Board Game Lounge

Last night I went out to a local community centre for an evening of board games.  They are now doing this twice a month on slightly different formats.  As usual, I went with my brother-in-law (or maybe he isn't - you can read me waffle on about in-laws [here] if you're interested).  We were there a little before the 7pm start time, because the car park fills up quickly.  As a result we helped set up the hall.

Anyway, it was a good evening out.  It's also very good value.  For £3 you get the use of the hall (tables and chairs) and free coffee or tea, along with one ticket for the prize draw.  Extra tickets are 50p each and there are boardgames for prizes.  Because there were only two of us, we stuck up our sign for 3 more players and were soon joined by a young guy on his own and a couple who live a few miles away.  Everyone was friendly and we enjoyed a couple of games in the 3-hour session.

Heat - US track

First we played Heat by Days of Wonder, which Trevor had brought.  None of us had played this one before, but Trevor had read the rules and watched some videos of how to play.  We played the two-lap US track.  It took about half a lap for people to remember to claim the advantages of being at the back and to remember that they could boost their speed at the cost of some heat in the engine.  By the closing half-a-lap they were recklessly charging around tight corners far too fast and just hoping to make it past the finish line.

For the record, I was in last place on the starting grid and finished second-to-last, so I count that as a positive result.  There were times that I had the lead, but just couldn't find the high cards for the final dash.  The handicapping system works well to keep the cars close together on the track (one square extra move for last place and slipstream benefits when catching another car), and the last two corners saw all 5 cars bunched up into 3 sections of track.  It could not have been closer.

Unstable Unicorns

Our other game was Unstable Unicorns, which looks like it should be all fluffy fun for little girls, but is actually quite mean as the players gang up to pick on whoever looks to be in the lead.  You win by having 7 unicorns in play, and once Jem became the first player to have 6 unicorns down the rest of us were most unpleasant to him.  As a result, Trevor and I managed to catch up with him and reach 6 as well, and then the meanness was spread around more evenly to take us back down to 5.  Eventually I got lucky with a ginormous unicorn (counting as two) at a moment when all the defensive cards had been used up to avoid Jem winning.

This is probably a game that favours regular players who will recognise the card combinations and winning moves, but it was the first time any of us had played, so nobody had an advantage.

At 10pm the raffle was drawn, and I think six games were handed out as prizes, but not to any of our table.  Then there were three lucky people who played Higher or Lower to win a free admission to the next session.  Only one of them won it.  And then there was half an hour to finish off any games that were still going and head for home.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.