We had a nice turnout at last night’s event, with quite a few games being played. Forest Shuffle, The Witcher, Fromage and many more. There was even a puzzle going on at one table.
After dinner we had a plenty of games up and running once again, Stone Age, Glow, Gizmos with a game of Import Export finishing up the night.
Import / Export
The Guild of Merchant Explorers
Gizmos
Wicked: The Game
Glow
Stone Age: Anniversary
Knarr
Ready Set Bet
Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy
Fairy Ring
Paperback
Dragonkeepers
Trekking the World
Fromage
Great Western Trail
Ticket to Ride: Europe
Catan
The Witcher: Path Of Destiny
Forrest Shuffle
The Meeple Chronicles – Episode 1: Stone Age – by Mel
The Meeple Chronicles began at the dawn of civilization with Cliff, Jimmy, Narelle and myself starting our worker placement campaign through time with Stone Age.
With the meeples and chieftains (large ‘meeples’) laid out on the table, we each identified and named our clans to carry through the ages. Cliff founded the ‘Beard: Children of the River’ clan, Jimmy founded the ‘Bos: The Boss of the Four Clans’ clan, Narelle founded the ‘Williams: Protectors of the Flame’ clan, and I founded the ‘Robertson: Keepers of Robert’s Beard’ clan. With each clan established, along with a family crest, we began our fight for food, resources and victory.
Like any game there were ebbs and flows with scoring, with Narelle getting off to an early lead and Cliff being left in the metaphorical dust at one point. However, ultimately I triumphed with a final score of 219, beating Cliff on 200, Jimmy on 195 and Narelle on 187. This means I start off the campaign with 10 Meeple Chronicle points, ahead of Cliff with 6, Jimmy with 3 and Narelle with 1. Never fear though, for the lovely Narelle will begin the next episode in our campaign, Raiders of the North Sea with a boon.
Watch this space for the next episode coming soon.
Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy – by Carl
Well, it took 2 years of asking Mike, but it finally happened. Eclipse made it back to the table.
Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy, is a mix of Euro and Area Control game. You have three resources to balance.
Money = Actions,
Science = Upgrades and
Tech and Resources = Ships.
You get these by holding tiles on the map. Once you have these resources you spend them to, take actions, upgrade your available technology, build and upgrade your ships. In this game you customise your ships down to the parts. Want to move further upgrade your engines, want to be a tank, upgrade your hull so you can take more hits. With over 24 different upgrades that can be applied to any ship the options are endless.
So after convincing Carl J to join us and after a quick reminder of how to play, we were off exploring the galaxy and preparing for war. Carl J, Mike and myself were set for the next 3 hours. It was the first time Carl J had played so he choose the Terran faction, the humans of the galaxy and the most balanced of all the options. Mike and I on the other hand decided to play the new factions. Mike had found a print and play version of the latest expansions that haven’t even released yet, so we took two of them for a test drive. We quickly discovered that Mikes, The Rho Indi Syndicate faction, need to be kept under control.
With some early lucky draws of bonus tiles and galaxy map ties Mike was off to a sprinting start. My faction on the other hand, The Exiles, plays the long game. Being starved for money, through both luck of the tile draw and the nature of the faction it became a running joke that I would take two turns and pass. While Mike and Carl J could afford to take 3 or more turns. Carl J’s Terran was consistent and had built up some impressively tanky ships with 4-5 Hull vs our 1-2.
In the end Mikes, The Rho Indi Syndicate came out victorious, but only just. With only a few points between Mike and myself, Carl J had gone for a all guns blazing end to his game costing him quite a few points. Carl J still really enjoyed the game and I hope we have a future galaxy ruler in the making.
