Discoveries ended in a 47-47 tie with @jacknstuart and unexpectedly I had one more dice on my board to squeak ahead. I had the strangest combo of Indian tribe helpers, which meant I could do 7 mountains in a hop but struggled to find enough mountains to cross — the exact opposite of the usual. #bgg #boardgames

A spot of time laying in Azul. #bgg #boardgames

A bit of early sequence Fabled Fruit with @evietd #bgg #boardgames

Teaching Res Arcana to @jacknstuart and @evietd — of course Evie cruised to a win with Sea Serpent and Celestial Nag. #bgg #boardgames

For a game with lots of (nice) bits, New Frontiers is surprisingly difficult to photograph. Close up is best but you don’t get the full appreciation of your galactic sprawl. The game itself seems to be super streamlined, and over before you can even say the full name, “New Frontiers: The RACE FOR THE GALAXY board game”. #bgg #boardgames #newfrontiers

An unboxing has occurred. #newfrontiers #bgg #boardgames

Quick 3 player Wingspan teaching @jacknstuart but @evietd held off his big end game bonus rush and won 103-101-92. My owl strategy foundered midway through. #bgg #boardgames #wingspan

I think Raphael’s development queue might be a trifle ambitious… (spoiler: it was, but mainly because he just kept drawing more 6 developments). #bgg #rollforthegalaxy #boardgames

Nice setup, with 3 6-point developments and Uplift Coalition taking me to 100 points. Was it enough? It was not. Raphael got to 108 with one ridiculous 6-point development gaining 24 bonus points. Outrageous. #bgg #rollforthegalaxy #boardgames

Gosh but Roll for the Galaxy: Rivalry comes with a colossal number of new bits. We tried the Orb expansion with the extra tiles and it worked pretty well. We both looked forward to getting 15 tiles but Raphael’s production engine was so overpowered he ended the game really early 96-42. #bgg #boardgames

Taught Wingspan to 3 new people last night and it was a successful outing, even though their usual fare is more confrontational. #bgg #boardgames

Three quick games of Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraß. Lost the first heavily but regrouped to win the two rematches. Can still get hosed by bad draw but it plays quickly so it’s not a fatal flaw. A good solid effort by @grailgames to reissue this in English. #bgg #boardgames

Revisiting idea from 4 years ago — hoping that the new butterfly keyboards due from Apple will include special resource keys so that you don’t have to trade with your co-workers… #bgg #boardgames

The end state, suitably obscured to comply with Catan’s new GDPR regulation. A terrific see saw battle that ended with Raphael winning the turn before I would have. Possibly the turning point was him springing a Brigand Camp on me though I responded by filling his last building spot with a Trading Post. Rivals fir Catan remains a firm favourite. #bgg #boardgames

Went in big on owls in Wingspan but couldn’t secure any of the end of round goals so Raphael’s Common Raven egg fest led him to 99-90 win. #bgg #boardgames

Despite collecting 3 of the special awards, and making an epic resource collection engine I didn’t manage to uncover enough of the end game scoring cards and came last in a close but low scoring game of Everdell, 52-56-57. At least we think those were the scores, every time we added them up they changed slightly! #bgg #boardgames

A quick game of Jaipur with @evietd who didn’t read the Fathers’s Day script entirely! #bgg #boardgames

All set to Gather Supplies which sounds like it should be easier than breaching the Warren In @inspiringgames excellent Legends Untold. #bgg #boardgames

Made it through the third scenario, Breach the Warren, on the third attempt. It was really tough to manage the time deck, as every event caused more goblins to appear and battle you. This time I took every opportunity to mine the Adventure deck and was lucky to find the Tattered Map which I hoarded until there were only 4 locations left. Luckily the Shrine was one of the 3 that I picked up with the Map, and the Shaman proved surprisingly easy to deal with. Phew. This really is minnow level adventuring though, as a reward for completing this and levelling up, we got to add a Rope, a Hammer and a Long Gambeson to our belongings! Wealth beyond imagining… #bgg #boardgames @inspiringgames

Somewhat delayed, Act II of Caverna: Cave vs. Cave has arrived! #bgg #boardgames

We’re going on an adventure. A phrase that will never be the same after Children of Ruin by @aptshadow In this case though, we didn’t encounter too many mishaps and reached El Dorado shortly after noon on the second day. #bgg #boardgames

After a catastrophic first location (Careless, Hidden Wisps, tricky Foe) it was an uneventful stroll to the Cave Mouth in Report Back scenario of the campaign. Mainly because the party chose to excel in combat this time round and found the Tattered Map which sealed the deal. @inspiringgames have a winner here. #bgg #boardgames

Pandemic: Fall of Rome proved way too hard with 5 players. We ended up overrun with Orange cubes, even though they were the only tribe we allied with. #bgg #boardgames

Barely made it through the first location in Legends Untold: The Path of the Druach, having rolled abysmally on Scouting Test and therefore being careless, the party triggered Grip Vines and Bolt Firer, which promptly rendered the Neophyte unconscious before the Foe was even revealed. Of course it was the Mother Spore which did for the Farmhand leaving the Forgehand to despatch it with 1 health remaining. Much time was used up recovering from this, only to encounter Goblin Shamans (Shamen?) in the next location and get reduced to 1 health again. At least the locations had a healthy population of the icons we were looking for. The time deck was pretty depleted by the time the adventurers lurched into the next two locations to conclude their search for wildlife. A Druach’s way is a hard one! Top tip — don’t be CARELESS. #bgg #boardgames

Legends Untold (or should that be Unfold) lived up to expectations in first proper outing. Managed to shepherd party of 3 through the Missing Adventurers scenario, despite meeting a monster fungi in the first room, and almost running out of time (and rooms). It’s all pretty seat of the pants stuff, but starting to remember where the danger points are in 3d6 curves! #bgg #boardgames

Thanks @mikesiggins for the Untold Legends recommendation. It arrived this morning and looking forward to diving in. It even has a Waradger. #bgg #boardgames

A third of the way through Pandemic: Fall of Rome and it’s all looking serene, but the mid game acceleration in this game is brutal. We forged alliances with all but the Orange cubists but couldn’t manage to sort them out before we ran out of cards. #bgg #boardgames

The Lost Expedition made it to El Dorado with all 3 explorers in good health. We’ve got the rhythm down now and will have to try Heroic level. #bgg #boardgames

It doesn’t matter who is Expedition Leader when you’ve all perished to Fever, Poisonous Frogs or other miscellaneous calamities. The Lost Expedition seems pretty hard to beat! Superbly illustrated by @garenewing #bgg #boardgames

Another attempt at Wingspan vs Raphael but his Pelican ate all the fish my Osprey kindly provided him with. A bit of a bad combo for me! #bgg #boardgames

A narrow loss to Raphael in Wingspan but he thinks he activated his eggs in the wrong order so it was probably a tie. #bgg #boardgames

Doing some Fabled Fruit collecting. #bgg #boardgames

The outstanding art work of @d20plusmodifier for the Root board game makes excellent choices for the Photos face on Apple Watch. #bgg #boardgames

Tidily organised Root factions. The only time they behave themselves. #bgg #boardgames

Got completely farmered in Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraß by Raphael. Mostly because it took me way too long to get any order fulfilment capacity. My late surge was not enough however. #bgg #boardgames

Trying Fabled Fruit — my GOF flea market purchase. #bgg #boardgames

Super helpful Vagabond wins Root at a gallop! #bgg #boardgames

A nice find in the GOF flea market — The Tea Dragon Society card game. Currently out of print. #bgg #boardgames

More llama drama to round out the day with Catan Histories:Rise of the Inkas. #bgg #boardgames

Quartermaster General: Cold War with Ian Brody and Paul Evans. We concentrated too much on East West confrontation and the non aligned powers crushed us. We made some dumb moves so playing the designer wasn’t an excuse for him beating us! Played well, now have to try the ancient version. #bgg #boardgames

Also played yesterday: Tiny Towns, a bingo style town builder with mischief abound. #bgg #boardgames

I finished up last night with Altiplano, a bag builder with attractive art and a pretty crazy way of acquiring and using your resources. I kind of worked out what I was doing half way through and did tolerably well in the end game scoring, but Mark totally smoked us, ending up with final scores of 73-79-96-169! He was way off in the distance. It was one of the games I had made a note to try before coming here and it was great to get it to the table, and also play with Mark, @terynose and Kurt at least once. #bgg #boardgames

About to try to out detective Sherlock in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. #bgg #boardgames

A pile of marmots. #bgg #boardgames

Continuing yesterday’s theme of playing not quite released games I tried Paladins of the Western Kingdom. I built a fine wall and my Squires boosted my VP inspired by my disdain of conspiracies but I did not triumph. Nice to play a few games with @boardgame_babylon #bgg #boardgames

Play testing the adorable Aquicorn Cove board game with strong eco theme and great artwork. #bgg #boardgames

Trying out Cartographers: a Roll Player Tale. Really enjoyed making my map. #bgg #boardgames

We had a really close finish in Lancaster with three of us finishing on 33 points. Unfortunately that was tied for last place, the winner had 68 points, so we didn’t really do very well there. #bgg #boardgames

