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| Medway Area Boardgamers |
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| Fuzzy Heroes |
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| Darjeeling at MAB |
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| Maori at MAB |
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| Glass Road at MAB |
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| Glass Road at MAB |
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| Samurai Card game at MAB |
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| Samurai Card game at MAB |
Friday 13 June 2014
MAB + 1 Photos
Monday 7 April 2014
Fuzzy heroes
Heroes come in many forms and in Fuzzy Heroes they are soft and cuddly.
It must be heavily emphasised that in Fuzzy Heroes no cuddly toys ever get hurt, they just have "nap-time" until the game is over.
The playing area is a mythical island (in this case Kay-Tan) and using strength, speed and a variety of skills the Heroes try to dominate the island and become the last Cuddly still awake on it.
But danger lurks in many forms, every time a Cuddly is eliminated from the tournament (by being pushed off of the island) an empty island tile is removed by the victim. Not only must the Heroes remain awake but they must avoid being pushed into the encroaching waters.
Fuzzy Heroes is open to all, please feel free (in fact I encourage you) to bring your own Cuddly (between 3 and 15 inches) or if your Hero is too shy to attend you may borrow one of the fully trained Toys I will have with me.
This is a free to enter player participation game with easy to pick up rules. Playing time will be between 20 minutes (for those eliminated early from the game) to 90 minutes.
This event is a fusion of ideas using mechanisms from "Escape From Atlantis" , "Settlers of Catan" and "Sumo" all under the umbrella of the Rules of "Fuzzy Heroes" by Inner City Games.
Fuzzy Heroes is a family friendly fun game
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16718/fuzzy-heroes
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| Pogwin meets Reindeer |
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| Too much exercise and they will just fall to sleep, no matter where they are |
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| A part of the island of Kay-Tan |
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| The advantage that camouflage can play in Fuzzy Heroes |
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| Heroes in the making - all hoping to get picked |
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| Heroes in Training |
Fuzzy Heroes is a family friendly fun game
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16718/fuzzy-heroes
Thursday 12 January 2012
Meltdown 2020
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| Box Cover |
Meltdown 2020 is designed by Corne van Moorsel and published by Cwali. It is for 1-5 players aged 8 and up and plays in about 45 minutes. The theme behind the game is that the players are organisers of rescue teams on an island where seven Nuclear Reactors are beginning to malfunction. Each turn players get to know which reactors are affected and manoeuvre their vehicles to rescue their colour meeples and move them to the airport where they are flown to safety.
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| An example of a playing area with Radiation counters and a few rescued Meeples |
The game box contains 12 Tiles, 20 Meeples in each of 5 colours, 3 Vehicles in each of 5 colours, 1 Phases Board, 15 Radiation Counters and an 8 sided Die. I will take the tiles first as they are placed together to create the playing area. Each tile consists of 7 Hexes, on 7 of the tiles one of the hexes is a nuclear reactor, on 2 of the other tiles one of the hexes is an airport. All the other hexes have coloured markers for placement of all the Meeples and the vehicles at game set-up (some hexes have 2 such markers).
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| Tile with Airport |
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| Tile with Nuclear Reactor No3 |
The 3 vehicles are a minibus which can carry 4 people but only move 2, a Saloon car which can move 3 and carry 3 and a Helicopter which can carry 2 and move 4.
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| The Cardboard Vehicles |
A round is governed by the Phase Board. The first thing that happens is the die is rolled and a Radiation Marker placed on the corresponding Nuclear Reactor, then everyone in player order gets to move their Minibus. The die is rolled again and another Radiation marker placed and the saloon cars are moved, finally the die is rolled again but this time a marker is removed (if there is one) and the Helicopters moved. The final phase of a turn is reactors radiating, the strength of the radiation is defined by the number of discs on a reactor and distance from them, radiation from multiple reactors accumulate. All meeples have 3 states, happy, ill, and very ill; their orientation (lying on their side, on their back) reflects the level of illness whilst those that have taken three or more lots of radiation are removed from the board. Vehicles of different players are not permitted to occupy the same space except at an airport.
