Hey there everybody!

(edited forgot a few games i played!)

Your friendly neighborhood president here. I’m going to start a series of articles about what I get to play each month as a bit of an insight into the games I like and whats happening at the club. I also intend to do some reviews of games in the future as well, so if you know of a game you want reviewed let me know.

So today I started out by playing a game called Forbidden Desert. This a co-operative game where you find yourself stranded in a desert with limited water supply (life) and need to find airship parts, the airship itself and not die to heat exhaustion. After finding out that one player eliminated ends with all players losing i knew this game meant business!

You each are assigned a role and have limited actions on each turn (move, shovel sand, excavate a tile, use abilities). My role was the meteorologist which allowed me to offset the effects of the storm which moves tiles around, raises the storm level making later turns more hazardous or the sun can “beat down” which makes exposed players lose water.

Damage control is a way I like to describe games like this and Forbidden Desert is no exception. As tiles move sand is placed on them and tile with 2 or more sand are impassable. you need to clear sand to excavate so you can find ship parts but there are also wells for water (important), tunnels (makes you safe from sun) or gears which are tech that has powerful one-use abilities. As the storm happens at the end of each player’s turn you find yourself scrabbling to swap water around to keep you alive, desperately digging sand out to free a trapped mate or clear a square (sand tiles are also a way you can lose if you run out!) or hiding in tunnels to avoid the deadly sun. And as the squares are moving constantly like a slide puzzle the end will always seem just within your grasp only to slide allover the place ruining your plans. Needless to say we all lost but we had a great game.

Next I played a bit of Magic: the Gathering using the new Face the Hydra deck, a challenge deck format in which you pit your deck of any construction against a mass of hydra heads and powerful spells. It can seem hopeless at first because the hydra starts with 3 or 4 heads and deals damage on each of its turns equal to untapped heads but hang in there! If you can kill a few heads the battle evens out and can be real tense because even one dead head or a bad draw can seal your fate. A great new addition to my magic bag and one i will be bringing out many more times for a bit of fun.

We then rounded up 7 players for …. yes you guessed it 7 Wonders! a great abstract drafting Civ game. I didn’t do to well due to glass and paper being out of range in the last round and me wasting all my money to build my wonder. I had one of the boards that has 4 levels and got it all done but not many points elsewhere. Oh well still a great game that’s why we have a club copy which is not for loan because its so popular.

Played some more magic against an old friend of mine who has recently been bitten by the magic bug again (we’ve all been there right)

Then played a neat little game called Compound. Where you take on the roll of a chemist trying to complete compounds for points. You draw small plastic rocks (elements) then try to build compounds on the lab cards laid out on the table. This game is very cleverly put together because all the compounds are atomically correct and the score board is a periodic table! There are volatile and flammable compounds that might explode if you cant build a extinguisher in time showering the lab with elements. which can be disastrous or really great if a element falls into your compound.

A great game which i was told came from a recent kick-starter and one i will keep my eyes out for.

Then it was time for the Magic Grand Melee. Grand is a bit of and understatement for this game. We had a rapid land wipe followed by a creature wipe (Armageddon and wrath of god respectfully). I only held on by managing to cast Ashiok and Gideon before losing my lands again. There was a balance thrown down just to top off the destruction (all the destroy was from one player!) and my Ashiok exiled all players hands and graveyards just to really annoy every one. I managed to get a kill with Gideon becoming a big indestructible creature 2 turns in a row, then died to the player who was out of range of all the destroy effects (surprise). He had built a large army by that point and quickly cleaned up the table. All this and we were done in just over 30 minuets. A new record I think!

In hindsight I could have used Ashiok to get a chump blocker down to stop the winner and hold on a bit but it felt like delaying the inevitable and the easy kill looked like a better way to get points.

So I end the league ladder 2nd or 3rd, and am looking forward to the final next month.

Having said that see you all next month for another enjoyable xmas meeting.

Thanks, Eddie Crompton. Club President