The highlight of yesterday was definitely Quartermaster General, a game I have been one footstep away from joining on many occasions, but this was the first time that I played. It needs 6 people so Chris, Kris, Jeff, Jean-Francois, Debbie and Matt were recruited as generals by Jeff and it was every bit as rewarding as I expected. Russia and Japan swooped back and forth across the Asia/Pacific region while the European powers engaged in more static activity, favouring careful Status card play. But once Japan overreached in India it started to go better for the good guys! I really enjoyed the experience, exactly the level of conflict style game that I can manage. #bgg #boardgames

Hurrah. My Alien empire just edged a narrow victory in New Frontiers, 62-60-59-48. I liked it! #bgg #boardgames

Play testing expansion to Res Arcana with Tom Lehmann #bgg #boardgames

Tried out Pandemic: Fall of Rome. Like all its predecessors it seemed under control and then suddenly it wasn’t! #bgg #boardgames

Filling out around the edges in Wingspan. #bgg #boardgames

My Queendomino realm. #bgg #boardgames

More flip and write fun in Silver and Gold #bgg #boardgames

There’s big trouble ahead in Year of the Dragon. Slightly cheating on the penultimate alphabetical #bgg entry. #boardgames

Tidying up the alphabetical #bgg challenge with some Xenon Profiteering #boardgames

Game one of #GOF2019 is Welcome To… a nice tidy little flip and write game that seems to have several paths to victory (or not in my case). Good fun. #bgg #boardgames

Yesterday we ventured into Viva Java Coffee Dice land in the alphabetical #bgg challenge. I failed to hold off Raphael’s Rainbow Blend/Research strategy and was narrowly defeated. I had the best blend though! #boardgames

The sun sets on an out of sequence board game session. Raphael’s Jovian empire gleaned him 16 VP, so he eased to a 128-108 victory despite me doing 90% of the actual terraforming. He had so many card draw abilities and stacked discounts that he just sat and played projects at leisure. #bgg #boardgames

And we did get Up Front to the table for “U” in the alphabetical #bgg challenge. I taught Oscar how to play, in the introductory scenario and was once again reminded that this game always generated a terrific narrative, and a lot of tension. My guys floundered around in a Stream for a long time, finally escaping directly into a Marsh. Eventually we regrouped in time to thwart his advance, but it was pretty close. I wonder how difficult it would be to learn from scratch now, and whether I would bother, especially as straight up wargames have little appeal for me now. Many fond memories of extended Up Front sessions though. #boardgames

Tried to get Uchronia to the table as “U” for alphabetical #bgg challenge, but as always with Carl’s games the re-learning curve was too great. Too many odd terms for things and a peculiar flow seem to be a hallmark of his games, even though they play well once you grok the way it works. It is just always hard to remember when coming back to it after a long gap. On the other hand, the only other contender is Up Front and although I played that hundreds of times years ago, I can’t recall any of the rules for that. Might be fun to try though! #boardgames

We close out a day of abject co-operative failure with two attempts at Thunderbirds in alphabetical #bgg challenge. We just made a right mess of the first one but we were in good shape in the second one. Raphael joked that the only thing to stop us would be rolling a double Hood. Which he promptly did! All our efforts foiled… #boardgames

4 of a Kind! Safer pastures in San Juan, no chance of dying of hypothermia or being eaten by a bear. Also highly satisfying as usual. And thus we skip through “S” in alphabetical #bgg challenge in about 20 minutes. Oops. #boardgames

Day 3 and the beach is already denuded of resources in Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island. R in the alphabetical #bgg challenge is pitiless and remorseless as always. Needless to say we perished. #boardgames

Q is for Qin in our ongoing quest to conquer the alphabet of #boardgames #bgg

Doing very poorly at Puerto Rico — the “P” in our alphabetical #bgg challenge. Oscar’s tobacco empire made him convincing victor. #boardgames

Castles of Burgundy on iOS by @digidiced is very well done. I went big on pigs and spoiled the bot’s day. This should work well as async game (I am Gleptoportus on their servers) #bgg #boardgames

N is for Nations The Dice Game and O is for Oh My Goods! (not shown) — two small engine builders in the alphabetical #bgg sequence. In which we singularly failed to build anything remotely efficient, but Raphael managed better inefficiencies than me! #boardgames

Day M of alphabetical #bgg challenge was Machi Koro. Raphael spammed Convenience Stores and just kept rolling 4. Neither Evie or I had a chance to get anything going. #boardgames

Up to L in alphabetical #bgg challenge and of course it’s Lord of the Rings. We got hammered in Moria, but breezed through Helm’s Deep and Shelob’s Lair. It all looked hopeful and then we drew 5 event tiles in first 2 turns in Mordor. No chance after that. #boardgames

The next episode in alphabetical #bgg challenge is a visit to Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm. Except our version is in Italian. Because reasons. #boardgames