Boardgamecafe.net Meetup Report @ Old Town Kopitiam Cheras 27/8/2011
By jack208
EXCERPT
As we look to transition from Old Town Kopitiam to new OTK, another Friday evening was well spent with the first play of ERUPTION (lava flow anyone?) and IMPERIAL being the main course. Innovation, Nightfall, 7 Wonders with Leaders, Kaigan were also seen on the tables.
Gamers: Junyet, Jacelyn, Peter Gonci, Ang XJ, Alvin (and fren), Hiew, Han, Allen, Kareem, and CK Au.
Games: Nightfall, Eruption, Imperial, Innovation, 7 Wonders with Leaders, Kaigan.
Location: Old Town Kopitiam Cheras | Google Map | Lat-Long: N O3° 6.195° E 101° 44.058°
Date/Time: 27 August 2011 9.00 PM – 5.00 am (Fri)
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OTK New is Old
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Been awhile since I wrote a sessrep for OTK Cheras (last sessrep was in June!) A busy 2-mths and the preparation of the New OTK replacing the Old OTK took up whatever time I’ve (beside doing all those things that you need to do in your life when you are not boardgaming. :P)
Anyhow with two of our recent Evangelist dropping by OTK Cheras for a spin-drive and some interesting games brought to the tables meant I should do a write-up even if it’s brief.
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ERUPTION
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In spite of all the Kickstarter fever in our BGC forums, this was NOT a Kickstarter project. 😛 However the designers offered the game as a free PNP (print-n-play) to any gamer who’s keen to assemble it DIY, play it and write a review for them.
(What? You’ve not heard of all the recent Kickstarter frenzies that’s spamming our forums? It’s time you return from Timbuktu, my fren….)
That’s how Junyet (left), one of the two new BGC Evangelists got hold a copy of this nice looking game in his hand! I was told he actually assembled it just 24 hrs prior to this OTK visit.. .wow, a real Evangelist of Boardgamecafe.net!! Hehe
This game borrows from the Downfall of Pompeii theme of lava streaming out from a volcano…. and every player attempting to divert the lava flow towards their opponents’ village or the sea; preferably towards someone’s village. You can erect walls – straw, bricks or stone – to stem the incoming lava.. but those walls will only stand the heat so long before they cracked leaving your village exposed.
“Black houses” are stone walls improvisaton since this is a DIY PNP game; and Jacelyn (the other half of the J-Kickstarter team) was so kiasi she surrounded her village with stone walls even BEFORE the lava came calling. Stone wall is the strongest of all the three types – stone, brick and straw. But I suppose you “reap” what you sow, JC… .hehe
Each exposed section of your village “loses” you 20 degree and once a village reaches 280 degree, it’s meltdown time (ie game over). Player with the lowest temperature then wins. So basically your job is to divert the lava to others (better him/her than me) while trying to keep the temperature in your village within control.
For that matter, a straw wall (improvised by a yellow house) can do the job as well as a black stone! My straw wall, built on the 1st turn miraculously survived till the late stage of the game (while other stone walls were crumbling all around me, tsk tsk).
I do not like the way these two were staring at my village!! Up to no good, they were.
There’s also a “catch-the-leader” mechanism where as your village heats up, you get to do more actions like drawing an extra card, or placing another tile…. all amounting to being able to do more nasty things to others.
Game ended when the red village (think that’s junyet) went armageddon!! LOL
Fun game, plays fast, light and good as a starter.
This game is only being released in October but Boardgamecafe.net are already importing a batch in as soon as they are available. Expect to see this here around late Oct or early November.
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NIGHTFALL & INNOVATION
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The Midah Gamers – Hiew, Allen, Han – were also here for some gaming. They actually started with NIGHTFALL earlier but as I was “busy” trying to save my poor village from being lava-ed by those horrible peeps (junyet, JC, ang, peter), I did not take much photos of their sessions except we do occasionally heard laughters coming from their tables!! Someone kena pwned? LOL
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IMPERIAL
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Heng will be c*rsing me for always getting the timing of bringing IMPERIAL to the OTK tables wrong (ie. when he’s not around). Been awhile since we bring this to the table and since some of the gamers here are fans of Gerdts rondel system (read this sessrep), I thought it will be good to introduce them to what’s in my opinion the best of the rondel – IMPERIAL.
At OTK / BGC we always play IMPERIAL using the Non-investor variant. The details of the BGC Non-Investor variant can be found in this topic. We find that this variant presents a more balanced approach to the game.
