inconsequential ruminations

Last week we went on holiday to my family’s cottage in Oxfordshire. I was worried we might get bored, but not at all. Ness had lots of activities organised and I had way more than enough gardening to keep me going.

I visited Spot-On Models & Games in Swindon. I only found it from the uk.games.board faq, otherwise I would never have looked for a games shop in Swindon. It is mostly a models shop, with slot cars and model railways as the focus. However they did have some RPGs and a smallish stack of Euro games. I noticed the owner had a copy of Games International behind the counter. Interestingly enough, the stack of games only seemed to include games mentioned there, and had some that I have not noticed elsewhere, for instance Treasure Island and Shakespeare the Bard Game. The only thing I was interested in was Ticket to Ride Europe, so I bought it. This was partly in support of what looks like a new venture into selling board games. It also felt appropriate to buy a train game from a train-spotting town like Swindon that features on the English Age of Steam expansion map.

Ness and I played some of The Queen’s Park Affair, a sequel to Sherlock Holmes:Consulting Detective. It is more involved than the original, as there is a single case, played over four days in Victorian London. We love this game, but it does involve a lot of effort, so we have struggled to make headway into it and have only finished the first day. At least we can catch up with the game by ourselves and later collaborate to develop the plot further. So far it seems at least as good as the original.

Some non-gamer friends came to stay with us and we played Coloretto. It went down well, especially considering we started at 10pm or so. I might try something like Settlers or Ticket to Ride the next time they come.

We played Wallenstein for the second time last night. Again it was a success, although we played the revolting peasants wrongly and the initial placements really threw everyone, as we used the introductory preselected placements variant for our first game. In fact the initial deployment of forces dictated the whole outcome. I played well and was lucky, but I was surrounded in the middle of the board, so could not expand without inciting blood feuds. As a result, I only came third out of five. The winner got a few lonely provinces on the borders and kept well out of trouble. I agree with most of Fred’s analysis.