Josh Newman, Author at Coastal Board Gamers

Event #125 Wrap Up

Josh Newman — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 09:09:00 +0000

Our one and only event for September has been and gone, but we made the most of it by playing:

Keys to the Castle
Marvel Splendor
Unfathomable
Fate of the Fellowship
Dune Imperium
Unconscious Mind
Ticket to Ride: Europe
Awithlaknannai
Jamaica
Trekking the World
The Crew
Spirit Island
Land of Gold
Ship Shape
Beetlejuice
Card Scramble
Coffee Rush
Kingdom Rush
The Oregon Trail
Cities
2x Ravensburger Puzzles

It was good to see most of the tables filled and we had a surprise visit from some of our HOGS friends down south.
Something else that made this event extra special was we were promoting RUOK2Play, an organisation that promotes mental health through playing board games. I think that’s a cause us Gamers can all get behind! To Celebrate we ran a play-to-win of The Crew, a co-operative trick taking game, and Congrats to Maurice who was the winner of that.

Feel free to have a look at their Facebook or Website and remember to check on your fellow gamers or reach out if you need help with your mental health.

For all you Lord of the Rings fans, let me point you toward Jimmy’s new game Fate of the Fellowship. A Co-op Game which lets you control 2 of the many characters of Middle Earth as you all try to assist in destroying the One Ring before Frodo loses all hope and Sauron Reigns. While I wasn’t able to play this time, I eagerly look forward to the next game where hopefully the ending will be a bit more true to the story.

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Event #118 Wrap Up

Josh Newman — Sat, 17 May 2025 11:36:31 +0000

While the days are still warm, the nights are getting colder. But a brave few stayed around to huddle for warmth (Kidding, we have AC) around some board games like:

Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game
The Guild of Merchant Explorers
Brass: Lancashire
Cartographers
Dixit
Machi Koro 2
Skull
Carcassonne
Forbidden Desert
High Society
Exploding Kittens
Wicked: The Game
The Castles of Burgundy
Concept
Splendor
UNO Flip!
Ecosystem: Savanna
Dungeons & Dragons

While us hosts are too busy to play games for the first part of the event, it’s always nice to see the range of games that get bought and played at each event.

One I did get to play was Concept, an interesting take on the charades/Pictionary style of game. Rather than writing or drawing, you’re provided with a board of keyword options, and you place tokens and cubes to point your audience toward the answer. It’s always interesting to see how others think and what dots they connect, and how wildly wrong they can be.

Next weekend we are Suuuper excited for meeple escape. It’s going to be a blast and much fun and games will be had. But with so many games to play, I don’t know how we’re going to decide which one!!!

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Special Event – Meeple Expo

Josh Newman — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 08:41:53 +0000

The first ever Meeple Expo is complete, and while the attendance was small, Fun, conversation and interesting things were plentiful. We had 5 displays set up with a variety of subjects and interesting people to talk with.

Jimmy was there with his 3D printer, which he put to work making a couple of inserts for Splendor, and also showed off his Western Legends game with all its printed and painted pieces.

Cat put together an awesome array of items and info about how we can make our games more accessible and accommodating for those with mental or physical issues that make games challenging for them to play.

We had James, a local artist and designer, show off some of his skilled work and even taught his game ‘Classroom buddies’ to some of us.

It was great to meet Adam from Leading Edge Burnie, who also had some of their 3d printed items (he really likes his collapsible lightsaber), as well as a few of their growing collection of board games.

We also had a few people showing and helping with some digital gaming options, which we obviously had a go at.

It was really good to get a glimpse into some of the things people in our little community get up to and their willingness to share and talk about it is a real gift to us. I personally learnt a heap and I really hope my mind can remember even half of it!

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Event #112 Wrap Up

Josh Newman — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 11:08:42 +0000

It was the first event after the start of school, not that that means too much to us working adults. But any teachers, parents and students hopefully enjoyed the escape from the stress of the new school year by playing some board games like:

Scythe
Shards of Infinity: Saga Collection
Brass Lancashire
Galactic Cruise
Farshore
Quest for El Dorado
Import / Export
Trekking the World
Canvas Reflections
Kingdomino Origins
Ship Shape
Carcassonne
Legendary Encounters; Predator and Alien versions
Mistborn
Project L
Ticket to ride; Berlin
Root
Wingspan
Beyond the Sun
The Crew

It was a little weird to not have a game of Terraforming Mars played, however the campaign finished last event and you can read the summary in the previous blog. That did make way for other table hogging games, such as Scythe, Beyond the Sun and Farshore, and freed up those players to enjoy greater variety and quantity of games.

We had a few new Kickstarters played tonight, Galactic Cruise has you competing to build and launch spaceships that will take your customers to the stars, and whoever does it best will be rewarded with the coveted position of company CEO. Or a little closer to earth, Trekking the World is an easy game about visiting the best places the world has and seeing who can be the best tourist.

