Annual Ragnar Pilgrimage
‘Invasions’ from Asmodee
‘Gheos’ by Rene Wiersma
‘PowerGrid’ by Friedemann Friese.
‘Leonardo’ by Acchittocca – a group of Italian game designers.
Mission: Red Planet by Bruno Faidutti and Bruno Cathala
‘Take it Easy’ – by Pete Burley
Annual Ragnar Pilgrimage
Asterisked games (*) are reviewed in more detail elsewhere on this website
Phil, Nick and Slade travel down from the far north, where Phil’s family have recently acquired Pepper the puppy. Slade and Nick have never been ones to miss out on cheap, mindless humour: the combination of fish and chips for tea, with Pepper, has rendered them well-nigh catatonic. It promises to be a long drive to Waterhouses . . . and an even longer weekend.
Readers of previous Bash accounts will be only too-familiar with Slade’s long-standing aversion to map books. This year Phil gets his blow in early – and brought his own. Much manly dialogue ensues: “Glossop . . . Buxton . . A515 to Ashbourne”. This is the stuff of weekends away from wives. Only a slight wobble disturbs the journey (“Isn’t this the A6 to Matlock?”), but eventually the boys arrive in record time.
The rest of the party are already in action. Gheos and Robber Knights are being given a good going over. The northern boys hang around the periphery, unpacking, pulling on their drinking boots and gleefully beginning to snipe at Dave (It’s his own fault – what self-respecting Ragnar would turn up to a Bash in a pink shirt? Dave continues the theme throughout the wekend: Saturday morning he appears in a check cowboy shirt, for that Brokeback Mountain look).
And so to the gaming.
Pokerface
The Ragnars have been ‘approached’ (read tentatively hinted at) about ‘someone’ possibly being interested in Pokerface: the boardgame. The boys are up for this one. In the manner of almost knowing what they are doing, all three come up with a different version of the game. Kendall, being Kendall, takes his a step further and actually creates a working model. It is now getting its first outing.
Now, part of the appeal of Pokerface is the amusing and interesting variety of trivia questions – in every round there’s a bit of something for everyone. Kendall has decided to get rid of that aspect for tonight: the rounds are ‘Major civilizations of world history’, ‘The events immediately prior to 1066’, ‘The Ragnar Fantasy Football Premiership, 2006-7’ and ‘The Ashes, 2005-2006’, neatly turning the ‘variety angle’ on its head, and ensuring that half the players at any one time haven’t got a clue what the question is about. Phil, who immersed himself in the Great Humbling of the Aussies just as much as anyone else, can only guess (unsuccessfully) as to how many runs Paul Collingwood scored during the 5th test. (Worryingly, he has no such difficulties remembering the name of Michael Vaughan’s wife. Too much reading of Heat magazine, more of which anon).
Nonetheless, a fine time ensues. Questions such as which Viking had their wicked way with the Abbess of Leominster (“it was Sweyn!” to paraphrase the words of Andrew Lloyd Webber in Joseph) are right up the Ragnar’s street. Hill wins a little over £60,000 (and celebrates like a man who actually has won £60,000), Phil is second with Roger a disappointing last - but then what do you expect of a man who folds at the first opportunity in every round? On a curious note, only four of the ten Ragnar’s have actually seen the programme. So much for ITV’s new exciting Saturday night schedule. (Some might say, so much for the Ragnars living in the real world - Ed).
At which point – back to the table. The final game is to be Frank’s Zoo, a card game which the Bingley crowd have introduced to Phil. Basically this is a light frothy version of the Ragnar’s old favourite – Dalmouti. Players have to get rid of their cards by following on from the player before them; instead of cards being in strict numerical value of importance, these are in food chain territory (e.g. a seal can be superseded, or eaten by, a polar bear or a killer whale). The interesting point here is that card play can follow the different branches of the food chain; for instance a goldfish could be eaten by all manner of sea creatures or by a crocodile (which in turn can be eaten by an elephant). Mosquitoes played with an elephant count as 2 elephants (???!), and that’s pretty much it. Phil’s daughters enjoy it, but how will it go down at a Ragnar Bash?