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| Phase Board |
So how does this play? We played this four player over Christmas and it went down very well, the mechanics work perfectly and there was a certain amount of tactical play in blocking the passage of your opponents vehicles whilst desperately getting your own meeples to the airfield. There was also a certain amount of logistics involved, getting your helicopter to sweep meeples up from distant locations and depositing them in groups for the slower vehicles to pick up; I tried to be systematic and ignored responding to the early nuclear Markers assuming that there would be some losses – unfortunately for me there were a large number of 8’s rolled meaning that fewer Radiation markers appeared on the board and my tactics were doomed.
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| Radiation markers - good and stocky |
I am always interested in games that play solo, most just mimic the game and it becomes more of a puzzle solving exercise. I played this twice solo, first just using one colour as per the rules (the rules do not give separate solo rules), secondly using all the colours. The one colour version was quick and very dull, there was never a game there, it was just me seeing what numbers I rolled on the die and seeing how lucky I was. The multicolour version worked a lot better, I stuck to the rule that only one vehicle colour could occupy a hex and that each colour could only rescue its own meeples. Like most solo versions of games it was still a puzzle, in this case how do I avoid getting in my own way whilst maximising the movement of all the vehicles, but I did get a feeling of some control over what was happening.
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| Phase board with saved Meeples aligned by health in the solo game. |
Cwali manage to fit everything into a nice sized box, no wasted space, the wooden bits are robust, but here comes my one and only complaint of the game, the vehicle pieces are bent pieces of card that “clip” together at the top – or rather that is what they are supposed to do, it only works with the smallest vehicles. The card tears at the bottom and you end up with floppy bits of card that keep coming unclipped midgame knocking meeples over as they do, remembering that meeple orientation is important in this game. Why they did not go with a piece of card in a plastic stand or even wooden representations of the vehicles I have no idea.
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| Minibus - folded |
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| Helicopter - unfolded |
To finish on a high note, Meltdown is an excellent game with well balanced mechanics, it is a lightweight game and probably best as a session starter. I am glad I managed to pick up a copy as its not available through many UK outlets.
Sunday 8 January 2012
Christmas Games part deux
It probably seems a bit quirky having the Christmas Games Report after the New Year Games Report, but that is how it is this year/last year?!?...... Anyway here is Christmas Gaming 2011 part deux giving a brief overview of the games played over 3 days, reviews for most will follow later in the year.
Christmas Day after a superbly excellent Christmas lunch cooked by Wendy and present unwrapping the first game hit the table. First on the table was “Lucky Ducks” published by MB and designed by Len Stubenfoll. It is for 2-4 players aged 3 and up and plays in about 10 minutes. You may be surprised that this game came out for a group of adults, Lewis certainly was – he had expected “Duck Duck Go” and in my obtuseness I had deliberately brought the wrong game. Ah the humour of it all! The idea of this game is collect your three ducks denoted by your colour on a sticker underneath it as they revolve around on a motorised duck pond. On a players turn they select a duck, secretly look at it, if it is their colour they take it and place in front of them, otherwise they must place it back on the path and the next player has a turn. This continues until everyone has found their ducks, the first player to do so, winning the game. We had fun playing three games of this over half an hour, what I haven’t mentioned is the mechanical quacking that continues from the revolving pond during the game – it is almost hypnotic. The game was quite intense, so much so that I cannot remember who won the three games.
The second game we played was “Vikings” by Rio Grande Games, designed by Michael Kiesling it plays in about an hour for 2-4 players aged 10 and over. Probably one of the most played games in my house during a year showing its popularity again by being chosen by Lewis for playing at Christmas. The idea is to collect tiles and place them in your own tableau to create islands in a grid pattern, the tiles come with various coloured meeples who are placed on the tiles. It is the combination of meeples and tiles which gains you victory points, the game is played over 6 rounds, whoever has the most points at the end wins. Lewis beat Wendy by one point, however what this game will be remembered for especially by Alan is his score of “2”, which achievement will be revealed as even more remarkable when I mention everyone starts the game with 10 points and In general a bad score is considered to be between 30 and 40 points.
“Kingsburg” was next, designed by Andrea Chiarveslo and Luca Iennaco and produced by Fantasy Flight Games, it is for 2-5 players aged 13 and above and plays in about 90 minutes, though I think 10 year olds could cope without too much difficulty. The game falls under the worker placement category where you roll a set of 3 dice which become your workers, these are placed on various spaces on the board to collect resources; these resources are used to build buildings which give you victory points and special power-ups during the game. Each board space can only be used once during a game turn, so blocking others whilst maximising your own resources is part of the fun, again I cannot remember who won, I should start writing the results down as they happen, not a week or two later.