I did get to play my favourite game, Root, in which we managed our first 6-player game. But another interesting game I enjoyed was Ship shape, A game in which you bid on tiles with which to fill your cargo hold and try to earn the most money. It has an interesting bid mechanic in which everyone secretly picks a card numbered 1-10 and whoever has the highest number gets the first tile in the line, lowest gets the last. It’s interesting because it’s hard to get your pick, as rarely is the scale 10-1, it could be as close as 2-4 and if anyone ties, those players are bumped to the end and go again, further throwing off the ordering.

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Event #107 Wrap Up

Josh Newman — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 09:42:33 +0000

It’s getting closer to Christmas and everything is starting to get busy. However plenty of people managed to find time to come to our first December Event and play these games:

Black Fleet
Terraforming Mars
Mastermind
Discworld
The Quest for El Dorado
It’s a Wonderful World
Red Dust Rebellion
Spirit Island
Ticket to Ride
Century Golem Edition
Ship Shape
Heat
(Turkish) Rummy-O
Century Golem Endless World
Coral Reef
Root
Not It
Labyrinth
Splendor
What the cup
Castles of Burgundy
The Mandalorian Adventures\
Blockus 3D

Our event got off to a great start, with plenty of members turning up, boosted by a couple groups of newcomers. One group of Turkish origin played a Turkish variant of Rummy, and while I’m a little rusty on the original, I was lost with the variant. Luckily they knew what they were doing and had a good time while they were here.

We had our usual campaign game of Terraforming Mars, summed up nicely by Jimmy, as well as a return of The Mandalorian Adventures from Tim, now a little further along thanks to some solo play, but joined by a few brave players to tackle the next couple of missions together. I also get the feeling we’ll be seeing more Red Dust Rebellion in the next months as the players are trying out each of the asymmetric factions.

This event we had a communal puzzle going to get us all in the festive spirit. We were unfortunately missing all our competitive puzzlers, but alas the rest of us were able to finish it before the night was over. Don’t miss our Christmas event next fortnight, come dressed in Christmas colours ready to share the joy with your fellow gamers!

Campaign Report from Jim

Sat 7th Dec we played Game 3/6 of our Terraforming Mars Campaign. This time we played the flip side of the Hellas map, the Elysium map. The players were:

Mel (Yellow) – Point Luna
Cliff (Green) – Nirgal Enterprises
Lynette (Red) – DNP. We gave her an average of our scores.
Belinda (Black) – Helion
Myself (Blue) – Robinson Industries

Ok, right from the get go I’m not going to explain much of how my game went. We’ll just put it down to bad card draw and I probably got my lowest score…ever. So I’ll draw on the experiences of Belinda & Mel for this report. Cliff didn’t give me any feedback, but he didn’t need to, he won…and by a lot. Actions speak louder than words, eh? Belinda drove a great engine based on loads of plant cards. She even found Lynette’s ‘Potatoes’ card, so who owns the Potatoes now, eh? Mel was ever the strategist and probably the main reason for my huge loss, as every take that card played by Mel was directed at me! I guess if you’re leading the scores, you become a target, and rightfully so. She played the ‘Pets’ card, which was a great VP collector and the dog also resembles their pet Millie, which was cool. The only card I played which I thought was good was ‘Physics Complex’, which gives 2 VP for every science resource on it.

The Awards for this game were:

1st award – Industrialist (Most Steel & Energy resources) – won by Cliff

2nd award – Desert Settler (Most tiles owned on the bottom 4 rows) – won by myself

3rd award – Benefactor (most TR before anything else is counted) – won by Cliff (I think)

Game 4 will ramp up as the Venus Next expansion is added and we’ll be playing on the Cimmeria map, which has only recently been released. Final game scores are shown amongst the attached pictures.

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Event #103 Wrap Up

Josh Newman — Sat, 05 Oct 2024 09:55:41 +0000

In a classic example of Tasmanian weather, it’s mid Spring and was a windy and wet Saturday. We didn’t mind too much though, because we were inside playing these games:

Marvel Legendary
Stone Age
Ticket to ride: Asia
The Mandalorian Adventures
Blockbuster
Skull
Heat pedal to the metal
The quest for El Dorado
It’s a wonderful world
Monopoly D&D
Blokus 3D
Splendor
Knarr
Sushi Go!
Guillotine
Splendor Duel
Food Chain Island
Space Crusade
Labyrinth
Rahajas of the Gangies
Hey that’s my fish
Settlers of Catan
Cascadia

It was nice to see some unexpected faces this event, Thanks for coming guy’s, especially those who had to cross Bass Strait to get here.

There were some new games this event, including a sneak peak at one that isn’t even released yet (Thanks Mike). Haydn got gifted the Monopoly, which was played with much grumbling. Skull was a hit, with many exclamations of both joy and disappointment.

Showing that old games are still fun, Space Crusade, released in 1990, made it’s first appearance at a CBG table.

It’s a 1v3 as an Alien player is pit against up to 3 Space Marine players, who use their commander and squad to clear out an infested ship and complete objectives, hopefully before succumbing to the aliens on board. Our Marines were able to succeed this time, but they may not have such luck on the next ship . . .

