MEGAforce Board Game Night: - Camel Up

After a virus that seems to have robbed me of nearly a month, I can finally get back to gaming and hobby stuff.

The most recent MEGAforce meeting was my first evening out in ages.

Grim brought along a game called Camel Up. A game where the idea is to make the most money betting on camel races in a desert. 

The game is simple enough, although the instructions seemed to overcomplicate it a bit. As is often the case, a quick skim of the rules helped, but actually playing was the best way to learn*.

The game is played over a series of legs and finishes when the first camel crosses the finish line. Players have the opportunity to bet on each leg as well as the final result. They can also use the dice to move camel(s) and there are oasis hazards that generate money and move camels back or forwards.

There are a couple of features that make Camel Up great fun. Movement is controlled by five different coloured dice (corresponding to the camels). A cardboard pyramid holds these dice and is inverted to roll one when the camels are moved. Once all five dice have been rolled, that particular leg is done. The race carrys on, with the camels continuing from where they are, but there's a chance to gain or lose money depending on what bets have been placed during that leg.

The other fun feature is The Stack. Camels sharing the same space are stacked, and the meeples are designed so they easily do so. Camel Up indeed! Stacks are moved as a unit, meaning some camels can end up being moved several times in a leg. 

The game at the finish. White wins! Both white and yellow are top of a stack. My money was on blue at the back (which did get me a small payout).

Overall, another great fun game that deserves placing in A tier.

Play time was a bit under an hour, it's sure to speed up now we know the rules, and I'd happily play again.

There are betting strategies that we were just getting the hang of, and Grim's placement of his oasis raked in a lot of cash for him.

It's also taught me that I probably should keep my betting to imaginary races rather than real life.

*We made one small mistake regarding movement of stacks combined with an oasis. The proper rules look to be even more fun.

Last Night On Earth - Board Games Night

While editing my recent post about Hanabi and Sushi Go, I realised that I forgot to post this regarding the previous MEGAforce meeting, so here it is.

The most recent MEGAforce meeting was the closest to Halloween that we'll get, so T'Other One suggested a game of Last Night on Earth, which seemed appropriate.

The game usually plays with one player running the zombies and the rest are the survivors. Unlike Zombies! which we played a while ago, the survivors are working together to achieve an objective.

For this particular scenario there were two zombie players, and Grim and I ran a couple of survivors each. The goal was to keep the manor house in the centre of the board as free from zombies as possible. The zombie players were trying to have nine or more zombies in the manor house at daybreak.

Now I'm not a great zombie fan, and a lot of the references, tropes and in jokes pass me by. I am a fan of good games though, and Last Night On Earth IS pretty good. 

Game Play

The cards all feature photos of the game designers and friends either as survivors or made up as zombies. Items are photos of those things. The minis are well done and are instantly recognisable from the cards and T'Other One has done a great job of painting the survivors to match the artwork.

Game play is straightforward, with the chance to search locations (draw cards), move, and, of course, fight zombies.

Fighting zombies is risky. The survivor rolls 2d6 against the zombie's 1d6. Merely beating the zombie only drives it back; to destroy it, the survivor must also roll doubles. The secret is in getting equipment to help.

Zombies and Survivors have their own event decks, which can give the survivors equipment, or can be played to help or hinder.

The game does give the feeling of being beleaguered, those zombies just don't stop, and can be nasty, especially in numbers.

At sunrise we'd managed to keep the zombie numbers in the manor below nine, but this was at the cost of three out of the four survivors. We ended up drawing out the zombies (they have to move up to survivors in adjacent spaces), but only the nurse survived.

If I were a bigger fan of the Undead, Last Night on Earth might squeeze into S tier, but since I'm not, and most of the references are lost on me, I'll stick it in A tier due to the great game play, atmosphere and the great touch of using photographs of the designers.

Board Game Night: Hanabi and Sushi Go

We played a couple of different card based games recently, Hanabi, by Antoine Bauza and Sushi Go by Phil Walker-Harding.

Hanabi 

We played on 4th of November, so Hanabi was very appropriate. It's a cooperative game involving a group of firework manufacturers putting on a display.

Unfortunately, all the labels have been lost, so we have to rely on clues from each other, and hope to get the display ready before an oncoming storm.

This works by each player having a hand of five cards, but players never see their own hands. All the other players do, and this is how they can give hints. The cards are one of five colours (white, red, blue, yellow and green) and one of five numbers. The fireworks must be built up in numerical order, and there can only be one of each colour.

On their turn, players can give a hint to another player by telling them which of their cards are a particular colour or number, or discard one of their own cards, or play one of their cards. The number of hints are limited, but can be bought back by discarding, and playing a wrong card brings the storm closer.

We played a couple of games, scoring 14 the first time, and 18 the second, out of a maximum of 25.

Endgame, apparently this score is 'Excellent; the crowd are delighted'

A great fun game, with a straight forward mechanic, but requiring a good bit of thought (and, apparently, a better short term memory than I possess). 

Definitely A tier.

Sushi Go

A fast, fun card game where the object is to build a meal over three rounds, making sure you have enough puddings at the end of course.

We've played Sushi Go quite a few times now, and it's a good one to have handy to fill in ten to twenty minutes at the end of an evening.

This was my first experience of 'pick and pass', where the players swap hands each turn. Thus you know what each hand is after a while, and strategies can be built around denying players cards that might benefit them.

Some dishes are worth points on their own, some are worth more in combinations, and some require other cards.

Puddings are played through all three rounds, but are only applied at the very end, gaining or loosing points for having most or least puddings.

While I don't like Sushi, I really enjoy this game. Part of this is the speed of play, there always seems to be time to squeeze in a quick game. Partly for this reason it earns a solid A.

Two good A tier games*. Hanabi is great for getting the mind working. Sushi Go for a quick game.

Both games are available from various online retailers, and at least one chain of UK booksellers stocks Shushi Go.

*Don't let that put you off, both are very highly recommended, but they don't quite provide the gaming experience that I get from, say, Moon.