish
and score up, but the new player has clearly fallen in love with the
game.
On Sunday morning we got into a four-player Sea Salt &
Paper
game, which shifted the dynamic for me: rather than "my opponent has
discarded X so clearly they aren't collecting it", it's "my first
opponent may not want X but one of the other players probably will".
More Project
L. with a
player who picked it up very fast.
Star of last year's Essen SPIEL,
Nekojima: you
have to place poles to connect areas, strings can't touch, and and
sometimes you hang cats on the strings. If this had been available at
Essen I might well have bought it… but while I did enjoy it, having
now played a bit, I feel I can easily live without it. It's quite fun,
but when one player makes an error the game ends for everyone (unlike
Tinderblox where the rest of you keep playing), and you basically only
do one thing (place a pair of poles and try not to knock them over,
and very occasionally hang a cat). I don't think it's a bad game, but
I won't be giving it house-room.
On to Terraforming Mars: The Dice
Game,
where I got a lovely production engine set up, but alas too late to
get much in the way of points. Had a good time, though.
And finally
Kittin: someone
turns up a card, and everyone has to grab pieces and assemble a stack
of cat-meeples. It's fun but I found that, as with Dro Polter that
I've played a few times, I seem to have a strong natural advantage at
it.
And off to the car and home.