29th May 2024
A quieter night with twelve gamers joining us for another epic space battling game of Eclipse and some shorter length games of painting, looting, repelling aliens and digging for treasure.
The first table kicked off with a shortish game of Canvas with 5 players. Canvas was played 2 sessions ago with the reflections booster pack. This time we also played with finishing touches. Each player completes 3 paintings, each with 3 layers, and wins tokens (4 types + silver + gold). At the end of the game, victory points are awarded for the number of tokens of each type, especially if you have several tokens of the same type. Finishing touches adds “platinum” tokens and points, if your picture (canvas) has more of a feature than anyone else. There are 4 types of feature, so 4 opportunities to be best. The best can change through the game, but you still keep your platinum token. James T. (who lost last time!) got multiple tokens in several areas, and finished streaks ahead. Graham, who had done well last time, brought up the rear with half the points of James.
The epic game of Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy was back for a second go and thanks to a fair wind (and half term) started earlier and (spoilers) finished. Five returned and everyone took the same factions as last time (three Terrans, the Exiles, and the Magellan). There was a run of bad luck in discovery tiles on one side of the board and many ancients on the other. With five players we used the “warped universe” version of the play mat - which brings two of the players “closer together” for a bit more balance, but there was some clever warp point blocking and the map got very tight very quickly. A run for the centre by the Terran’s almost got the win, but some high point hexes and big combat VPs gave the Magellan the win; six points separated 1st and 4th, (34-28) so a very close finish (you can get 2 VPs for a discover tile, so it’s all in the margins).
The last table to start was a 2 player game of Clank!: Catacombs using characters from Clank!: Adventuring Party, so we had Steve L. as MonkeyBot Prime and Jeremy J. as Dwarf Agnet. The game involves exploring by revealing new tiles, collecting secrets, stealing artifacts and freeing prisoners from the Ghost Dragon residing in the catacombs. Each player draws cards from their deck that gives them movement, combat, skill points and clank! Skill points can be used to buy new cards for your deck, but clank attracts the dragon. All clank (as cubes) go into a dragon bag, and when an attack happens cubes are drawn and any matching your colour inflict damage! So its a race to collect the most treasure and escape before the dragon overwhelms you.
Jeremy had a good start quickly exploring the dungeon and freeing many prisoners and finding some good loot with Agnet. But MonkeyBot Prime gains extra abilities when damaged by the Dragon so by the end of the game Steve had a overclocked Bot. With a couple of healing potions to counteract the damage Steve managed to nab two artifacts, all three crowns and many secret tomes. Jeremy was struggling with a bloated deck to limp to the exit before being finished off by the dragon. In the end MonkeyBot and Agnet succumbed right before the exit, but the villagers could drag them out as they weren’t in the catacomb depths. The final tally of loot showed there was no real competition, even though Jeremy had snagged the best artifact, the haul by Steve put him as the clear winner.
The first table finished Canvas and then played Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game, trying to defeat the Aliens (from the third film) in Sigourney Weaver style! This is a cooperative game, with each player taking on different roles. We played twice, having lost spectacularly on the first occasion (due a minor set-up issue making it more difficult), using the same roles to see if we could do better.
Steph took on the medic role, and was very helpful in healing others - but selflessly did not worry about her own health, and was the first to die in both games. Darren was support but also died early on. James T. took on an attacking role, and was helpful in defeating aliens. Neil’s role could scan rooms to find out what is coming, and sometimes delay attacks. Graham’s role could make quicker use of cards, which was used to better effect in the second game. James T. reduced the strength of the big boss before dying, enabling Neil to finish off the big boss and win the game.
With Clank finished and the other tables still going, Jeremy and Steve had a quick couple of games of Big Dig to finish off the session having some spatial challenges digging out coins and gems and connecting pipelines using polyamino style digging!
This was our last session (of 3) in May, so are now heading into June with our next session on the 12th. On Wednesday June 26th we are holding a charity event, where fees, raffle money and bake sale money will go to help raise funds for the Corn Exchange as it is struggling to make enough money due to the recent roof repairs. Do join us for one or both sessions and let us know in advance of any game requests via Discord.
- Total Session Attendance: 12
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Board Games: