An evening where the BGC Retreat participants gathered for a post-retreat meetup with NAVEGADOR seeing play as our FIRST PLAY promo game, and it’s forefather ANTIKE also introduced to another group. Return of some old favorite gateway games like TICKET TO RIDE and HAVOC plus CARSON CITY and LEAPING LEMMINGS rounded up the evening.

Gamers: Junyet, Jacelyn, Lee Ching, Teddy, Jonathan Soo, Ken Yen, Noreen, Kareem, Caleb, Ethan, Nicholas Lim, Zavier, Wai Yan and CK Au.      

Games: Navegador, Ticket to Ride, Leaping Lemmings, Carson City, Antike.

 

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

Date/Time: 17 June 2011 8.00 PM – 6.00 am (Fri)

 

 

NAVEGADOR

 

 

NAVEGADOR was getting so much buzz from the BGC Retreat, everyone seems to be looking for a copy to play with. J

 

 

Since not everyone got to play with this game at the Retreat, we decided to hold a session at OTK Cheras for them to get on board the Age of Exploration.

 

 

Junyet, Jacelyn and Lee Ching concentrating intensely on their session of NAVEGADOR.

 

 

This session, like most, followed the shipping-first approach with the rush to get to Nagasaki.

 

 

Jonathan was one of the first to understand the market dynamics and taking advantage of the high gold prices, started colonizing more gold to sell.

 

 

Junyet decided to go all Blackbeard and assembled a large fleet setting out to conquer the seven seas of Navegador… but… halted at West Africa by none-other than his g/f Jacelyn. Hehehe.

 

 

The others on seeing the incoming armada of Black-the-Beard decided to make their run for Nagasaki first!

 

Can Blackbeard overrun them?

 

Interestingly, the buildings (if you observe the top right corner) were also getting built at a good rate…

 

 

Not sure what Jacelyn (centre) kelentong to Lee Ching (right) but probably telling her all crap stories to divert her attention. 😛

 

 

Well, Blackbeard DID manage to out-run everyone and rushed into Nagasaki to end the game. Didn’t win though.. Hehe.  But everyone enjoyed their session immensely.

 

Boardgamecafe.net is testing out a First Play promo where we arrange game sessions (for selected games) at OTK Cheras and those who joined the game gets to buy a copy from us at a special discount! For this NAVEGADOR First Play promo, they can buy it at 30% off!

 

Note: Initially our offer was to those who participated in the session – as the First Play promo is like a try-and-buy offer but since others (who did not get to take part in the game) were requesting for the same, we decided to extend the promo to ALL who came by OTK Cheras tonight! J

 

To reserve your copy, pls reply here

 

TICKET TO RIDE (USA)

 

 

With the deluge of new games, some of the old favorites can get drowned by all the noises. Therefore often you’ll see some old games making an appearance at our OTK meetups.

 

While Carson City was being played at the other table (Kareem, Caleb, Nicholas, Ethan and Zavier – sorry forgot to take your pics!) I’m happy to see one of a very good gateway game that actually kind of started my journey into the wonderful world of boardgaming – TICKET TO RIDE.

 

 

Waiyan brought Noreen, one of her frens from a French Language class both of them were attending; and Ken Yeng (wolfx) brought his girlfriend… so a good opportunity to bring up this game which is not only a good gateway game but one that’s a favorite among the ladies.

 

TICKET TO RIDE NORDIC next? 😛

 

 

HAVOC – THE 100 YEARS WAR

 

 

This game is also a favorite of mine – and sadly it’s out of print now – and I was just reminiscing with Castor & Oon when they were here last week about the times when we used to play continuous sessions of this game at Games Circle.

 

 

HAVOC is a poker-variant but instead of a hand of five, you play to a hand of six. So you’ll have the BIG HOUSE (fours + pair) in addition to your normal FULL HOUSE (threes + pair). It does get a bit of getting used to but once you are thru the learning curve, the game plays fast.

