Mel Beard, Author at Coastal Board Gamers

Event #134 Wrap Up

Mel Beard — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 08:53:25 +0000

Saturday’s event may have been a bit quieter than usual, but for those of us that attended we definitely didn’t let that dampen our spirits!

I started the afternoon learning how to play ‘We’re Doomed’ with Brendan, Zac, Jimmy and Hobbo. What a laugh! I lost count of how many times we all betrayed each other in an effort to secure our own seat on the escape rocket. After being betrayed one (or ten) too many times, I had zero chance of claiming a seat for myself, so took the opportunity to destroy the whole rocket with just 1 minute to go, entirely out of pure spite. Sorry, not sorry.

A game of Kingdomino, followed by a couple of rounds of Flip 7, where luck was not on my side, took me to dinner time.

In the evening I joined Brendan and Jimmy again, along with Narelle this time, to learn the newly released expansion to ‘Viticulture’: ‘Bordeaux’. After a slow start, we started to see an early leader in Brendan breaking out from the rest of the pack. While Narelle and Jimmy fought valiantly to try and make up the difference, one could be forgiven for thinking that I sat there twiddling my thumbs for the whole game. After a last minute push, Brendan took out the game, winning by a point, with all 3 of my courageous competitors scoring within 4 points of one another. Meanwhile, I am ashamed to say that my final, pitiful, last ditch attempt to score points amounted in a score so embarrassingly low that I didn’t just lose the game, I also lost all hope that I would somehow manage to walk away from the table with any dignity still intact. Please keep me in your thoughts.

Here are the games we played:

The Quest for El Dorado

SETI

Gizmos

20 Strong

We’re Doomed!

Flip 7

12 Rivers

Ticket to Rode: London

Carcassonne

Super Boss Monster

Machi Koro 2

Sequence

Gingham

Viticulture: Bordeaux Expansion

Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time

Wormholes

7 Wonders

Battle Con

3D Blockus

San Juan

Odin’s Ravens

Meeple Escape 2026 tickets are available now. Click one of these images to book now while Early Bird prize is up for grabs!

Remember there has been a date change for February.

Our next event is on 21/02/2026.

The post Event #134 Wrap Up appeared first on Coastal Board Gamers.

Event #115 Wrap Up

Mel Beard — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 10:12:20 +0000

Event #115 saw the arrival of 6 new board gamers. Tim and Mel ran a feature on entry-level games to draw the new crowd in.

The event was also a night to see some of those old favourites, along with some new ones, played at multiple tables throughout the night. Splendor proved to be the most popular, being tabled many times around the room, including with our latest recruits.

Here’s what Jimmy had to say about the night:

Last night I had the pleasure of teaching some gateway games to 4 new people that Mel & Cliff invited along. Mel’s mum, Corinna, and her friend Helen. A client of Cliff, Christian, and his mum, Rhonda. All very easy to get along with, I particularly got along well with Christian, as we shared many laughs across the table.

We first played 7 Wonders Architects, which I had never played before, but I picked it up in a snap, as it is very similar to the base game. No card drafting, but still that player interaction between yourself and your neighbours is there. I forgot who won this game, but it wasn’t me.

Next, I taught them Splendor. Yes it plays only 4, so I sat out in the first game and just taught. Christian triggered the endgame with 15 points, but his mum Rhonda snatched the victory straight after with 16 points. Unlucky Christian! They liked it so much that we played again, with Corinna out and I joined the fray this time.

After that game, we broke out the trusty game that never fails to entertain, Labyrinth. Ah, the hapless wizards wandering aimlessly through an ever changing Labyrinth, trying to find treasures and get back home. Christian and Rhonda were neck & neck in the lead with this one trying to find their way back to win, with Rhonda sneaking in the win just before dinner.

After dinner, Mel taught me, Christian and Rhonda how to play Cascadia, a great tile laying game about building the best ecosystem in patterns to score the most points. This game was pretty tight in scoring. My memory fails me, but I think Mel won, with me a close second. Great game this one, and Rhonda and Christian picked it up in a snap.

After Cascadia however, they had enough for the night, so it was time for me to learn instead of teach and that game was a silly game of High Stakes, taught by Dave.