The fourth game (we are now on day 2 by the way) was “Egizia”, produced by Rio Grande Games and designed by Acchittocca, Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli, Stefano Luperto and Antonio Tinto. It is for 2-4 players aged 12 and above and plays in about 90 minutes. This is a lovely game and plays over 5 turns, each turn a variety of power cards are interspersed with power spaces on the board then players take turns putting workers on these spaces, only one worker per space so whoever gets there first gets it. As you can never go back up the path of these power spaces, careful choices have to be made. This was a hard game, this is the third time I have played it 4 player and it plays differently to 2 or 3 player games which is how I think I prefer this game. With 2 and 3 players there is a degree of predictability which makes you feel you have some control, this to me is lost with 4. Wendy though seems to cope with it no matter how many players there are and has won more than her fair share of this game (she is 4-1 up 2 player) and added this one to her winning tally also.
It was about now we played “Duck Duck Go”, chosen to play by Lewis, designed by Kevin G Nunn and produced by APE Games, it plays 2-4 players (you can actually play up to 6 with another couple of ducks) aged 8 and up in about 30 minutes. Best described as “Roborally light” this was actually the Duck game Lewis wanted to play. A brief overview appears in the New Year Session Report, again a fun time was had with ducks careening into one another, a lucky winner drawing all the right cards at the right time was ME! If anyone knows where I can get Booster Boxes in Kent
“Meltdown” which was on my choice list is designed by Corne van Moorsel and published by Cwali, it is a game for 1-5 players aged 10 and above and plays in about 45 minutes. This game is themed around Nuclear Reactors going critical where the players play rescuers, saving and evacuating meeples to the nearest airport. An unusual subject for Christmas, however it was one of my newer games and it hadn’t been played yet. It was an interesting game, however some lucky early die rolls meant our game was quite tame with limited losses. I lost the game quite convincingly by trying to save everyone and failing. There is an element of luck in this game, however it played very well and everyone enjoyed it, Wendy won.
Lewis had to leave on day 3, so the remaining games were played 2/3 player. First up after a nice walk to see the Purple Sandpipers was “Richtofen, Ace of Aces”, I last played this about 20 years ago and Alan refreshed my memory with the basic rules. The game was designed by Alfred Leonardi and produced by Nova Game Designs, it is a 2 player game with the basic game lasting about 15 minutes, playing time can lengthen with the advanced rules and if playing a campaign. It is an aerial combat game based during the Great War where each player has a booklet of pictures showing views from your cockpit, you select a manoeuvre and based on the cross-indexing of manoeuvres chosen gives you a new view and perhaps a victim in your sights. I had fun and is one of the games missing from my collection.
Alan and I gave “Satanix” a whirl next, it is a word game for 2 players aged 10 and above and plays in 15 minutes. The design is uncredited and is produced by Habourdin International. The game consists of 16 reels on a central spindle, each reel has 10 faces. Each reel has one blank, one “E” and 8 other random letters, one on each face. On your turn you create a word starting with the left hand reel, your opponent then tries to create a longer word. The mechanisms, both the reels and spindles, and the game itself, work very well; we were playing for pleasure and had plenty of time so our game lasted for about an hour, if playing seriously I would strongly suggest using a minute egg timer.
The last Christmas session game played was “If wishes were Fishes” chosen by Wendy and which she joined us for, this game was reviewed by me on 30-11-11 . Designed by Michael Adams and Peter Sarrett, produced by Rio Grande Games, it is for 2-5 players aged 10 and above. The theme is around catching and selling fish shown on cards, however each card can either be used as the fish or a special action – but not both. Another great game was had and a nice light finish to 3 days of games, food and fun. Thank you Alan for providing the venue of our festivities and being a marvellous host, we all had a great time.
The Scalectrix? Well lewis and I set that up on day 2 after I spent half an hour digging it out of cupboard hidden by stacks of games, the course was not bad and was about 15 feet long made up from quite a few basic sets I picked up years ago, several races were had with Lewis winning them all.