The answer is ‘not too bad’. Given that it is being played by ten players (the box says four to seven players), that Phil has added one of his more abstruse scoring systems as well as a version of the ‘changing partners’ and that it is being played by a bunch of drunken forty-somethings you could upgrade the response to ‘remarkably not too bad’. Dave, being Dave, plays it at the speed of a pre-global warming glacier (“So what can I play on a killer whale?”. Honestly . . .), but apart from that it bowls along nicely. Jason wins, and therefore enjoys it immensely.
And so to bed.
Saturday, March 10th: Day 2 in the Big Brother house.
The boys are woken to the joyous smell of sausages cooked a la Spiller. Over breakfast the conversation ranges widely. Initially Dave’s latest choice of shirt holds sway (see Friday night), but then Phil has the bad idea of saying that he has been reading Heat magazine. Heat? Oh yes, it even reviews hard-backed books. At which point the Ragnars are onto it like greyhounds catching up with the electronic rabbit. Phil goes on to admit that it can also be somewhat tacky – for instance, Celebs going out without their pants on. The stuff of forty-something conversation.
The morning games ensue, and this year a departure from tradition. Two games are in place for the morning, two for the afternoon. Different people have offered to run them; all the rest of the group have to do is sign up for which game they want to play. It works surprisingly well.
Kendall is leading a game of Invasions (*) – the newby from Asmodee. For years the Ragnars laboured over a cloth map, with serviceable cards, cardboard components and a plastic stand to hold your longship. When given the full treatment, it becomes an absolute gem. Plastic vikings are stacked up on ships, fistfuls of full colour Rune cards are drawn and the longships sail majestically across the spacious mapboard.
The game plays magnificently. Phil contrives to win, despite his longship being savaged by the ever-popular (amongst the other players) sea monster on the way to Bjarmaland. He squeezes in as victor after a somewhat flukey final turn in the far West, with Nick “Bloodaxe” Child in a dogged second place. There are one or two blips (house rules already in place), but who cares when there are so many dramatic moments (Hill having an entire crew of Vikings butchered in front of Rome being a case in point).
Elsewhere, Power Grid (*) is playing out to a conclusion with Dicken cruising to an easy victory (it helps to know the rules – ed.), so there’s time for a quick Ticket to Ride (*) (very quick – you’re not allowed even to think if it’s your turn). Amazingly even Dave seems to manage to play it at what would be normal speed for any other human being, and the game flies by in less than three-quarters of an hour. Nick romps home again – is there no stopping the man?
The afternoon sees the return of Freidrich (*). Now this is a big game, and despite the German feel to the systems (build up your hand of cards; the more of a suit the better you can fight your battle in a particular sector of the board) it does feel to be quite an old-fashioned game. A good wodge of afternoon hours have been set aside to give it a really good seeing to, and – boy! – are they needed. Time seems to stand still as players each take their turn. Almost inevitably it is Dave who offers to take on the role of Frederick himself: he does a good job, but with eight field armies in play, each turn involves a great deal of down-time for the other players. It’s a strange game: by the end, Phil, Gary and Richard have had enough, but Dave and Hill are still eager to finish playing it out. As the experience has already lasted three hours, and the players are no more than half way through, it is put to bed. Very frustrating. It feels so like you want it to feel, but who can find six hours to play through the entire game???
Pre-pub, the Ragnar’s latest creation is given another outing, although most players take time out to jeer at Middlesboro and Man Utd’s efforts in the FA Cup. It’s been a heavy day of gaming.
The pub proves to be everything the previous year’s meal out was not, right down to a roaring inferno for warmth (“yes, you too can recreate that scene from Tom Brown’s Schooldays”). Suitably replete, it’s back to base for Kendall’s “I got it for Christmas” intro quiz. Holding off the challenge of Hill (“I’m sure I’ve got that CD in my car”), Phil, Dicken and Slade ease to victory. Roger sits and reads the rules to Caylus (*), briefly galvanising himself into action when ‘Rabbit’ by Chas and Dave is played (“by his deeds shall ye know him”). Artistically satisfied, further gaming ensues. Leonardo (*) plays to mixed reviews, most of which revolve around the I-need-to-play-it-again theme. It’s going up to one o’clock for the second night running, but Kendall still finds two volunteers for another run at an earlier design of his. For the record, Spiller and Hill are the two idio - sorry, playtesters in question.
Sunday, March 11th: Day Three
And it’s the same recipe as yesterday. Sausages, Heat magazine, games.
