Limericks and Haikus

Boardgamers: Paul, Gareth, Gareth II, Dan, Dan II, Philip, Barrie, Barry, Sean, Andy, Scott, Charlotte, Tom, Ravi, Michel, Hannah and Tonio

On Wed last, games were played at the London Apprentice
And inspired by Dan's rhymes (to which we do not do justice)
The gamers whispered 'by George, that's perverse'
'These writeups are written in very very bad verse'
'Let's sue these poor poets for grievous malpractice'

St Petersburg

There once was a game called St Petes
Played by Gareth and Barrie, it reeks
So many nobles, maybe conspiratory
Or maybe just wise use of the Observatory?
Probly, 'cos no one would say that they're cheats ;)

Scores: Gareth 112, Barrie 105, Paul 94 and Hannah 61



Alhambra

In Alhambra, a gamed themed on old Spanish gardens
Did Hannah and Paul 'venge those St Petersburg heathens 
From the previous game, retribution abound
They were near the post, with most points to be found
When alas 'time' was called and there was no game ends

Scores: None but Paul was winning when the pub closed!!


Sentinals of the Multiverse (thank you Tom)

1. Villain: La Capitan
Environment: Realm of Dischord
Heroes: Tempest (Ravi), Nightmist (Tom), Freedom Six Tachyon (Dan), Ra (Michel), Freedom Six Absolute Zero (Tonio)

There was a marauding pirate
Whose ship was soon kaput
Her life of derring do
With her erstwhile crew
Ended with lightning up her butt

2. Villain: The Dreamer
Environment: Insula Primalis
Heroes: Unity (Ravi), Chrono-Ranger (Tom), The Scholar (Dan), Redeemer Fanatic (Michel), Absolute Zero (Tonio)

A dreaming child finally awoken
The fate of the heroes had spoken
The child’s progress to be stopped
But, from her mind, monsters popped
And the heroes left beaten and broken

3. Villain: Gloomweaver
Environment: The Final Wasteland
Heroes: Rook City Wraith (Ravi), Argent Adept (Tom), Unity (Dan), Redeemer Fanatic (Michel), The Eternal Haka (Tonio)

Next arose a weaker foe
Although you must be still on your toes
Gloomy driven quite barmy
Abused by Unity’s bot army
Cried “Alack, I must go!”

The Three Commandments (thank you Tom)

Religious decrees
Bad karma for Tonio
No High Priestess, he

I think that Tonio has the scores [and, it sounds like, an eternity of being reincarnated as a dung beetle]




For Sale (thank you Scott)

For Sale, it was played
Many purchases were made
Charlotte did prevail

Scores: Charlotte 57, Scott 53, Tom 46, Ravi 37, Dan2 32 and Andy 31

And now for something a little more prosaic...

Lost Cities the Boardgame

When most people were arriving, a game of Lost Cities the Boardgame was going on, but the writeup went the same way as the fabled cities and was never found.

Agricola

The writing was on the wall from the start of this game of non-virtual Farmville, as old hand Agricophiles Andy and Scott, who'd wipe the farm yard floor with even seasoned wooden sheep breeders, decided to take on Sean and Charlotte who'd never ventured through a cardboard five bar gate before. Andy won, Scott came second and they both had the common decency not to write up what was probably a one sided drubbing to the newbie farmers, or indeed record any scores for posterity. Andy made an attempt to pass this off as him being on a busman's holiday, being a journalist and all, but we know that he is simply too kind hearted and not the kind to gloat.

Terra Mystica (thank you Philip)

Philip, having just purchased the game from Scott (whose copy he had played with 3 or 4 times many
months ago) was eager to try Terra Mystica again, and so was Gareth. Dan and Barrie were new to the game so Philip offered them choice of starting races - Dan took Mermaids and Barrie Witches. Gareth picked Nomads and Philip picked Chaos Magicians as he hadn't tried them yet and thought that they looked interesting.

Intial placement saw Dan and Gareth next to each other and Philip next to Barrie. Luckily the first turn tile was power for red cult spaces and with a combination of the priest starting tile and both red temple favours, Philip was able to gain 8 power. Meanwhile Gareth and Barrie had built their Strongholds and Dan also built a temple. Philip upgraded my Shipping as well.

The next turn saw Philip cross the river to build another Temple - Barrie putting a dwelling down adjacent to Philip with his special power just before Philip built it. This time Philip choose the blue 2 space favour and the silver 2 space favour. This time the turn tile was priests for blue cult spaces and Dan maxed out at 8 for 2 priests. 

The next turn was workers for red spaces and Philip had a quiet turn, mainly upgrading his spade conversion rate while others built towns. 

With an extra 4 workers Philip was able to have a bumper 4th turn, build a new dwelling, a bridge and a Sanctuary to complete his only town- choosing one space on each of the cult tracks and reaching space 10 on the silver track just in time for it to pay out 1 worker for every 2 spaces. 

In turn 5 Philip continued to expand his shipping and spread dwellings, although nowhere near as many as the others who were running out of buildings. Philip thinks it was this turn that we had a bit of controversy because Barrie had forgotten in the previous turn to take a temple favour and he picked the red town-building favour which both Gareth and Dan wanted- Barrie realised his mistake just as Gareth was picking a favour for his temple, and Dan said if he had known there was only one red town-building favour left he would have built a temple on his (immediately preceding turn). We eventually resolved this awkwardly by pretending there were 4 tiles of the relevant favour, allowing everyone to take one.

The final turn was bonus Vps for spade building and Philip upgraded my spades again and turned all his workers into spades. Meanwhile the others were making sure they had most connected buildings- Dan and Gareth tied while Barrie was one building short- he had built the same number of buildings but one was isolated from the rest. Dan complained vociferously that he had run out of priests and thus didn't get any income from his temples in the final turn. However, when we scored the cult tracks Dan earned 20 points, mainly due to all his priests being placed on them- Philip also earned 20 points but then Chaos Magicians are supposed to score high on the cult tracks. Anyway, Dan won with about 80 points and Philip, Gareth and Barrie were in 2nd, 3rd and 4th place respectively with 5 points or so between each player.

Philip's verdict: Fun game, I think if I played Chaos Magicans again I would prioritise income favour tiles intially- I could have taken the red town tile when I built the sanctuary instead of turn 1 and taken another income generating tile instead. Still congratulations to Dan on a solid win for a first time player.