RogerBW's Blog

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.