The party splits into three, with Dicken, Roger, Spiller and Slade building castles in Caylus, Phil, Richard and Kendall inventing away in Leonardo and Nick, Dave and Hill trundling along in back-to-back games of Ticket to Ride. Caylus proves the slower, indeed the Leonardo party are already a couple of turns into their game when they notice that Dicken is still explaining rules. By the time Kendall has utterly trounced Phil and Richard (Ed. Can you spot the seamless transition between reporters?), there is still time left to make-up a six player game of Powergrid, leaving the Caylus crew to hack on until lunch. Not too sure if Caylus has ever been finished yet!
Phil has had a hard week-end. Heat magazine has taken its toll and teaching Friedrich and Leonardo (twice) can’t have been easy. Early success in Invasions has not been sustained and so he approaches Powergrid like a punch-drunk boxer. First Richard explains the rules and then Kendall chips in; but nothing seems to stick. His anxiety levels rise. Kendall urges him not to expect to understand every nuance of the game before playing it; but to no avail.
The first power station is put up for auction – the 5-pointer. ‘5’, ‘6’, ‘7’ (getting a bit expensive) ‘8’. Phil looks satisfied with his purchase and begins to relax. ‘Can I buy another now? ’Just the one, Phil’… ’Oh’.
Resource buying goes pretty smoothly, but the nightmare continues when hitting the map. ‘Can I ask a strategic question?’’Go on... ’Where would it be good to build?’… There are other new players at the table, but even Dave is simply getting on with it.
Back to the auction and Phil is first in again, buying something that no-one else particular craves, for another eyebrow raising price. Now he starts having problems with organising his money to buy resources and new cities. Still, the player in last place does have chance to catch up if they play clever. If…
Next auction and Phil’s eyes light up at the sight of a nuclear station – ‘Would you trust this man with nuclear power?’ Kendall puts it up for auction and Phil gobbles it up. Of course the rods are still filthy expensive, so Phil’s soon out of sequence again.
The game ends (prematurely) at lunch. It’s a close thing between Kendall and Richard, which goes to prove that this game responds to the hand of experience. Phil’s promised that he can borrow the game for a few weeks.
Yet more food is produced for lunch (a BIG thanks to Dicken this year) and a round Robin of favourite game of the week-end ensues. Roger can’t resist naming a favourite and then a reserve, Spiller starts to wax lyrical about his top three (but is shouted down by the assembled company). Top spot goes to Invasions (three cheers for Ragnar Brothers!), closely followed by Powergrid.
And so to the cars and hearty farewells. The general consensus is that this has been the best year yet; plans are already afoot for 2008.
Gamesnight 22nd February…… ‘Invasions’
Derek arrives without Roz. This means that Carol is sufficiently energised to be playing in tonight’s game – ‘Invasions’ (Asmodee’s newly released version of RB’s very own ‘Viking Fury’). It’s a five player and the fifth is our man from March, Mr J. Spiller. He’s down for the week-end and being as tonight is Friday there is already a de-mob happy atmosphere, which only increases when Derek presents a bottle of New Zealand bottled beer to anyone who wants one. Dicken, Spiller and Kendall fall over themselves to be ingratiating. Would a Ragnar refuse a free beer? I don’t think so. Time to go a-Viking.
Well, here it is in all its glory. The only other Ragnar Brothers game to be produced under license – and how good it looks! A massive six-piece map-board, a deck of top-notch playing cards, squeaky rules booklet, giant ‘beer-mat’ longboats and a mass of plastic playing pieces. Individually they’re good, but put them together and they really fire up (hope I’m selling this OK). Terrific art-work throughout; indeed the artist is box-credited before Ragnar Brothers - can’t win them all.
There is one small problem – it’s all in French. The English version is due out soon (Fire and Axe), but meanwhile Kendall’s and Carol’s basic French will be put to the test. As the vast majority of the rules are totally unchanged (even the box-bottom sports a translation of Ragnar prose) there’s a fighting chance. First player is still ‘the player with the longest hair’, but failing that Asmodee have instructed it to be ‘the player nearest the exit’ – or so it is construed.
