With the Power Grid Tournament a week away, you can bet to see Power Grid in play with Hansa Teutonica also make a reappearance. We have two tables for R2 with Le Havre & Vinhos, an economic game about the Portuguese wine trading business. OTK also has the distinction of hosting three gamers from Europe for our R2; a Spanish, an Italian and a Hungarian!

 

Gamers: Peter Gonci, Teddy Pang, Lee Ching, Terry Kok, Hau Jun, Nicolia Troiani, Ang XJ, Kevin Tan, Patomas, Caleb, Vincent, Silvia, Ken, Joshua, Emil, Kareem, Nicholas Lim, Paul, Aycee, waiyan, CK Au.      

Games: Power Grid (Germany), Hansa Teutonica, Bang! Caylus, K2, Ascension, Glen More, Long Shot, Le Havre, and Vinhos.

 

Location: Old Town Kopitiam Cheras | Google Map | Lat-Long: N O3° 6.195° E 101° 44.058°

Date/Time: 4 March 2011 8.00 PM – 6.00 am (Fri)

 

 

THE TOURNAMENT OF POWER

 

The buzz is all about POWER GRID and the upcoming six-legged BGC POWER GRID M’SIA 2011 tournament that covers 6 of the most popular boardgaming locations in the Klang Valley. Whether you stay in Bangsar, Subang, Setapak, Petaling Jaya, Damansara, or Cheras – we’ve a qualifier close to you!

 

 

 

POWER GRID – GERMANY

 

 

The first table to get started for this meetup evening was the POWER GRID table with six players quickly formed for a practice session on the Germany map which is the map used for the first round in each qualifier.

 

 

Boardgamecafe.net wishes to welcome Peter Gonci, a Hungarian who’s now on holiday in KL joining us for his first OTK Meetup session!

 

 

An interesting situation developed early in this game (when everyone’s still on two cities) where there were FOUR eco-plants available in the auction market, and two 4-capacity eco-plants, the #34 and #37 available for bidding in the current market! A not-usually-seen scenario indeed.

 

 

Peter broke the bank to fight off all competitions to land the #33 and I think he was without money to buy resource (not that he needs any) or build cities for a turn or two… but looking back, this was probably the turning point for this game.

 

 

Watch out for these players in the upcoming BGC Power Grid qualifiers. J

 

 

At an intense stage of the game…

 

 

The not-so-cheap connection cost for building power grid networks in Germany.

 

I suspect the Germany map whetted these players appetite for Power Grid so do expect to see them in more Power Grid sessions. 🙂

 

 

HANSA TEUTONICA

 

 

On the 2nd table, we’ve Nicolia, an Italian who’s more passionate about boardgames than spaghetti, earnestly promoting Hansa Teutonica to all who stopped to listen to him. 😛  This game won the 2010 Golden Geek Board Game of the Year award so Nicolia may not be without good reason.

 

 

This group actually played Hansa Teutonica TWICE! The game is quick (less than 2 hrs) yet gives you a lot to think about.

 

 

I was asked to take the picture of this CLOSE finish in their 2nd game of Hansa Teutonica. And boy, was it close! Just a point separated everyone? I can’t remember who won this game; think I was told it was Ang.

 

 

The expansion for this game “The East” which includes additional mission cards and a new map has just landed as part of our Mar New Arrivals. Check it out here.

 

 

K2

 

 

The third table is what we would call the “card-crackers”, gamers who thrive on card- and deck-building games. With Kareem & Emil here, you can expect to see many new and relatively unheard of card (and sometimes board) games, most of them good!

 

This time we’ve Emil bringing out his K2 game from a Polish publisher (Rebel.PL). This game has been receiving good vibes on BGG but due to the lack of a US/English publisher, it’s not widely available.

 

K2 is about.. well, climbing the 2nd highest mountain in the world! Board looks beautiful, was told game play is quite unique and is basically a hand management game.

 

 

The game blurp said K2 kills one person for every four who have reached its summit…. hmm.. Does this mean one of these four gamers is gonna get whacked? Hehe.

 

 

Boardgamecafe.net at the moment do not carry this game but we’ll hope to be able to do so once Rebel.PL appoints a US publisher. 🙂

 

 

BANG!

 

 

Caleb’s group arrived while the three tables were engrossed in their own sessions. They’d their makan and then did a round of Bang! as an appetizer before getting into the meatier games.

 

 

 

CAYLUS

 

 

A few weeks ago, the MMU GDC crowd were introduced to Caylus here at OTK. Now another group – Caleb & frens – were also introduced to the art of jousting (Caylus). Aanemesis must be happy to hear of so many new Caylus players though I suspect he might want them to pick up farming instead of jousting.

 

 

Learning to decipher the symbols & icons in the Caylus building tiles (below)

 

 

Getting excited in Caylus!!

 

 

A strange group indeed… everyone must be very worked-up to be standing while playing Caylus! 😛 Not tired meh?

 

 

 

ASCENSION & GLEN MORE

 

The K2 climbers – after successfully completing the game – moved on to do the crack-lite Ascension (a crowd fave it seems). Kareem has been raving about this game since he first tasted it in last week’s Cassian Meetup.

 

 

… and later Glen More (one of Kareem’s current hot games).

 

 

We now carry Glen More in our webstore.

 

 

 

LONG SHOT

 

 

After a “tiring” game of Power Grid, this group decided to move to a lighter fare… one that does not require the brain to do much processing….  Happy to see this game Long Shot – once a fave of OTK that gets played every week! – coming back to the table again!

 

 

This game has horses, betting, and dice! What more do you ask for? LOL

 

 

Thanks to Teddy for bringing his copy to the table. 🙂

 

 

LE HAVRE

 

 

Tonite saw two tables of R2 for OTK!

 

The first table was mostly Caleb’s group with Peter joining them for a session of Le Havre. Ah well.. It’s customary in OTK that in R2 we do the heavier games (especially at a time when most brains are dozing off, hehe)

 

 

Was he dozing or just in deep thought (below)? At 3 am, it might be hard to tell the difference. Hehe

 

 

They enjoyed Le Havre so much they would have done a 2nd round were it not for the fact our session ended close to 4 am.

 

 

 

VINHOS

 

 

Over at the other R2 table, Nicolia brought his Italian edition of Vinhos, an economic game of Portuguese wine trading (which has been licensed to Z-man for US distribution so expect to see this in stock soon).

 

 

I was over at the Le Havre table (above) so did not get a chance to listen to Nicolia explaining the rules for this game and as such I’ve absolutely no idea on the game play but it does appear to be a complex game and one that requires you to plan ahead.

 

 

Let me share with you more pictures of this game…

 

 

Your vineyard!

 

 

This (above) appears to be the actions  that you can take on your turn.

 

 

Characters (or roles) that give you privilege when acquired.

 

 

The Wine Tasting Fair for you to promote and trade your wines.

 

 

Barrels of wine ready to ship…

 

 

ARE YOU THE POWER GRID CHAMPION?

 

As OTK bid good nite to the two tables of R2 gamers at around 6:30 am, we are fast approaching our first POWER GRID Qualifier date; the first of which shall be held this Sunday Mar 13 at Boardgame Depot, the latest boardgame café to arrive at the local boardgaming scene.

 

The Star will be featuring updates of our Power Grid events and they’ve kickstarted with a short blurp about this event on the Mar 9th edition of their newspaper (and online blog)

 

 

See you at Power Grid Msia 2011!

 

 

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