 

 

In HAVOC, you aim is to “recruit” (ie collect cards) in order to form “armies” (hands of six) to fight in some or all of the ten battles in the 100 Years’ war between the French and the Brits.

 

Ah… who doesn’t remember the famous Battle of AGINCOURT…

 

 

There’s a lot of bluffing involved since you do not play your hand of six in one go but you tease with a card at a time. J

 

 

Again, I cannot express how disappointed we are that this game is no longer in print. On the other hand, I’ve been slowly acquiring spare sets and have about 4-5 sets now in our library which will help prepare us for a possible HAVOC tournament?

 

Yup, watch out for one in our future Boardgamecafe.net events!

 

 

LEAPING LEMMINGS

 

 

Ken bought a copy of Leaping Lemmings from Castor “Even Longer List of Games” sale (click here and here as there are still some games available) and he brought that for play on his table after Ticket to Ride.

 

 

 

Noreen with her first win in euro boardgames! Hope to see her back here for more euro gaming joy! 🙂

 

 

ANTIKE

 

 

While all the buzz is on NAVEGADOR now, to those who have been gaming long enough would remember Mac Gerdts (game designer) first crowning glory. No, it’s not IMPERIAL either. It’s ANTIKE, the game that first introduced the concept of the RONDEL to us.

 

 

From our very first love with Antike back in 2005, we’ve not looked back since with the rondel. Gerdts best is hands-down IMPERIAL but every now and then, Antike will find her own admirers.

 

 

The New Five who’s going to find out what’s this Rondel thing about – Nic Lim, Kareem, Ethan, Zavier and Caleb. If you think that looked like a group of war mongers… ah well…

 

 

The Famous Person cards each worth 1 VP which is the real objective of the game. I think I omitted to emphasize this point to this group….

 

 

… coz the next thing that happened was everyone’s building up their arms…

 

 

…at the expense of VPs.

 

 

But with the rich number of temples lying so close to enemy territories (sacking a temple also gained you one VP), I can understand why everyone’s raising arms and aiming them in the direction of the closest enemy temples.

 

 

King (for controlling five cities), Citizen (for building 3 temples) and Scholar (for being the first to research a technology) are some of the ways you can gain VPs.

 

 

The “heat” between Black (Ethan) and Blue (Caleb) was getting unbearable and can only end with one of two outcomes…

 

 

On the other hand, Red (Kareem) seemed to have developed an unsatiable lust for Gray (Nic Lim)’s temple at Cyrene. Some hot temple priestess there? Remember it was the face of Helen who launched a thousand ships!

 

 

Perhaps being “squeezed” in the middle (ie Yellow (Zavier) has a civilization that’s literally surrounded by all the four) does bring out the animal in you! From almost a non-existing military force… look at Yellow’s strength!

 

 

The FINAL showdown between Black and Blue.. aduh…

 

 

Urrm… Black won. Blue was scattered huru-hara and has moved camp to Iceland.

 

 

While Yellow pummeled Red into submission.. especially the island city of Paphos by running an embargo on them. L

 

 

After so many rounds of fighting, you can’t blame the troops for getting a little bit confused sometimes as to whether they were actually passing thru a place, or they came to invade.

 

Blue was controlling Athens. Yellow wanted to invade. Red’s not sure if they were there to pick the roses, or to invade Athens. LOL. But given Yellow has more troops than Red, Red decided smelling the roses was a better option – and made way for Yellow to take Athens from Blue.

 

 

General cards (for sacking temple) all gone! This is the 1st game I saw where the General VP cards were the first to go.

 

 

The “war” only subsided when there was no more General cards for them to sack temples for. Only then, the focus on acquiring VPs was returned. J

 

Kareem (red) was the first to rush ahead to claim his 8th (and winning) VP, with the final Citizen card (three temples). Whew….

 

Their game took 3 hours, ending around 4:30 am – and possibly the longest session of Antike I’ve seen! Wow!

 

 

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