Carol prepares her longship and sets sail. Lindisfarne is sacked straight away, giving Kendall opportunity to tell Derek how ‘historically accurate’ the game is. Derek hasn’t come across too much of Viking history in New Zealand, so he is happy to nod politely. Kendall’s own turn follows and he trades into Bremen. Dicken heads East, followed by Derek. Spiller hasn’t got too many options left (there being only the three Saga cards available at any time) but he appears to be thinking of working the trade routes down to Constantinople.
There’s a full pot of Salsa on the table, but nothing to go with it. Dicken quickly resolves the issue before anyone has chance to stick in a finger.
Whilst the rules themselves are pretty familiar, the Rune deck does contain some totally new cards. It’s time for the French dictionary to come out. Although it’s quite surprising how much the assembled company can translate, there are quite a few words that don’t appear to have ever been in anyone’s vocabulary (because they are actual Viking terms e.g. Drakkar is a type of Viking ship – ed.)
Carol has continued being successful, Spiller has had the odd disaster. Between the two, lie Dicken, Derek and Kendall. It’s more difficult than ever to assess the overall position, as the score track has been replaced by score tokens. These are rather unusually organised into ‘1’s, ‘3’s and ‘10’s. Perhaps the French know something about numbers that the Brit’s don’t; after all look at their 35-hour week.
Condolences are due to the Dicken household. Rialle the gerbil has died. It had been suffering from an acute case of old age, possibly brought on from living a long time. More remarkable was the fact that it didn’t seem to eat very much at all. ‘More Pringles, vicar?’
Another change to ‘Viking Fury’ is the ‘beer-mat’ boats, which (apart from being big and round and in danger of being used as coasters) have five spaces in the first era as opposed to four. This gives quite a lot more energy to the game throughout and it looks terrific when a boat is tooled up with seven statuesque Vikings on board.
Kendall has quaffed Derek’s beer, his own beer and is now requesting some of Dicken’s beer. Failing for a second time to raid Seville, his language becomes ever more colourful and then he is attacked by a bout of cramp – (dancing round the room like a dervish and colliding with artfully placed obstacles such as the gerbil’s old cage – ed.). This is the truly great thing about playing a game with dice. All the careful planning can come to nothing and a player is forced to profanity - and hilarity. If you want a game with laughter then a game with a strong theme, good decision-making and a dose of organised chaos is a magic combination. Some gamers may not want it; need more be said.
A string of Sagas come and go. Dicken voyages to distant Bajamaland (avoiding the Serpent Rune on the way), Carol’s empire extends in the East, Derek conquers England and Spiller has yet more ill luck. In the end, a win for Carol.
Just time for conversation about anything else under the sun, before Kendall and Derek sail into the night.
Gamesnight 1st February ….‘Gheos’ by Rene Wiersma
‘Is this the joint for a gamesnight?’ growls Kendall as Dicken opens the door. Bizarre what a walk in the neighbourhood can do to a grown man. Paul and Liz have arrived by car and are suitably relaxed; but who is the stranger in the kitchen with Carol? It’s Donald, looking in better health than he has for years – giving up the triathlon and teaming up with a ‘good woman’ (Sarah, not Carol) is obviously something we should all be doing.
Unfortunately tonight’s scheduled game is ‘Gheos’ and it’s a 2-4 player. However being 45-60 minutes playing time means there will be plenty of time for a six player later. Dicken has already set up and the rules have a familiar feel. ‘Carcassone’ and ‘Tigris Euphrates’ are just two titles that spring to mind on first impressions. In fact it’s perhaps surprising that Ragnar Brothers are not credited, as the Epoch tiles and scoring tokens have a decided feel of ‘History of the World’ and ‘Kings and Castles’ respectively.
First player is determined by the last player to start laughing. Paul threatens to re-tell his elephant joke, which is sufficient for the three other clowns to guffaw obligingly so that the game can commence. There is a reference to ‘inspiring discussions’ in the rules; Dicken gives the designer the benefit of the doubt on this one, suggesting he is simply being ‘ironic’.
‘Gheos’ is a tile laying game that uses triangular tiles. The spiel on the box bottom talks of Gods and continent making and civilisations and loyal, wealthy followers. There are pyramids and temples and plenty of victory point tokens in 1’s, 5’s, 10’s, 20’s and 50’s (very K&C). Each player starts with two tiles, presenting the novel problem of how to hold two triangles; Liz, Paul and Dicken soon have there’s face down on the table, but Kendall persists in propping his up behind his beer can.
The game begins with Paul placing a tile, starting a civilisation and taking one of the five followers of that civilisation. This simple process takes around five minutes as rules are re-read to check on how the wheat symbol (agriculture) affects play. There are two other ‘round’ symbols; cups (wealth) and weapons (war). Temples can be used to garner points depending on which symbol they carry. Pyramids are permanent bastions, grinding out points whenever Epoch tiles (of which there are eight) are drawn. Paul draws another tile and the whole thing is repeated (including re-reading the rules) by Dicken, then Kendall, then Liz.
For the second week running, Dicken has laid on copious amounts of food – he’ll soon be taking up the triathlon.
After a few rounds of play, Kendall is moaning that he’s not drawn any ‘interesting’ tiles i.e. temples or pyramids. In fact Paul is the only player to have drawn more than one such tile so far. The rest of the tiles show various subdivisions of land and combinations of round symbols. These suddenly become more interesting when Kendall makes his first ‘replacement’. This is the new mechanism that Gheos brings to the genre of tile laying games; take a tile out and put in a new one. Cue lots of attempts to make jokes about tectonic plates. Kendall removes the start tile, only to be reminded that pyramid tiles cannot be removed. An alternative play emerges and Kendall has a minor sense of triumph.
Thereon in the game is dominated by replacements. The number of tiles making up the map creeps up to just twenty or so in total causing Kendall to describe the game as ‘throbbing’ to which Paul adds the even more improbable and suggestive allusion to it ‘going in and out’. Liz’s laughter becomes even more racey than usual.
Replacing tiles generates wars and migrations, which means more re-reading of rules.
Meanwhile Paul has managed to scupper Kendall’s yellow empire only to gift Dicken 40 points in one turn. He promises to ‘scupper’ Dicken, which he does some turns later; this time to the delight of Kendall. A last check of the rules confirms that everyone has a final scoring round at game end, and this is sufficient for Kendall to romp home as a somewhat surprised winner. Kendall scores 105, Liz has 91, Dicken 84. Paul has a mind-numbing total of just 34; his comment of ‘I thought I was playing well’ raises more laughter than the elephant joke.
Paul cornered the market for choice comments throughout the evening and his enthusiastic rejoinder that ‘I think this game is OK!’ is particularly apt. It is OK. It’s neat and tidy and works without offence. But it is so much a set of mechanics and so unconvincing in its representation of a theme that it’s bound to be only an occasional choice with the Ragnars.
It also took 90 minutes to play, which means that conversation with Donald supersedes the opportunity for a second game. Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd… then on to films of the nearer past ‘Get Carter’, ’Breakback Mountain’, ‘Happy Feet’ … how cultured! So ends something of a ‘classic’ games-night; humour thrives in adversity.
Gamesnight 24th January ‘PowerGrid’ by Friedemann Friese.
Dicken is momentarily confused by the arrival of Paul B and Kendall. ‘You look like twins…’ he expostulates. A brief check in the mirror reveals this to be utter nonsense, despite sporting vaguely similar glasses and hairstyles. Some time later Paul H arrives; without confusion, despite sharing the same first name as Paul B. Now had Paul H’s friend Adam been able to make it, things could have been more complicated – we will only find out the truth of that if and when he can get along.
Adam’s absence prompts Carol to forgo the joys of working on her lap-top and instead join tonight’s game (‘PowerGrid’) as fifth player. Dicken breaks out copious amounts of nibbles, cans are opened and an explanation of the rules ensues.
The rules for ‘PowerGrid’ are impressively concise, but explaining them takes rather longer than might be anticipated. Some minutes after starting and Carol is wearing a vacant expression, beginning to mutter about ‘having to play a game to understand it…’
And so the game begins.
The first phase is when players have a chance to buy a power plant; coal, oil, refuse, nuclear or wind-power. These are of different values, starting cheap and then randomly more expensive. Paul H is unsure and in the first auction he buys an oil burner for rather more than might have been expected. ‘Is that a good buy?’ is met with polite consideration. Dicken is the final purchaser and gets the cheapest station (coal) for its minimum value – but is that a good buy?
Well that may depend on the fuel available. The more plentiful the supply, the cheaper it costs. Coal is King until too many stations start devouring it. Uranium rods start massively expensive, but as time passes become a more attractive proposition. Wind power costs nothing – Kendall (tight-fisted as ever) quickly develops a ‘farm’.
‘PowerGrid’ is a highly rated game on BGG and not surprisingly. Most decisions are challenging. The next one is critical – which city to start building your power network from. Spiller refused to play on in his first game, having positioned himself between Kendall and Dicken’s network and then been squeezed like a ripe plum. The map itself is deliberately un-balanced, creating jeopardy particularly for first time players.
Dicken places in the Western red province, far and away the cheapest place to build. The map is of Germany; an irrelevance to this gathering, but maybe of interest to others. The much travelled, Paul B queries the position of Hamburg ‘It’s a port!’. ‘Thankyou, Paul’. Mistrusting advice as well as the geography, the two Paul’s slip away to the East, leaving Kendall to challenge Dicken’s potential dominance. Carol holes out in the South. Map play thereafter is fairly predictable; starting relatively uncontested and then as cities are powered up, networks crash into each other with game-determining effect.
Paul H comments that this is not a game for Sarah (his wife). At her last gamesnight Sarah took to flicking counters in between turns; the resources neatly arranged on their track wouldn’t stand a chance.
Not that the game is particularly difficult or that there is excessive down-time. More that ‘Power Grid’ demands game-playing of a certain intensity. Details have to be attended to, not least those pertaining to turn order. The leading player calculation is based on powering most cities and then on highest value power station. So far so good; things complicate when reversing the order (and both calculations are used each round). In this latter instance player’s compare their highest value power station, the lowest of which gets priority. A bit brain twisting, especially when the beer tastes good.
None-the-less the game motors along with all players having the satisfaction of seeing their power stations improving and their network expanding. Paul H keeps asking who we think is winning. It’s not obvious, but the suspicion is that he isn’t.
Confirmation of this comes after the fifth cities are connected. The map is becoming congested, prices are rising and money is getting tight. Another turn and Carol, Dicken and Paul B link to their sixth and penultimate cities. Paul H is struggling to find space for more than five cities and though Kendall’s windmills are merrily spinning, he too is hemmed in and needing two more cities. At least he has opportunity to save his cash and ultimately it is capital that counts.
The final round sees Kendall ploughing his money into jumping Carol’s cities and connecting to and powering up two cities in the vacant South. Carol and Dicken manage to get their seventh cities and power them up. Consequently the winner is determined by how much money (‘Electros’ – am I missing something?) each of the three have left. Kendall has 44, Carol 34 and Dicken 31. The two Paul’s both have six cities powered up and share fourth place.
A much enjoyed game and much inconsequential analysis follows. In summary;
the map layout is contentious, the turn order is confusing, the power stations are consummate, but we enjoyed it and will play again – next time the full game and not just the recommended introductory ‘first step’. Dicken eschews that playing just to the end of the ‘first step’ (read ‘section of the game’ for this interesting turn of the translation) is not very satisfying because there are obviously huge differences between what is possible in the first stage and what ultimately can be achieved in the full game. I suspect he is correct in this, so bring it on!
‘Leonardo’ by Acchittocca – a group of Italian game designers.
The Ragnar’s are now men of substance – for the first time in seventeen years of game production the high-interest savings account at the local pawn-brokers is in the black. And being the sort of hard-headed businessmen who can’t let capital lie around uninvested, they have elected to spend it. On new games. Well, what better excuse could there be for buying a new game each for Christmas?
“We’re entrepreneurs now”, declares Dicken over the Internet in his best Alan Sugar-style e-mail. “We should treat ourselves”. So three games are bought, one for each of the boys, and that is how Phil comes to be ripping the cellophane with trembling fingers on Christmas day morning. Nintendo DS’s? Il Divo CDs? New socks? No, the main event is the opening up of Leonardo.
One abortive foray to Roger’s bash later (“only a fool would bring a new game along without the rules”), and it’s a case of the return of the game. Roger, Phil and the Morton’s roll up their sleeves to give it a good hammering.
Leonardo is a game about inventing machines (specifically the mind-boggling array of unpatented off-the-wall stuff that Mr da Vinci came up with). Mirroring the real world, you need to get yourself a laboratory to work in, apprentices to do the work, and some raw materials to construct the machines. It all makes perfect sense. The system is one of those really tight systems – if you’ve played Puerto Rico or Aladdin’s dragons you know just how you need to do x, y and z but with the capability to do x and y, or y and z, or whatever. So too here.
Cleverly, everything is needed for more than one thing. Apprentices are important. They allow you to collect resources, to recruit more apprentices, to improve your laboratories and to be allowed to do various bonus actions as part of the city council. If you have the most apprentices, you get these things without paying – and in a game where money is crucial, that is very useful. Unfortunately, you need to spend time producing your inventions: the more apprentices working in your laboratory, the faster the machine will get built. SO where do you deploy your little worker boys? A difficult balancing act.
As said, money is incredibly important and performs various functions. If someone has more apprentices than you, you can still acquire a particular resource or capability by spending some of your hard-earned florins. You need money for breaking ties when you have chosen to build the same invention as some one else. And most importantly, your victory points at the end are money-based. In other words, you’re paying to perform better during the game using those very victory points that you want at the end of the game. Tricky. And where do you get money from? By completing inventions. Aha, you will say -doubly tricky! You need to complete inventions to get money, you complete inventions by using apprentices, but to improve your position you need to use money and/or apprentices to go into the town. Hmm.
And that is pretty much it. A very finely balanced resource management game. Which nearly doesn’t begin as Dave, in an unusually fierce manner, demands to have a puzzling aspect of the rules explained. Roger can see what Phil is saying, Dave and Ian can’t. After several minutes of high octane debate, it is agreed that when Phil said you can’t add resources to resources that you’ve already put underneath a laboratory, he was really meaning that you have to put all the resources under a laboratory at the same time. The Treaty of Versailles had nothing on the Ragnars wrangling over the finer points of rules.
So off the gang go. Different strategies are immediately in evidence. Ian goes for the wide portfolio – the greater the variety of inventions you hold at the end, the more bonus florins you receive. Phil goes for massive laboratory upgrading, including the acquisition of the very useful ‘mechanical men’ (twice the work-rate of a bog standard apprentice). Dave is trying something risky (no one ever finds out what it is) but he does keep saying it doesn’t work. Roger seems to specialise in choosing to do exactly the same as other people on a kind of rotation system and contrives to lose out every time.
Going into the last few turns, the general feeling is the game is Ian’s. Even at the counting up stage, Dave is famously heard to say that there’s not a lot of point counting it up. (Ragnars are prone to this one: the “let’s not bother scoring” syndrome). As it turns out, Phil wins at a canter. Ian has burnt vast piles of cash in the last few turns, whilst Phil – in best boring old git fashion – has been stashing away the florins. Phil 52, Dave 41, Ian a surprising low 34, and Roger 31.
Even Roger feels it has a lot going for it. Definitely one to try again.
‘News from the North: Mission: Red Planet by Bruno Faidutti and Bruno Cathala
Tom and Pete (as said elsewhere) arrive with huge bags of games, many just acquired at Essen. They affect a manner that is a cross between East-end market trader (“Nah then my chirpy cock sparrer – just have a look at these counters”) and a second-hand car salesman (“how about a spin in this one? Goes like a dream. Lovely mechanics”). the Ragnars are spell-bound. In the end Phil breaks the deadlock – “I like that one”. And so he, Roger, Tom, Jason and Dicken settle down to a session of Mission: Red Planet.
This game has it all . Great theme – loading up your space ships, sending colonists out into space, taking over Mars. Great components – chunky space rockets, a nice board, quality cards, an impressive box (all that glisters…. – ed.). The boys can’t go wrong with this one. Or so they think.
A long explanation of the rules follows. These are not complicated; they’re not long. However, there is a nagging doubt creeping in already that this is one of those “simple” games, the one where you listen hard, start thinking of possible tactics, don’t hear the next rule and then develop a paranoia that that rule was the most crucial of the lot – and you didn’t hear it. The character cards, about 10 of them, cause the Ragnars particular difficulties, possibly something to do with the fact that each card has a different capability and because they are played at different points in the turn, things go a little hazy on their relative effectiveness.
But eventually they’re away. Basically, collect colonists, load them on to a space ship (with some scope for altering destinations and scuppering the journey totally) and land them on Mars. Where you land is extremely important: there isn’t much movement on the planet’s surface so getting into the right place is crucial. Each turn a player effectively has a special capability, depending on which character he has chosen. Now, because character’s take their turns in a certain order, there is a lot of ‘deep thought’ in this one (typified, at a Ragnar bash, as ever, by a swig of alcohol followed by a low monotonous sequence of colourful blasphemies).
Phil has a dream game. His bonus cards indicate that it would be common sense to swamp the centre of Mars with his colonists. Fortunately for him, not only are there two 3-Victory Point tokens waiting there, everyone else seems to want to go to the edges of Mars (does a planet have edges? Probably not, but this one does). Incredulously he watches as he is left to his own devices, spaceships head to central Mars on a regular basis, and all in all it’s about as straightforward a comprehensive victory as ever comes along.
Opinion is justifiably divided. Phil is, as ever, irritatingly smug at his tactical acumen, whereas everyone else feels that:
a) the game is too short
b) most of the characters don’t get properly used
c) for a very chaotic game, nothing much seems to have gone on and
d) Phil was unbelievably lucky.
A reasonable outing for the game; it may get another look-in one day. Possibly.
Take it Easy’ – by Pete Burley
It is the Saturday afternoon of Phil’s mini-bash and fresh from Ragnar game testing we eagerly awaited the arrival of the ‘Bingley’ contingent.
After a rummage through Pete’s bag (NOT Pete Burley’s) and having dissected several games bought at Essen, it is decided that ‘Take it Easy’ and its new big brother ‘Take it to the Limit’ are the choice items. Five willing participants retire to Phil’s dining room to begin proceedings.
Sue announces that she has never won at ‘Take it Easy’, but casts this into doubt by quickly setting out her tiles like a veteran. Neil follows in his own style, leaving Andrew and Kendall to decide which arrangement to follow. Pete is the ‘caller’ so simply turns his tiles face down and prepares to make random draws.
First produced in 1986, ‘Take it Easy’ has sold over 500,000 copies and is thus a classic. For some reason, none of the Ragnars had played this game until being introduced to Pete (Burley) who is a fellow producer of games working with ‘One-Stop’ and Steve T. Even then, the game had only been played on-line via Pete’s web-site. However, Sue, Neil and Pete (the other one) are very familiar with it and are soon involved in typical ‘Take it Easy’ banter – ‘9-5-3’, 7,4,1’ etc. (numbers, lovely numbers).
Kendall gets into the spirit of things, opening a can of Grolsch. Plenty of ribald comments from the assembled company, but no-one else goes for the alcohol. Is this a symptom of the abstract game player?
‘Take it Easy’ consists of a hexagon hex grid and some 20+ hex tiles. The tiles have three designs on them running from one side to the opposite. There are nine such designs and each is worth points (1-9).The tiles fit onto the grid and the idea is to arrange the tile designs so that rows of tiles trace the same design from side to opposite side of the larger hexagon. Players then score points by multiplying the design value by the number of tiles in a complete row. The system is smooth and elegant - hallmarks of the ‘classic’ game.
If you’re not sure what all this adds up to, then go to the Burley games web-site and have a go.
Andrew and Kendall have little idea where to place their first tiles, but it doesn’t take long to get the game going and once under-way it is very ‘morish’ ( no it’s not a North African game – ed). A row of ‘9’s down the middle row seems like a good plan as this yields the maximum 45 point score. However, if player’s stick to such a crude model, they can quickly find their options disappear and points are squandered elsewhere.
At the end of the first game Pete is a comfortable winner with 158 points (maximum is 300+). So much for Sue’s initial layout!
Player’s record their scores on a score sheet. This has been usefully arranged to help folk who are unable to do simple multiplication. Kendall has already ear-marked the game for pupils at his school and a player aid such as this is just the job for making the game accessible to the widest possible audience, A new caller (Neil) now takes over.
Unlike Pete, Neil seems unable to draw the same ‘quality’ of tile and soon the table is hissing with frustration. Row after row has to be ‘blown out’ allowing Kendall to chalk up a win with a measly 124 points. Andrew is visibly withering.
Kendall is the next caller and, such is the ease of play, the game is wound up fifteen minutes later. Sue wins this final round and the game overall. Very entertaining – an adult version of Bingo!
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