Tuesday 3 January 2012
New Year Games
The Christmas game sessions I hope to catch up with later – they are half written, however hot off the press is the New Year games session, there are no reviews in this article, just an overview of the games we played.
Wendy and I got to spend New Year with Chris and Julia, other guests over the two days included Jay, John, Jens, Beth and Mike. We all had a lovely time, Chris and Julia as always being fantastic hosts, whilst Beth supplied a superb vegetable pie (those simple words do not do justice to how marvellous it tasted). However on to the games. When we arrived Jay, Chris and Julia were playing Kingdom Builder, a game by Donald X Vaccarino, produced by Queen games for 2-4 players aged 8 and over. I got a quick rundown on the rules and I began to see what the current interest is in this game and I look forward to playing it sometime. In brief (very brief) it is a territory claiming game with points awarded for various goals which are on view to all but change from game to game, so each game is different.
We all then played Last Will another game I had heard a lot about. It is designed by Vladimir Suchy, produced by Czech Games Edition and Rio Grande
After lunch the first game was MOTO GP, designed by Rafael Nunez-Maturana and published by Games for Table Races S.L. (Spain
Next up was Kaleidos, designed by Spartaco Albertarelli and published by Edtrice Giochi, a game for 2-12 players aged 10 and up playing in about 60 minutes. This is an excellent observational game, each player gets the same picture to look at, a dial is spun giving a letter of the alphabet and an eggtimer is then turned over and you get a minute to write down as many items you can see in the picture beginning with that letter. At the end of a minute everyone stops writing and lists compared, you get 2 points for a unique answer, 1 point for a shared answer and lose a point if everyone except one person has the answer (as does everyone else with that answer). Play a number of rounds and whoever has the best score wins. Chris won this one with about 20% higher score than anyone else. The pictures are a mass of items and animals and curiosities within a common setting and the artists Marinna Fulvi and Elena prette are to be commended. It was a fun game with many discussions – some very short lived such as my claiming an Alley-Cat for the letter A when everyone said “no – it’s a Cheshire Cat” to the slightly longer for Beth’s “It’s a Mammoth” for M with everyone saying “It’s an elephant” – no one though got Mammal!!!
The next game was Take it Easy XXL, produced by FX Schmid and designed by Peter Burley, it plays in about 20 minutes and takes from 1-8 players aged 10 and up – though I know 8 year olds that could cope with it. A lovely game, each player has a small hex board with a set of hex tiles, each tile has coloured lines going across it with various values for example 1’s ,5’s & 9’s go N-S. On a turn a caller draws a tiles and then says what numbers are on the tile, everyone takes that tile and places it on their board. A tile placed cannot be moved. Play continues until all boards are full and then you score up. Each completed line scores the value of the line times the number of tiles in the line. We played two rounds with me winning the first and drawing in first place in the second, though most of the others were first timers to this game.
I think it was here when we played Duck Duck Go, designed by Kevin G Nunn and produced by APE Games, it plays 2-4 players (you can actually play up to 6 with another couple of ducks) aged 8 and up in about 30 minutes. The game consists of playing cards to move ducks on a board, the ducks race round trying to tag bouys before crossing the finish line – which is a plughole. Cards are played simultaneously, revealed and played in numerical order, this blind play often leads to collisions and mishaps. It is a fun game not to be taken seriously, strategically it is a nightmare as you never have the correct cards at the right time – but the ducks are so cute you can forgive the high luck element. A review of this game will follow soon.
The last game of the day was Olympos by Ystari games, designed by Philippe Keyaerts, its for 3-5 players aged 10 and up (I would say 12 and up) and lasts about 90 minutes. The game consists of a map of Greece
Day 2 saw us start with Powergrid – The First Sparks produced by 2F Spiele, designed by Friedmann Friese for 2-6 players aged 12 and above playing in about 75 minutes. This game is about expanding tribes on a map made up of hexes that have one of four resources, Grapes, Bears, Fish or Mammoths. Players gather these resources to expand and feed their tribes, to assist in this there are cards to be bought from a deck in a similar manner to powergrid. When someone reaches 13 the turn is played out and furthest past the post wins with food in hand being the tie-break. Julia won this quite easily with John being the only real challenge, I suffered a glitch mid-game by running low on food and Wendy started off a bit too slow and ended up a turn behind the rest . I have to draw the conclusion that the game is unforgiving with mistakes, it is simpler than Powergrid and really a different game though it draws its mechanisms from its “parent”.