However if there are Imperial newbies in the session we tend to do a mixed Investor-NonInvestor variant where we added back the Investor card and slowed down the investing action:
o Investor card is added into the game (this is bring in the extra 2m cashflow to improve liquidity)
o If Investor space is taken (ie action as Investor)
– Dividends are paid out to investor (by the active country)
– Bank pays 2m to the player holding the Investor card. The card is passed to next player to the left
– Beginning with the player controlling the active country, each can invest (or upgrade) one bond in the active country. Player controlling no country can invest/upgrade one bond in ANY country
o If Investor space is passed over (ie action taken as something other than Investor)
– No dividend is paid out to investor (by the active country)
– Bank pays 2m to the player holding the Investor card. The card is passed to next player to the left
– Beginning with the player controlling the active country, each can invest (or upgrade) one bond in the active country. Player controlling no country can invest/upgrade one bond in ANY country
IMPERIAL is a game about bonds and returns (not ships and armies)… however when you get the French and the English to sit together on the same table, it becomes a game of intrigue, trickery and treachery… LOL
Kareem’s French was caught embezzling funds from the bank of England to pay for France’s expenses!! Well, at least the Chancellor of the Exchequer of England has not been sleeping on his job.
Peter’s Russia (left) and Ang’s Austria were at loggerheads almost from the start till finish. 😛
There’s a tendency for new players to focus on their most heavily invested country and to continue investing in them, often not considering “divesting” as a valid strategy.
However for some reasons, there was a point in the game when everyone – yes literally everyone – was rushing to invest in Italy (green) without any clear indication of any windfall or whatsoever. Lemmings theory in action?
But this did result in a huge inflow of cash to Italy (above). 🙂
There were also a few war-mongers here so you can expect the usual huge build-up of military, with England in particular spending every single penny she has to build an impressive Navy…
… which she promptly despatched, firstly to suppress the French (who was busy doing hit-n-runs on Italy) before diverting the England navy to crush Germany, and was standing poised to enter the backdoors to Russia.
Until Junyet (Germany) took over control of England by surprise. With England and Germany (black) under Junyet’s control, I’d thought this was a pivotal moment in the game since Germany was leading the bond credit table (VP). France (Kareem-blue) still has the advantage as he can rush the game end, but it was also interesting to see Ang (Austria-yellow) picking up almost ALL the shares in Austria even though Austria shares were rated the lowest!
In the end, Ang’s experience prevailed and he came out winner over Kareem in spite of Kareem’s France having the highest credit rating of 5. Seems like singular investment in junk bonds can pay dividends!
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7 WONDERS
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Two more games were played – 7 Wonders, twice – once as basic and the 2nd session with Leaders – and Kaigan.
Kareem opted out of this session as he taught the rest how to play.
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KAIGAN
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The J-team and Ang had to take their leave so it was down to three of us to do one or two more sessions before we call it a day as it was already past 3 am.
Kareem proposed KAIGAN which I’d seen it being played a couple of times here in OTK but have not joined any of those sessions. Wouldn’t mind learning this game which I was told has an interesting worker placement mechanic.
Will elaborate more on this game next time, for now let me just show you some pics of the game itself.
That’s it for a short sessrep. You might also want to read Junyet/Jacelyn’s sessrep posted on their blog. They are still shy to post in the BGC Blog. Tsk tsk.
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Categories: Meetup, Meetup Cheras
Boardgamecafe.net 
That was me at the Nightfall table kena pwned. An 11 wound attack pushed me from contender to toilet cleaner – bottom if the hierarchy.
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Shy to post a whole sessrep cos we only know what we played, we didn’t check out what’s happening at the other table and we left early too 😛
The Imperial game was quite close! It was only because Italy’s share become available in literally the last minute that Ang managed to get good 15-20 points ahead of us! Otherwise everyone would be like, 1-2 points away from each other. Kareem destroyed German’s dream to rule the world T.T
Kaigan looks pretty!
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“There’s a tendency for new players to focus on their most heavily invested country and to continue investing in them, often not considering “divesting” as a valid strategy.”
I wonder who that is.. *whistles*
Btw, CK, I’m Italy =P! Green =D
“There were also a few war-mongers here so you can expect the usual huge build-up of military, with England in particular spending every single penny she has to build an impressive Navy…”
Thank you so much for posting this sessrep up CK =D!! It truly is wonderful to read sessreps especially the ones where I was at =D!!!
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haha.. I know you (JC) were Green/Italy… but when I used “she” for England, I did not mean to imply England has a female governor (ie you) but simply using the proper grammar in referring to a country as a feminine gender.
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