Finally, we’ve now got an accessibility page our website. It’s to give people an idea of what to expect at our events and answer some questions some might have. Go have a look and share it with those who might find it useful, so we can grow our board gaming community.

Event #103 (5/10/24) Joshua Newman

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Event #98 Wrap Up

Josh Newman — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 09:23:46 +0000

While it was a bit wet this weekend, at our 98th event we were nice and dry, inside playing board games. Specifically, these ones:

Yura Yura Penguin
High Season
Scythe
The quest for El Dorado
Food Chain Magnate
Settlers of Catan
Ticket to Ride Europe
Wormholes
Spicy
Splendor
Splendor Duel
The Worst case Scenario
Amsterdam
Gizmos
Terra Mystica
Ark Nova
Takenoko
Great Western Trail
Blockbuster
Skyrockets
Marvel Legendary

It seemed to be a night to play some of the longer games, with quite a few of them taking multiple hours to complete, such as Food Chain Magnate, Amsterdam and even a 2-player Ark Nova.

After a bit of a break, Marvel Legendary made it to the table again, though the lack of practice showed as they were unable to beat the mastermind Klaw. We had to put 2 tables together to fit Scythe, as the 7 players all battled it out. And it’s worth mentioning the quick game of Great western trail that had to be close to under an hour of play.

My personal favourite was learning Wormholes, a strategic passenger delivery game that had us trying to maximise our few actions and abuse the teleportation wormholes to make as many points as we could by delivering passengers to the planets they wanted.

[Ed. 20/07/2024]

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Event #90 Wrap Up

Josh Newman — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 09:13:48 +0000

16th of March at Apex House, Ulverstone

This event saw a few new faces, some we haven’t seen in a while and plenty of regular attenders, and the same could be said for the games list!

Games Played:

Settlers of Catan

Brass Birmingham

Jumanji

Trash Pandas

Mountain Goats

Dog Park

It’s a Wonderful World

Raccoon Tycoon

Terra Mystica

Tarraforming Mars

Rolling Realms

Distilled

The quest for El Dorado

Spirit Island

Camel up

Ticket to Ride: Europe

Wonderlands War

Trolls and Princesses

Dungeons and Dragons: Grim Hollow

A few of our members have given a summary of their nights in the discord, such as this one from Chris:

I only played 2 games yesterday, but both were excellent. It was great to get out Distilled again and teach two new players. Carl managed to storm to the win with a really simple engine and not needing to age any spirits. Then I played a new game for me. Trolls & Princesses. Narelle did an amazing job of teaching the game and Katy helped out with some tips and suggestions along the way. It was a great game to learn and even though I came last it was a lot of fun. I’d have to play it again to consolidate the rules. A great event once again.

It also saw the last of the 3 League games for this month. The game was Wonderlands War and while the league is based on the final positioning of each player, tonight’s game had the highest score, with Jared winning on 88 points!

It’s been awhile since we heard from the Campaign corner, so here’s a brief report to fill you in.

Campaign Corner Report
The Party has conquered the tower they were exploring in the last report. Upon returning to the town of Feather fall from which they had departed, they were surprised to discover that what was a couple days for them was actually months for everyone else. While they were gone the town had come under attack from the Cult of Apep that the party have been tangling with, and while it’s quiet for now, the occupying army says it’s not over yet.

After getting their bearings last session, we began this session with a very short list of objectives. The main one was talking to the commander of the resident army and ascertaining what was going on, which resulted in a long discussion, much story progression and the party placed under “Protective custody” in their home.

Some of the inevitable shenanigans that occurred were Dawz swapping appearance many times as her hat of disguise gave the DM a new minigame, the shadiest character Zahollo playing group parent, and Ash leaving the house as a rat, thrown by Volgath.

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Event #57 Wrap Up

Josh Newman — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 05:14:25 +0000

Of the many things to do on a long weekend, attending a CBG event is a good choice. In attendance we had many of the familiar faces of members mixing well with the newer faces of first and second time attenders.

The event started with 2 double tables to accommodate the games, Endless Winter: Paleoamericans and Wonderland’s War, which both had impressive boards and while they each had a small number of rounds, there was plenty to be done in them.
There was also a wide variety in the number of players, with several small 2 player games all the way up to a 10 player game of Secret Hitler.

The full list of games played is:

Just One
Brass Birmingham
Living Forest
Secret Hitler
Solar Storm
Muffin Time
Nuns on the Run
Obsession
Cat Cafe
Netunner
Micropolis
Glow
Zombie Kittens
Block and Key
Dungeon Mayhem
Nidavellir
Telestrations
Exploding Kittens
Unstble Unicorns
Paperback
Slay
Nuns on the Run
Wonderlands War
Project L
Endless Winter
Tenzi

The rest of the time was spent swapping between games, with a break for some lovely tea, provided by our venue fuchsia fantasy. It was an enjoyable time, filled with the general chatter that comes when playing board games, broken occasionally by laughter or an exclamation of surprise or annoyance.

(Event Date: 5/11/2022)

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