The next game was Alles im Eimer published by Kosmos, designed by Stefan Dorra, aimed at 2-6 players aged 10 and above. A card game where you start off with a hand of 12 cards, they can be of numbers 2 to 8 and in any of five colours. On your turn you must follow suit and beat the previous players total, you can do this by playing 1, 2 or 3 cards. If you do so, play passes to the next player, if you fail then you lose a colour token matching the cards you failed to play. The coloured tokens are placed in a pyramid, when you lose a coloured token, any it is supporting you lose as well. Matching numbers switches direction of play. It was a good game where I kept my head, but not the majority of my tokens; this game was won by Mike carefully avoiding the tit-for-tat battles going on and playing some high combinations to avoid losses.
The next game was In 80 Tagen an die Welt designed by Michael Rieneck and published by Kosmos, it plays from 3-6 players in about 75 minutes. The game consists of a number of travel routes round the board which require either Train and/or Ship cards to move by, each card has a number of days thereon which is kept on a tally round the board. The idea is to complete the round trip in less than 80 days. Each turn a number of cards are placed face up dependent on the number of players next to an action space. On a turn a player takes a card and the associated special action and may also complete one Route section. The game plays well, there is an element of luck with die rolls replacing cards, but this is at the players choice, special action cards also have an element of luck to them. All in all the game is well balanced with Mike getting his marker to London first in just under 90 days, on the following turn John, Wendy and Julia also reached London but with an accumulated time of 80 days or less with Julia taking the shortest time. In the meantime Jens and I failed to reach London America
The last game of the day was Nefarious published by Ascora Games and designed by Donald X Vaccarino , a card driven game for 2-6 players aged 8 and up playing in 30 minutes. It is a light card game with little depth, you each have a game board, some mad scientist tokens and 4 action cards. Each turn the players simultaneously choose one of their action cards, they are all revealed and then played in numerical order. The choices are 1, place an investment counter, 2 get 2 cash and an invention card, 3 create an invention, 4 grab 4 cash. The invention cards generally have additional actions you can carry out but cost money, however they also carry the victory points you need to win the game. We played a 4 player game, due to event cards money was tight, I was very bad at balancing the books, and came last, John came first a well deserved win. I hope to review this game at a later date.
Most of these games were new to me and the two I enjoyed most were Last Will & Kaleidos. Thank you once again to Julia & Chris
Wednesday 28 December 2011
Christmas Gaming 2011
Over the Christmas period I played games with Wendy Alan and Lewis and as a small task beforehand I asked them all to nominate a game that they would like to play. They each gave me two which made my task easier. The games we played I hope to review over the next week, but as a small appetiser here were their choices.
Lewis . Duck Duck Go and Vikings
Alan . Stoneage and Kingsburg
Wendy . Egizia and If Wishes were Fishes
Kevin . Meltdown and The Christmas Game
Sadly Stoneage and The Christmas Game did not get played, however instead we did play Scalextric, Ace of Aces and Satanix.
I had also done a little quiz as a filler, four sections were pictures only and as I cannot attribute the sources I will not reproduce them here, so you are left with the first seven sections. Wikipedia was only one of the many sources used for this quiz. Feel free to try your luck, answers will be published in 2 weeks time.
The sections are :-
1. Music – 1pt each except 8 (2 pts), 6, 9 & 10 (2 pts) 1 for the song & 1 for the artist
2. Fictional Places – 1 pt each.
3. Alias’s and pseudonyms – 1 pt each
4. Literature – 2 pts each, one for the book and 1 for the author.
5. Loosely Sporting – 1 pt each except 42 (3 pts) and 45 (2 pts)
6. Pot Luck – 1 pt each
7. Games – These are games which you probably have played or are at least on display in Alan’s house or at Kevin & Wendy’s. – 1 pt each.