This game didn’t seem like much, but boy I was wrong. It was just a whole bunch of silly fun that brought many laughs. Basically you have to travel from Earth to Mars and back in a race of building space stations to build revenue and gambling on stock market (basically event) cards, which either were good, bad or something in between. The game to me felt a lot like Monopoly. If people traversed across your space stations they paid ‘rent’ to you instead of the bank. If you had to pay a debt, you had to sell space stations in order to pay your debt, and the cards felt like Chance/Community Chest cards. In the end, my solid investment in lots of space stations to ‘clog up’ space, kept my revenue high with others paying me. This allowed me to fly home first and take the win. Lots of shenanigans happening in this little gem! Thanks heaps Dave!

All in all, I felt it was a very successful night in bringing new people into the world of modern board gaming. It was just a joy in seeing the thrill and understanding of game mechanics on their faces, that all I can say is thank you for allowing me to do so.

A big thank you goes out to Jimmy and Mike who, through teaching our new attendees some games, made them feel very comfortable and welcome. All new persons expressed an interest in returning to more events, congratulations to you both.

Thanks everyone for another great CBG event and we look forward to seeing all at event #116

7 Wonders: Architects
High Society
Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game
Root
Mysterium
The Guild of Merchant Explorers
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Saboteur
Splendor
Fire Tower
Century Golem Edition
Pandemic: Hot Zone – North America
Ship Shape: It’s a Smuggler’s Bounty!
Labyrinth
Splendor Duel
Shards of Infinity
Gizmos
Cascadia
Back to the Future: Back in Time
Carcassonne
High $takes

The post Event #115 Wrap Up appeared first on Coastal Board Gamers.

Event #105 Wrap Up

Mel Beard — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 11:10:12 +0000

Event #105 turned out to be to be an unusually quiet one, with many familiar faces MIA over the long weekend. For those of us who made it, it proved to be another great night of fun and fellowship.

The following games were tabled:

Kingdomino
Aethermon: Collect
Heat: Pedal to the Metal
Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck
Building Game
The quest for El Dorado
Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game
Copenhagen
Earth
Odin’s Ravens
Moon River
Shardhunters
Root
Expancity
Labyrinth
Skull King
Champions!
Canvas

With Jim’s Terraforming Mars campaign postponed until next event, here’s what he posted about his night:

Last night, I had got to break out the Marvel Legendary cases and teach young Maddison how to play, as Belinda and Dave H jumped on board to take out Dr. Doom in ‘The Legacy Virus’. Dr. Doom succeeded as we all got smashed with wounds galore, but as always it was a great game and even more fun teaching. Maddison, Belinda and Dave tried this setup again, but this time in ‘Portals to the Dark Dimension’, as I jumped over to a learning game of ‘Earth’, taught very well by Mel.

[Ed. Jimmy continues, speaking about a game called Earth] OMG, this game is just 👍👍👍. Building synergies between growing ecosystems in a tableau, with NO downtime between turns. Constantly thinking. So much going on, it’s just great, and it plays up to 5 people 😁. Thanks heaps Mel for teaching this gem! Out comes the purchase pen. First I bought ‘Raiders of the North Sea’ and now this? You guys are making me broke 🤣

Thanks to Jim’s tick of approval, I earned myself a second teach of ‘Earth’ with Tim, Zac and Maurice. It quickly became apparent that Zac had the game all figured out and built an ecosystem that was a mightily efficient engine, naturally taking out the win with a whopping 209 points.

At another table, Mike enjoyed some different games:

Another fun night at CBG!

First up was Legendary Encounters Alien where Nic, Oakley and myself played the Alien3 movie scenario. It didn’t take long for the trouble to start, and wounds to stack up. But we dug in – taking out Aliens, hazards, and Nic even managed two face huggers (fortunately killed off).

Later Josh, Penny, Nic and myself played a game of Root. Josh was a badger, Penny Eyrie birds, Nic the Underground Duchy (Moles), and I played a Vagabond.

Josh and Penny spread across the map, while I marched my single Vagabond around finding items. Nic was burrowing around building his engine.

Penny managed a big turn to shoot ahead and easily won the game. GG. It was a lot of fun.

Penny Eyrie 30

Nic Underground Duchy 24

Josh Keepers in Iron 18

Me Vagabond 15

Not that scores matter, right?

Thanks everyone for a fun night. 😎

Looking forward to our next event? Event #106 will be taking place on the 16th of November. New members welcome, bring your favorite game, or enjoy learning some of ours from the extensive board game library. Hope to see you then.

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