MUSIC
1. What shape is the body of a Balalaika?
2. Which land did Puff the Magic Dragon Live in?
3. The washboard and tea-chest bass are normally associated with which musical genre?
4. After the Beatles which is the biggest selling group ever?
5. How long is the Camptown racetrack?
6. What is the best selling UK
7. Who has the most No 1 singles in the UK
8. What was George Gershwins one and only Opera called? For a bonus point what was the title of its opening aria?
9. “It’s close to , there’s something evil lurking in the dark” Is the opening line to which song? (1pt each for song and artist)
10. “ Whatcha gonna do with all that junk, All that junk inside your trunk.” Is the opening line to which song? (1pt each for song and artist)
FICTIONAL PLACES
11. In which series of books does the building “Hogwarts” appear?
12. In which TV series does the residence “31 Elm Tree Avenue , Purley” appear?
13. Blandings Castle
14. 32 Railway Cutting’s, North Cheam appears in which series?
15. Honolulu Heights Wales
16. Which family lives at 1630 Revello Drive , somewhere in America
17. 742 Evergreen Terrace, appears in which American TV series?
18. Which family lives at 368, 12th floor, Nelson Mandela House, Dockside Estate, Peckham, London
19. Burgh Island Devon is the real name of an island that inspired the setting of a best selling book that was serialised in the Daily Express in 1939. Who was its author?
20. Ambridge is the village setting of which series?
BY ANY OTHER NAME :: The following are the birth names of famous people; who are they better known as? To help a little, I have added in which century they passed away where applicable.
21. Costadinos Contostavlos (Singer)
22. Gnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (d 20th) (Nobel prize winner)
23. Roy Harold Scherer Jr (d 20th) (Actor)
24. Ellis Bell (d 19th) (Writer)
25. Eldrick Tont Woods (Sportsperson)
26. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Singer)
27. Eileen Regina
28. Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (d 20th) (Politician)
29. Margaretha Geertruida Zelle (d 20th) (Spy?)
30. Tiziano Vecelli (d 16th) (Painter)
LITERATURE :: The following are the first lines from popular / famous books. Book and author required, 1 pt for each.
31. “If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.”
32. “Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.”
33. “At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin.”
34. “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”
35. "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
36. “Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug."
37. “The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn."
38. 'Where's Papa going with that axe?' said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast."
39. "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
40. “Marley was dead, to begin with."
LOOSELY SPORTING
41. Which Jamaican holds the world record in the Mens 100Metres, achieved on 16-9-2009 in Berlin Germany
42. On February 8th & 9th 2011, He played for 25 hours against 604 players, winning 580 (97.35%) of the matches, drawing 16, and losing 8 thereby gaining a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most simultaneous games. A point each for his name, discipline and nationality.
43. The Superbowl has the winners of which two “leagues” going head to head (acronyms accepted)?
44. This sport is judged on accuracy where a final position like the hand of a clock scores best at to the competitor. Sometimes judging from the side is required where for example, an angle from the ground of 84 degrees is better than 68 degrees. What sport is this?
45. Gholamreza Takhti (27/8/30 – 7/1/68) won 1 Olympic gold, 1 Asian Championship gold and 2 World Championship golds between 1956 and 1961. He was most famous for his attitude to sport, an example being when he heard that his opponent Alexander Medved had an injured right knee. Not once during the match did he attack this weakness. He lost the match but showed that he valued honourable behaviour above victory. What discipline did he win his golds in? 1 extra point each if you can name the discipline he was a world reknowned practioner of and his home country.
46. What sport made its debut as a demonstration sport in the 1988 Olympics; again was a demonstration sport in the 1992 Olympics, missed the 1996 Olympics but then gained official medal status in the 2000 Olympics?
47. Svetlana Masterkova holds the Womens World Record set on 14th August 1996 in a distance for which the 6th May 1954 is a landmark date. What is this distance?
48. In which sport do 5 Shimpan watch proceedings?
49. In which sport does a “Mark” get rewarded with a “Free Kick”?
50. Past champions include Chris Anderson, Helen Thorpe and 14 year old Jo Guest. It is a British sport with at least 200 years of history behind it, taking place over a 200 yard course with speeds of up to 70mph. What is the name of this sporting event?
POT LUCK
51. Using their atomic numbers only, add Boron, Carbon and Nitrogen; multiply the result by Helium and then finally add Hydrogen. What number do you end up with?
52. What is this symbol commonly known as ?
53. What is any of various lateen-rigged sailing vessels, typically having a raised poop, a raked stem, and one or two masts, used along the coasts of the Indian Ocean called?
54. Wuhai, China & Valdivia , Chile Christchurch , New Zealand Spain
55. What is a Steam Calliope?
56. Although its authorship is in question, who is the “Book of Lemmas” (or at least its contents) generally attributed to?
57. What were the 2 gangs in west side story (1 point for each)?
58. In Computer engineering what does VLSI stand for?
59. Halley’s Comet will next make an appearance during which year?
60. A unit of mass equal to 200mg is more commonly called what?
GAMES :: These are fairly well-known games. I have selected a tell-tale rule or two from the game which may be slightly altered to avoid too easy an identification. All you have to do is name that game. ~x~ refers to words taken out of the clue – you do not get them that easy.
61. A chain containing 11 or more hotels is safe and cannot be taken over by another chain.
62. The Judge picks a green ~x~ card from the top of the stack, reads the words aloud, and places it face up on the table. / For a more leisurely and thoughtful game, allow everyone except the judge to play a red ~x~ card in each round.
63. After players have decided whether they will jump out or stay in the ~x~ ~x~ , the ~x~ pilot must decide what he or she will do.
64. Moving back to a Tortoise Square costs nothing.
65. A player cannot sink a green hill piece before all the yellow lowland pieces have sunk.
66. Then turn the crank clockwise in the direction of the arrow and watch the action.
67. Mounted Indians cannot enter or pass over the squares marked with trees, boulders or battlements. / General Custer with his 2 guns, is allowed 2 shots (at the same or different opponents).
68. When a player draws a card, he looks at it and may either keep it or pass it on face down to any player who does not already have an Empire card. / A player must not look at an Empire card passed to him until all players have received one.
69. Escape Equipment cards are obtained in a similar way to the Escape Kit, but by placing two POW’s in each room where the required equipment symbols are shown.
70. You may only build a settlement at a tile intersection and only if all three of the adjacent intersections are vacant.
Friday 2 December 2011
Martian Dice
Martian dice is a simple fun game designed by Scott Ames and produced by Tasty Minstrel Games. It is new this year and is aimed at ages 8 and over (though the rules can be understood by a 6 year old). It is for 2 or more players. but I would not go much above 8 because of the downtime between turns, with large groups you tend to get 2 or three players who run the game whilst others socialize/chat giving a nudge to other players when its their turn, strategy is limited to your own turn so knowing what others have done is not really important.
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| The tube it all comes in |
The container is small yet still too large for the game, it could easily have been sold in something a third its size and even more annoying it is a tube. I have a thing against tubes because they are a pain to store, they just do not stack properly with other games or tubes and each company seems to pick completely different sizes to sell their products in, they also leave gaps round them on shelves. Still they are better, only just mind, than blister packs which some small games come in and which have no discernable stacking shape at all.
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| The Rules |
The game consists of one sheet of rules and 13 dice. Each die is a normal 6 sided die with five possible faces. A chicken head (yellow), a human head (blue), a cow head (white), a human tank (red) and a laser canon (green) which is shown on 2 of the faces. The aim of the game is to score 25 points over a series of rounds, when someone achieves 25 or more points at the end of their turn the round is completed and victory goes to furthest past the post.
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| The 13 Dice |
On your turn you throw all the dice, put aside all red faces (these are the evil defending Earthlings) and all the dice of one other colour having done so you may re-throw the remaining dice and likewise collect all red faces and one other colour. Other than the laser canons (green) you may only collect the remaining colours once in a set of throws. i.e. Yellow, white and blue
– the abductees – you are a Martian after all, all chickens cows and humans are strange creatures to be examined and questioned at length later back on Mars. You may stop whenever you want and score up and if you have a turn where you cannot collect any non-red dice because of the above restrictions your turn will end and you may score up.
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| The possible faces |
Before you score there is a pre-requisite and that is that your laser canons (green) must equal or exceed the number of defending evil Earthling tanks (red), if successful then you may score the other coloured dice – your abductees. Each scores 1 point per die and you get a bonus of 3 if you have all 3 different abductees represented in your collection. The dice are then passed on for the next player to have their turn.
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| Gary shows complete contempt for the puny Earthling forces - and all for 2 points! |
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